[Leaplist] can I clone my hard drive

[andrei raevsky]

Hi Bryan,

Thanks for your offer to help out.  Frankly, I have nowhere near the
knowledge to even fully understand what you are suggesting.  I know what a
RAID array is in general, but not how it works or how to install one.  How
much would it cost?

I am, however, VERY interested in learning this and in (finally) getting a
reliable computer up and running.  I would not mind meeting you on a
week-end, but would you have enough time to walk me through the
installation/configuration of the RAID array? How long would this take and
could you find the time?

If not, I would be willing to wait until the next installfest, though that
is not my favorite option for sure, not to mention that there are more
distractions at the install fest.

I live in New Smyrna Beach, south of Daytona, so coming to Oviedo would be
really easy to me.  Anytime.

Could we install a RAID-1 array but still keep my computer running Ubuntu
7.10 ( 2.6.22-14-generic)?  I much rather keep this system which I know
reasonably well.

Please let me know, and thanks!

Andrei



On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 1:02 AM, Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org> wrote:

> andrei raevsky wrote:
> > Hi again,
> > Judging from my bad blocks problems, it looks like my hard drive
> > is dying.  Here are the partitions I have on it:
> > /dev/sda1 is my / partition with the system on it
> > /dev/sda2 is my /swap partition
> > */dev/sda2 is my /home partition with my data on it and this is
> > the one I *really* would like to save, if possible*.
> > /dev/sdb1 is my /usr partition
>
> There are various ways to dump/restore, cpio (copy I/O), tar/untar,
> etc... your filesystem(s), let alone "dd" them (raw sector copy, as
> long as select disk geometry matches).  There are also CDs with the
> GNU "parted" utility, as well as front-ends, that can copy, move,
> resize, etc... various filesystems, including Reiser (although I
> think copy/move only, not resize), including on bootable CDs.
>
> > If I purchase another 80GB+ hard drive and if I connect it to
> > my IDE cable and then boot with a live-CD, can I 'clone' my old
> > drive's data to the new drive and then put the new one in place
> > of the old one and boot off it?
>
> Don't purchase.  I've got 40-80GB drives, possibly a pair of 80GB
> drives.  If I get a 3Ware 7006-2LP true hardware RAID card (I just
> heard back from the eBay seller about buying 15, I'm calling him
> later), I can set you up with a RAID-1 configuration.
>
> Unfortunately I live in Oviedo and work in New York, only coming home
> on the weekends.  You'd have to catch me this weekend as I'm heading
> to the 24 hours of Sebring for 3/15 and the Bahamas 3/22.  I'm sure
> you want this done before the next InstallFest.  ;)
>
> I have a spare 3Ware 6200 (2-channel UltraATA mode 4 aka Ultra66) you
> can borrow until I get the 3Ware 7006-2LP (2-channel UltraATA mode 6
> aka Ultra133) cards in probably sometime next week.  The 3Ware 6200
> works fine, it just doesn't have support software that works under
> kernel 2.6 (I use one for a kernel 2.4-based IPCop firewall myself,
> with 40GB drives no less ;).  It will still work fine though, you
> just can't modify things on-the-fly, or use its notification
> user-space programs.
>
> > Or will it copy my bad sectors and screw up the ReiserFS's
> > journalling on the new one?
> > Do I have to make a ReiserFS on the new one first, or is there
> > a way to clone everything, filesystem and data, to the new drive?
>
> You can do either.  We can look at your options.
>
> > How can I best rescue all the partitions of my terminally ill
> > hard drive?
>
> Depends on the situation.
>
> I'm more interested in your ATA southbridge and hard drive
> combination.  I've seen ATA subsystem changes (especially with the
> new libata and device changes) in the kernel royally screw up older
> ATA support several times.  It's one of the reasons I stick with
> CentOS/RHEL on older hardware.  ;)
>
> Or just throw a 3Ware 7000 series at the problem which removes the
> whole ATA stack from the problem.  I.e., the kernel just writes/reads
> to/from the 3Ware's non-blocking ASIC and SRAM directly, which then
> handles any striping/mirroring internally.
>
>
> --
> Bryan J. Smith       Professional, Technical Annoyance
> b.j.smith at ieee.org  http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
> ------------------------------------------------------
>       Fission Power:  An Inconvenient Solution
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