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I recently got PCLOS up and going on my machine in a dual boot config with Win 98, but the HD is nearly full (old 20GB drive).

I have a new 80 Gb drive on order and plan to transfer all or part of the old drive to the new drive. Ideally I'd like to leave my original Win 98 partitions on the old drive and move all the PCLOS partitions to the new drive and expand them so there is more room for the linux files I'll be adding.

I'd also like to store images of the windows partitions on the new drive "just in case" the old drive dies.

I have an old version of Partition Magic that I'm comfortable using for this sort of thing, but it doesn't work with the linux partitions on a drive.

How do I copy/move entire partitions from the old drive to the new drive in PCLOS?

Would it be easier to set up a mirrored drive first, then change the sizes of the partitions on the new drive afterward and revert to a non-mirrored setup and wipe the old drive?

Can anyone supply options and/or a sequence of steps to follow for someone who is completely unfamiliar with how linux handles new hardware?

Thanks for any advice.

I've done what you propose to do. It isn't all that difficult, if you plan things out before you start.

You don't say what version of Partition Magic you will use, except to say it's old. So, I'll assume something like PM 4.0, which doesn't do Linux.

1) install the new drive. set the jumpers so that the old drive is master, and the new drive is slave.

1a) when you power up, go into the BIOS and check the CMOS settings to see that the drive is recognized and the size is correct. Then set the boot order so that the cd/dvd drive is polled first, the old drive second, and the new drive last.

2) boot PCLOS. partition the new drive with a primary partition for Linux, a swap partition, and a fat32 partition for the windows images you want to store.

3) use the dd command to copy the MBR from the master drive to the slave drive.

4) use either tar or dd to copy PCLOS from the master drive to the slave drive (there are many posts in these forums that cover those commands).

5) If you want to keep the old drive as master, you will have to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst on the new drive to change disk and partition locations for the new PCLOS. also add an entry for the new disk and partition so that it shows up in the grub menu on boot.

6) edit /etc/fstab on the new disk to show the new device (hdb instead of hda, and appropriate partition numbers and mount points).

7) reboot and test it to see that the copied OS boots.

8) only after testing to see that it all works, then reformat the old PCLOS partition for windows use.

I think that covers it all. If I've missed anything, someone will correct me.

UPDATE:

Thanks for the reply. I did some more digging on the site and found a reference to GParted (download at Sourceforge.net) which is the linux GUI equivalent of Partition Magic.

GParted made things MUCH easier for me. No more eyes spinning from all the command line options, just point, click, and off you go.

Anyone out there who is trying to shuffle partitions around on your hard drive should check out GParted. Download, burn to CD, and it's bootable off the CD so you can work on your hard drive partitions. Great stuff.