reinstall and keep /home

ZaphyR · 08-20-2004, 04:24 AM

is there a way i can reinstall my OS, but keep /home untouched?
i am using SuSE 9.1

Mikhail_16 · 08-20-2004, 04:34 AM

yes, move /home to a separate partition while you reformat your old one. or just install linux on top of your existing installation to overwrite all the binary files (not recommended)

phase9 · 08-20-2004, 05:01 AM

Hi!

Simply backup your home directory like:

Code:

cp -r --preserve /home/./ /source-directory/

Of course the source-directory should be, where it doesn't get deleted when you reinstall your OS (use another (linux)partition,...)

or use

Code:

tar -cjv --preserve -f "home.tar.bz2" /home

Now simply save "home.tar.bz2" to a CD,...

ZaphyR · 08-20-2004, 05:10 AM

Code:

or just install linux on top of your existing installation to overwrite all the binary files (not recommended)

why is it not recommended? i have like 50GB in my home, so it seems like the easiest solution...

amosf · 08-20-2004, 06:18 AM

This is a reason I always have a separate /home partition.

Mikhail_16 · 08-20-2004, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ZaphyR

Code:

or just install linux on top of your existing installation to overwrite all the binary files (not recommended)

why is it not recommended? i have like 50GB in my home, so it seems like the easiest solution...

that's because you still keep anything that is not overwritten, like libraries and any custom software and some config files. While this method will potentially work, you still run a risk of having a misconfigured system.

ZaphyR · 08-20-2004, 11:41 AM

i have /home on a seperate hd in fact. could i just disconnect that disk and reconnect it when i finish reinstalling....or would i then end up with two home dirs?

Mikhail_16 · 08-20-2004, 01:18 PM

as long as you say to use the second harddrive as /home without reformatting it (so it updates /etc/fstab) you are all set. go ahead, you'll be fine.

ZaphyR · 08-24-2004, 08:16 AM

well, i told YaST to get info from the old fstab file, and mount it the same way. then i deleted all partitions on hda (swap, / and /usr), and told YaST to keep hdb as it was, mounting it as /home.

this worked like a charm. i formatted hda with ext3, and hdb still has reiserfs3...will this give me any problems?

Thanks