Hello,

I've recently purchased a new hard drive, installed it as a master and then installed Redhat 9 on it. Then I connected my old hard drive as a slave and have attempted to mount the various partitions and move files from the old to the new drive but then when I reboot the machine I don't see the newly copied files.

Here's what I've done:

1. Booted using linux rescue from Disc 1 of the installation CDs.

2. chroot /mnt/sysimage

3. mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb5 /old_drive

4. mv /old_drive/home/me/docs /home/me

5. Disconnect old drive and reboot.

6. "docs" dir is not visible from /home/me.

Did I do something wrong? If this is not the correct process can anyone please help me with what steps I need to follow in order to successfully move files from the old drive to the new drive.

Thanks for any and all assistance.

John

I'd mount them both: old and new and then copy/move. Whan you do it that whey you don't depend on the rescue mode software that works differently in different distros.

Mara,

What I was saying was that I had booted into rescue mode because by configuring my system to boot with both drives in causes a great many errors and an unsucessful boot.

When I boot in rescue mode, its simply like booting from a floppy for me. That's all.

Thanks for your reply.
John

Hi John!

Just for clarification (see whether I
understand what's happening) ...

What exactly is in /mnt/sysimage?

Is it representing a physical part
of you new HDD (as in /dev/hda2)?

If it's not then you're probably copying
the files into nirwana (ramfs?) which of
course means they are "invisible" (AKA
non-existent) on reboot ...


Cheers,
Tink

Yes, they are invisible on reboot. What would you suggest to get the files "visible"? I really can't afford to lose the data and am pretty afraid to do too much with any of the system until the data is safe.

I don't have a back up of...I know, I should.

Thanks again for your help.
John

Come on mate, help me understand
what you are trying to achieve!


Cheers,
Tink

Tinkster,

Ok, the files are on an old drive.

I'm trying to move the files from the old drive onto
the new drive. The only way I can get to the old drive
and view the files (or do anything with them) is through
the booting of the system to /mnt/sysimage.

Obviously, like you said, they are invisible on reboot.

I get to the /mnt/sysimage by booting from the CD Disc 1
of Redhat 9 and then going into linux rescue. This allows
me to do a chroot /mnt/sysimage and view the file system.

I thought it would be something as simple as copying
the files from the old drive to the root partition of the new
drive.

Did I explain it so that it makes sense?

John

Perfect mate :)

Now, when you are in rescue mode on /

Does it show all the "normal directories"
that you'd expect to be there? The reason
that I am asking that is because I just grabbed
an old set of RH 7.3 CD's and booted a ext3
system in rescue mode, using continue, getting
hda1 mounted, but there was no home directory
which I found rather strange...

Also, if you did
and it didn't fail ... is it (the /docs-directory)
still there (on hdb) after a reboot?

If it's not it's probably just a permission
problem? Different uid on the new install?
If you su -, what do you see in
Cheers,
Tink

Ok, if I mount /mnt/sysimage using chroot, whoami at
that point? I would expect to be root, I'll need to rearrange
everything and reboot the system in order to get in and
try it.

I won't be able to do that until tomorrow, but
thank you very much for the insight.

Regards,
John

Well, I really hope for you that that's it! :}
Just permissions.

Keep us informed!

Cheers,
Tink

Tinkster,

You nailed it. It was a permissions thing. Evreything is
moved and my stress level has now diminished
significantly...now, where to begin on the backup
strategy?

Once again, thank you, I really appreciate your
assistance.

John