OR... maybe better yet, if you want to copy your entire hard drive onto a bigger one, follow this step-by-step guide (with screenshots!) http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/showcontent.php?topic=03_Disk_to_disk_clone On 12/30/09 8:13 PM, Kurt Granroth wrote: > Your advice to use 'dd' was referring to something other than copying > your home directory ;-) > > The 'dd' command is as low-level and hard-core as you typically can get. > It is used to make a *perfect* byte-by-byte copy of a file. However, > it's rarely used to make copies of "normal" files anymore. Instead, > it's used to make copies of "block" files. That is, all hard drives and > all partitions in the hard drives have a special pseudo file called > /dev/something. So if you want to make a perfect copy of an entire hard > drive (including all file systems with their inodes and logs and > everything), then you use 'dd'. The normal 'cp' and the like can't get > low-level enough to deal with things like that. > > ('dd', btw, stands for "Copy and Convert". Supposedly it was initially > shortened to 'cc' but since that was taken by the compiler, they used > 'dd' instead.) > > If you want to copy a directory, your best bet is to use 'cp' or > 'rsync'. Why the choice? Well, 'cp' is an old-school Unix utility and > it was never built to fully handle directories. The GNU version of 'cp' > (which is what you are using) *can* handle directories and permissions > and the like and so it'll work just fine... but people who have been > around Unix long enough (and those who work on disparate Unix and > Unix-like systems), tend to avoid counting on GNU cp since there's no > guarantee that it'll be on any given system. > > 'rsync', on the other hand, is nearly ubiquitous and it works awesome > for copying directories. It is, by far, the most common tool used for > copying or backing up entire directory structures. > > So you have a couple of choices to make. First, do you want to copy > *everything* off of the old hard drive to a new one? Or do you only > want to copy off the home directory? > > In either case, I recommend using 'rsync'. Thar be dragons when using > 'dd' and it won't help you much in either case here. > > So.. > > 1. Mount your new USB drive and format it as ext3 or ext4. You should > be able to do that in a fairly GUI manner with any half-way modern Linux > desktop. > > 2. Do you see where the USB drive is mounted? I'll pretend it is > /mnt/usb for this example. Do the following if you are copying over > just your home directory: > > $ rsync -azvH /home/stormy /mnt/usb/ > > If you are copying over your entire hard drive, then: > > $ sudo rsync -azvHx --exclude=/proc --exclude=/dev --exclude=/sys / > /mnt/usb/ > > On 12/30/09 7:13 AM, betty wrote: >> i'm sure i know less than you, the advice was to use dd. is one better >> than the other?? i'm willing to use whatever will work to copy my home >> dir to the new computer so that all my settings are the same. >> >> what would be the command for cp? >> thx >> betty i >> >> Eric Cope wrote: >>> please excuse my ignorance, why would cp -r not work? >>> Eric >>> >>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 9:33 PM, betty>> > wrote: >>> >>> I installed the new drive into the new computer. I'm going to transfer >>> the home directory to a usb drive and then to the new computer. >>> This is the command i tried and the result i got. >>> >>> stormy@stormy-desktop:~$ sudo dd if=/home/stormy of=/dev/sdc1 >>> bs=1024k >>> [sudo] password for stormy: >>> dd: reading `/home/stormy': Is a directory >>> 0+0 records in >>> 0+0 records out >>> 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000942499 s, 0.0 kB/s >>> stormy@stormy-desktop:~$ >>> >>> What is wrong there? i am such an idiot on command line stuff. aghhh. >>> Thanks. >>> betty i. >>> >>> Joseph Sinclair wrote: >>> > First, I'd definitely recommend going with a new SATA drive on >>> the new machine. You'll find everything just works better and the >>> added reliability of a newer drive makes for a lot less stress >>> (although regular and frequent backups are definitely the best >>> peace-of-mind tool). >>> > >>> > For the data transfer there are 3 simple options: >>> > 1) If you have, or can borrow, a large enough USB drive (flash >>> or HDD), I'd copy everything (I prefer rsync, but dd is a good >>> choice too) to the USB drive, then copy from that to the new computer. >>> > 2) Temporarily install the old drive in the new machine on the >>> ATA (CDROM) interface (if the new machine has an old-style ATA >>> interface for the CD drives), and copy the data from one drive to >>> the other (definitely use rsync here). >>> > 3) Connect the two machines to an ethernet router/hub and use >>> rsync to transfer the files over the ethernet connection. >>> > >>> > However you end up doing the transfer, I'd definitely recommend >>> retaining a separate backup of all of your personal data >>> (pictures, documents, music, videos, etc...) as part of the >>> process, if at all possible. >>> > >>> -- >>> betty i. >>> www.webcanine.com >>> information for people >>> who care for dogs. >>> >>> --------------------------------------------------- >>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us >>> >>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >>> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Eric Cope >>> http://cope-et-al.com >> >> > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss