9.1 is great, but???????

[Pepse]

Well for those of you that remember I was the guy that pre-ordered MDK 9.0 last year and had one heck of a time getting it. Well, I finally got it; OK actually I got 9.1. And I guess to compensate for my lo-o-ong wait they sent me the Power Pack. So the first thing I did was I bought a small 7.5Gig hdd and plugged in everything like printer, scanner and put in a 3COM ethernet card and everything was recognized and configured and that is just great but now comes the tricky part, I would like to put this 9.1 on my 30Gig hdd which is my main hdd with 9.0 on it. But the only thing I really want to save is my " /home/jim " partition and unless I missed something when I did 9.1 on my 7.5Gig I'm afraid of losing my Mozilla and Galeon web browsers. What little bit of other stuff I have on /home/jim if I lose it I lose it. Being that I'm going from 9.0 to 9.1 I think 9.1 will partition my hdd differently that 9.0. As of now my /dev/hda1 is parted at 5.3Gig and /dev/home is 22Gig. I feel likeI'm starting over and don't know for sure what to do. Funny tho I didn't have this problem when I went from 8.1 to 9.0.

 

One thing tho with 9.1, it hangs on startup when it get to the ethernet card; hangs there for about 45 seconds to a minute then continues to load but there are no errors. I put the ethernet card in because we plan to switch to DSL shortly.

 

Later. Pepse.

[mtweidmann]

I'm confused but this is my natural state so don't worry. There is no reason you can't keep you old /home partition from 9.0 for use with a 9.1 install. In fact thats what I did when I installed 9.1 and 9.0 thinking about it. I can't remember the exact installer layout anymore but I think you either have to install as expert or there is an option for "custom" partitions when you get to that bit of the install. Either way have a play round you can do it.

[theYinYeti]

If I understand well, you have a small hard disk with 9.1 perfectly installed on it. And you have a big hard disk with 9.0 installed on it, and on which there's only /home/jim that you want to keep.

 

It seems you have some knowledge on partitions, so here we go, but be sure to ask in case of doubt, because errors could lead to data loss, or difficulties to boot.

 

So, my suggestion is as follow. Boot 9.1 (which I suppose is /dev/hda), and mount 9.0 (which I suppose is /dev/hdb)'s /home partition under /mnt/disk:

# mount -t auto /dev/hdb5 /mnt/disk

assuming 9.0's /home partition indeed is /dev/hdb5.

 

Next, copy all the old /home/jim to the new /home/jim:

# (cd /mnt/jim && tar cf - .) | (cd /home/jim && tar xpf -)

# chown -R jim /home/jim

With this command, all files that are both in the old /home/jim and in the new /home/jim are overwritten!

 

So now, if I understand you well, all that you want to keep (9.1 + old /home/jim) is saved on the small hard drive. You can:

- unmount the big hard disk

# umount /mnt/disk

- partition this big hard disk just the way you want with diskdrake for example. Be sure to at least have personnal data (typically /home) on a partition on its own.

 

Now that your big hard disk is partitionned, mount it ALL (except swap) under /mnt/disk, in the logical order. Example:

Assuming you have (for example):

- /dev/hdb1 for /

- /dev/hdb5 for swap

- /dev/hdb6 for /usr

- /dev/hdb7 for /usr/local

- /dev/hdb8 for /home

(this is an example, and ABSOLUTELY NOT the way I would partition the disk)

Then, you would do:



# mount -t auto /dev/hdb1 /mnt/disk

# mkdir /mnt/disk/usr

# mount -t auto /dev/hdb6 /mnt/disk/usr

# mkdir /mnt/disk/usr/local

# mount -t auto /dev/hdb7 /mnt/disk/usr/local

# mkdir /mnt/disk/home

# mount -t auto /dev/hdb8 /mnt/disk/home

And copy the whole Mandrake 9.1 installation (which includes the previously saved /home/jim data) to this new place:

# (cd / && tar cf - dir1 dir2 dir3 dir4...) | (cd /mnt/disk && tar xpf -)

(dir1 dir2 dir3 dir4... is the list of directories that are under /, except /proc because this one must not be copied. Maybe you have to create an empty /proc directory on the new hard disk but I'm not sure)

Now your big hard disk (/dev/hdb) is sort of a backup of you small hard disk (/dev/hda).

 

Edit /mnt/disk/etc/fstab and /mnt/disk/etc/lilo.conf, so that it reflects the new partionning of the big hard drive, EXCEPT that you use 'hda' instead of 'hdb' because you'll swap the disks when you're done. Then unmount the big disk:

# umount /mnt/disk/home

# umount /mnt/disk/usr/local

# umount /mnt/disk/usr

# umount /mnt/disk

 

Power off your machine, and swap the drives: the big hard disk becomes the IDE0 master (/dev/hda), and the small hard disk becomes the IDE0 slave (/dev/hdb). Boot on Mandrake's first CD, and boot the rescue mode. Ensure that the big hard drive is mounted under /mnt, else do it yourself. If you're in doubt, wether it is the small or big hard disk that is mounted, then execute: df -h, which should give you an idea of the size of the mounted partitions.

When you're sure that the whole big disk is mounted under /mnt, do:

# chroot /mnt

# /sbin/lilo -v

This should reinstall a boot-loader that is consistent with your big drive.

 

You can now reboot as usual, and sellthe small hard disk. Or you can use it of course...

 

Well, I hope this will help you, but be very carefull. I still have my first 8GB hard drive, and what you're going to do is something I've never done before for real. Good luck!

 

Yves.