Copying one distro on a hard disk to another disk

jimmy512 · 11-21-2006, 01:10 PM

My computer currently has 2 hard disks, one 120gb disk and 1 4gb disk. I have an old copy of Debian sarge installed on the 120gb disk, and a fresh, correctly configured copy of debian etch on the other (4gb). Is it possible to format the 120gb disk (after backing up files etc.) and copy across the the contents of the 4gb disk, and boot of this so I have more space?

Im sorry if this sounds confusing. The disks will be kept in the same computer, so all the hardware is the same. Is this possible?

Thanks for any replies!

pljvaldez · 11-21-2006, 01:14 PM

Yes it should be using dd. But you probably will have to boot into your 4GB drive afterwards and then chroot into the new drive to fiddle with the /etc/fstab file because all the partitions in /etc/fstab will be pointing to the 4GB drive after you copy it over. You may also have to fiddle with grub and the menu.lst file to make sure you're booting the proper kernel.

jimmy512 · 11-21-2006, 01:19 PM

Thanks for the reply. I will try this.