<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 7:35 AM, Yann Lehmann <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:aristide@vtxmail.ch" target="_blank">aristide@vtxmail.ch</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">I think you don't need to boot from the old drive, once you have copied all files to the new one.<br>
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I don't know what distribution you are using. But with any xbuntu install cd, you can "repair" an existing linux-installation (as you will have on the new drive). It is an option of the text based installer and will allow you to install grub on the new disk.<br>
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Eventually, you will have to adjust '/etc/fstab' with according uuids. The command 'ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid' will list the uuids of all partitions, and you can the use the result in '/etc/fstab'.<br></blockquote></div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Yes, more or less. I'm on mythbuntu. This (from memory) is what I managed to do yesterday evening and this morning before having to head off to work:<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- physically install the spare drive<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- suitably partition it with gparted (booting from the old drive)<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- make temporary mount points for these partitions with mkdir, and change their permissions<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- list the new drive's partitions by uuid and copy the uuids into suitable entries in /etc/fstab<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- reboot into single user mode (shift key during grub, press e, edit the linux entry by adding single at the end, boot with F10)<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- check whether all the new partitions mounted properly, fix typos in fstab and repeat ;-)<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- for each of /boot, /, /var, home, rsync -bunchofoptions from old drive to new drive<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- observe that some had errors, as expected, but sadly not just on /var<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- grub-install /dev/sdf<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- failure because I needed to set the grub_bios flag on that partition. <br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- did that with parted<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- grub-install again (no complaints)<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- attempt to boot<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- failure <br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">I forgot what it complained about but I had no time left to keep fiddling with it ;-)<br></div><div class="gmail_extra">However I don't think I'm THAT far off. Next steps would be<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- make it actually boot<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- remove the drive with i/o errors and check it still boots<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- attempt to repair the database with mysql tools<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">- if that doesn't work, attempt to restore a database from a week ago<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div></div>