Changing Hard drive from one machine to another

afubini · 10-28-2003, 09:49 AM

Hello,

I've got a server running RedHat 7.2 and just lost its power supply. I have a spare server, different motherboard etc. What I wanted to try was to swap the hard drive from the broken machine and install it into the new machine. I read from some of the posts in this board that there are mixed results from this.

My question is, will I potentially ruin my original hard drive by trying to boot it up on the new hardware?

Any advice would be appreciated,
Thanks

Alex

stonux · 10-28-2003, 10:13 AM

I suggest you the following procedure:

- Power off new machine (DO NOT HOT PLUG THE HDs!!! This will erase the data on them!)
- Try putting the disks into the new server. Make sure the RAID controller recognizes
the new disks (this is a crucial and DANGEROUS step and is likely to be fatal if you have a HP
NetRAID 4M). It is safest to take the broken machine's RAID controller and build it into the new
one - if it's not onboard.
- try booting the machine with a rescue system
- mount the partitions and back them up. This is the best backup since no files on disk are in use.
- once you have the backup and it looks really as if all relevant data is on it, you can going on with
experiments, e.g. re-applying the manufacturers dirvers/pathces etc.

For giving more details, I have to know more about your hardware, especially if you really have
a RAID controller...

-- Beat

Electro · 10-28-2003, 09:40 PM

Yes and No.

Yes it will work if its only one hard drive not an RAID array, but there are exceptions. It can only work on the motherboard controller. This means from the chipset's built in IDE controller.

No, if the hard drive was used on a Promise, Highpoint, 3wav, Adaptec, LSI/Mylex/IBM, Intel. You have to use the same brand or bring over the controller. If its an RAID array, you will have higher chances of the data not being read.

The easiest is just buy a new power supply. What is so hard to buy a power supply.

afubini · 10-30-2003, 03:41 AM

Thank you so much for your help. The problem with buying a new power supply is that I've been having a hard time sourcing one as it's quite small in size and standard ones will not fit my case. After reading your posts I've decided on not replacing the hard drive from one system to another and instead bought a new power supply (standard size) which is now sitting outsite the box - not very pretty to look at but it's got my server back up and running

Thanks again,
Alex