[mythtv-users] Advice on Partitions

[Jonno]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Mike Holden <mythtv at mikeholden.org> wrote:
> Jonno wrote:
>> Would this be an appropriate order to do things:
>> Exit mythtv and stop the backend
>> cp -r /var/lib /temp/var/lib
>> umount sda6
>> cp -r temp/var/lib /var/lib
>> Remove the line from /etc/fstab that mounts sda6 on /var/lib
>> Reboot into Gparted LiveCD
>> Delete sda6 partition
>> Resize sda1 partition
>> Reboot
>> rm -rf /temp/var/lib
>
> cp -r is definitely NOT adequate to back up your current partition. For
> starters, it won't restore proper ownership and permissions on the files,
> so everything will be hosed when you restore, but possibly in a subtle way
> that will not be obvious straight away.
>
> What I normally do for this kind of thing is to use tar to create a backup
> file and restore from that later. Check out the options for restore to
> make sure you get everything back correctly, especially ownership and
> permissions.
>
> Alternatively, if you are able to create the new area before dropping the
> old one, use rsync to create a full copy of everything, unmount both areas
> then remont them in the opposite locations, thus swapping old with new.

Ok, thanks to jarpublic I'm up and running again.

I'm much more hesitant to move anything now. I guess I'll just create
directories in /var/lib to store my backups (and serve as places to
view pictures, video and music through Myth).

Thanks for all the help,

Jonno.