I have an 80 GB hdd. Due to some sector failures, I am going to replace the drive with a 120 GB hdd. I have OpenSUSE 12.1 installed in my old hdd (the 80 GB one). I want to copy the entire OS to the new hdd (120 GB).

What I am planning to do is I will install SUSE in my new hdd, then copy the entire file system from my old hdd os and replace it with the new hdd os file system, deleting the existing file system in my newly installed os.

I expect to get all my files, settings and installed programs in my new os by this method and make it work exactly like the old one (I will have to give back the 80 gb hdd to the manufacturers). Do you think I will succeed? Am I going in the right direction?

Thanks for any help...

You don't need to install a new OS when you want to copy over the old one. Just start from a live-CD, partition the new disk that it resembles the layout from the old one, copy over the files, chroot into the new system and re-install the bootloader.

I am rather new to Linux. Can you guide me step-by-step or can you give me a link where the instructions are available?

I don't understand chroot and reinstalling bootloader. How do I do that?

Thanx a lot...

How do I copy the loops in dev?

With little Linux knowledge this isn't a trivial task, but let's see that if we can get you through that. Keep in mind that your system may already be damaged (due to the bad sectors) and a fresh reinstall on the new harddisk would be a better option to get a known good system.

1. Start from a live-CD
2. Partition your new disk with GParted so that it has the same partitions as the old one. Don't forget to give them the same filesystem while doing this.
3. Now it is time to copy over your files. To do that we need to mount the old and the new partitions. I can only giver more precise instructions when knowing your disk layout, so please post the output of launched as root.

Thank you for your reply.

I am extremely sorry to tell you that I could not wait as my warranty was about to expire, so they have already given me a new HDD and took away the old one. I have copied over my files to the new one and made a fresh installation of the OS.

Please forgive me if I have dissapointed you. I got the new HDD installed before your reply. BTW, fresh installtion of an OS is always beter as it fixes many bugs and the hardware support gets refreshed to support the new peripherals.

Thanx once again...

"sorry"----why? You got your system working--that makes everyone happy. FWIW, I never bother moving an OS to another disk---just re-install (as you did)