copying files from one external USB hard drive to another

zeelog · 07-30-2011, 09:40 AM

I have two USB 2 external hard drives. I want to copy about
30 gigs of data from one to another. What command line command
do I use ? I was thinking of using cp with the -R and -n options,
but I have no idea what devices to refer to. I can't find
any external hard drives in /etc/fstab and I'm not sure what
/dev device each USB external hard drive uses.
I just want to copy the files and the directories that they are
in just as they are. There are no links and I do not want
to do a backup. Any suggestions would be welcome.

kbp · 07-30-2011, 10:15 AM

My old favourite is rsync, the drives are probably mounted under /media.

Example:

Quote:

rsync -av /media/<disk1>/ /media/<disk2>/

Note that the trailing slash on the source is important, it indicates that you want the content of the last directory in the path, if you leave the slash off you'll get the directory as well

Source-no-slash example:

Code:

rsync -av /tmp/dir1 /tmp/dir2

result:

Code:

/tmp/dir2/dir1/<content of dir1>

mesiol · 07-30-2011, 12:19 PM

rsync is not the fastest from my experience. For first time copy i mostly use cp command, which is much more faster, later for synchronization i use rsync.

schneidz · 07-30-2011, 12:32 PM

plug in both drives and show us the output of df -h

fedora automatically opens a file navigator whenever a drive/ cd is inserted.

if you want a byte-for-byte copy, mite i suggest dd. e.g:

Code:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

jefro · 07-30-2011, 12:46 PM

use mount to see what is connected before you begin.

I might suggest you stay away from dd just now. It is a bit like a nuclear weapon. One small mistake and boom.

Might see if mc or midnight commander is installed. Would help if you told us the distro.

zeelog · 08-02-2011, 08:46 AM

When I do the mount command I get:
/dev/sdd1 on /media/Expansion Drive type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/Expansion Drive type fuseblk
(rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)

I can't see any reference to these external hard
drives in /etc/fstab
The directory /media has two identical /media/External Drive
I can't see any easy way to identify one of these external drives
from the other under /media
The system is my old basement computer running Fedora 10
kernel 2.6.27 i686 Gnome 2.24.3 /01/16/2009 USB 2
I keep it off the internet and run my important stuff on it.

schneidz · 08-02-2011, 03:06 PM

^ seems weird that it seems to be mounting both drives in the same directory.

not really sure what you are doing but it mite be easier to do this by hand.

Code:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdd1
mkdir hd1 hd2
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 hd1
sudo mount /dev/sdd1 hd2

then navigate thru those directories to find out which one is which (since they are your drives, only you know what data is in each).

they wouldnt be in /etc/fstab unless you put them in there because you want them mounted every time you start your machine.

did you mean to say one is mounted on /media/Expansion Drive and the other is mounted on /media/External Drive ?; keep in mind that copy-and-paste is the easiest way for us to understand what is going on. (your descriptions are helpful but a screenprint would paint 1,000 words).

chrism01 · 08-02-2011, 06:01 PM

Also, try

Code:

cat /etc/mnttab

This shows what is actually currently mounted, as opposed to /etc/fstab, which show what you asked to be mounted at boot time

TobiSGD · 08-02-2011, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

Also, try

Code:

cat /etc/mnttab

This shows what is actually currently mounted, as opposed to /etc/fstab, which show what you asked to be mounted at boot time

Shouldn't that be

Code:

cat /etc/mtab

kbp · 08-02-2011, 07:27 PM

If you can't tell the difference between the drives then it's probably better to label them. Remove both then plug in one and see which drive it is, if it mounts automatically then unmount it. If its an ext based filesystem use e2label, then remove it, plug in the next drive and repeat.

Then with both plugged in you should have /media/<drive1label> and /media/<drive2label>

cheers

michaelk · 08-02-2011, 08:22 PM

When a USB drive is plugged in it will be automatically mounted (if so configured) to /media/disk_label or /media/disk-x if no label. No fstab line is required. So it seems that if the drives have the same label then they will be mounted at the same mount point.

You can try changing one of the drives labels or as suggested manually mount them. If manually mounted you can create a directory with a unique name. Then you will easily know which drive is the source and which is the destination.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/USB