HELP? Two hard drives. How to painlessly duplicate one to another?

you can use ghost for linux:

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Hardware/Ghost-for-Linux-053.shtml

Ok, I downloaded it and Archive manager opened it as a single folder "g4l"

I look inside that folder and there are 2 folders:

bootcd
resources

Then there are 3 files:
help
makecd
makecd.org

What am I supposed to do with these? The help file isn't really helpful.

HELP???????

When I ask "What am I supposed to do with these?", it's because when I double-click on them, a dialog box pops up, asks me if I want to Run these?

I say "Run" and then nothing happens.

What's going on?

Is there some other choice, some other program that will just let me connect the second hard drive and with a few clicks just duplicate the one I'm using while I go shovel the driveway or drink a coffee or something??

This Ghost install program doesn't do anything when I try to run in terminal or anything.

This can't be the best that exists?? Because otherwise a user has to reinstall everything from scratch each time their hard drive runs out of space - including trying to remember which programs they had set up through the Synaptic manager?? That's just not a practical solution for such a very complex system as Linux.

Isn't there something for non-programmers and non-Linux experts to use please?

PS: I'm not a programmer, I'm just busy working on some antenna designs and receiver designs connected with my job and I don't need my computer to turn into a lab experiment just to put everything onto a bigger hard drive. It can't be that complex of a deal, please can someone help because I'm just about out of space on this drive and I need to get work done ASAP??

Please?

George, I think the dd command might do what you want but I've never used it. There is tons of info on the web on how to use it. For example http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/How_To_Do_Eveything_With_DD

Maybe that helps?

OMG!!! I'm never going to be able to learn or remember all of that!! EEK!!!!! :(

That's almost freakish in it's length and complexity! It looks like something Mr. Spock assembled!!

Jim, I know you've often helped me and you seem like a very nice person. Thanks for offering the suggestion, but it's just WAY out of my league to be able to memorize and use that. I like computers but I'm not that skilled with figuring out software.

No need to memorize it. Just bookmark that page or a similar one. For you need I think something like

"Copy one hard disk partition to another hard disk:

dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/dev/sdb2 bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror

sda2, sdb2 are partitions. You want to copy sda2 to sdb2. If sdb2 doesn't exist, dd will start at the beginning of the disk, and create it. Be careful with order of if and of. You can write a blank disk to a good disk if you get confused."

might work. Just read up a bit first since doing it the "wrong way" could erase your drive (i.e. copy the blank drive to your partition). There are ways to do what you want to do but none are going to be click-click easy (at least none of the ones I know about).

Actually, on second thought, western digital and probably other drive makers have tools to copy everything over but as far as I know they are mostly windows tools. There may be a linux tool available as well. I'll do some looking around.

Okay, few more things. Some of these are just more info on dd so if that seems too complicated skip.

dd:
http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks_hints/os_clone/os_cloning.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/learn-the-dd-command-362506/

GNU parted:
GNU Parted is an industrial-strength package for creating, destroying, resizing, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, copying data on hard disks and disk imaging.

http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/index.shtml

The Ultimate Boot CD:
Lots of tools on one CD

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Apparently Ubuntu comes with GParted already installed - I sure didn't install it but there it is!

Yea, that DD thing just looks like so much of a train-wreck, I liken it to going back to DOS when it is so unnecessary. Whoever wrote DD must have made the Aspirin companies very wealthy!! ;)

It's too late in the day now (11 pm)....I'll try this again tomorrow if hopefully I get home on time - we had a snowstorm today and most people didn't think of preparing for snow in Canada by putting their winter tires on. (roll-eyes!!)

Ok, so the question then is how to safely try to use GParted to clone my boot drive? Do I have to boot from something else to do this, or can I just do this while booted-up from the drive I want to clone/copy from?

George,

       By the amount of times you've posted on this i can tell that you really want some help, I may not be able to give you a whole answer, but i think i can get you almost there.

Firstly, someone mentioned DD -- Please avoid this - its a much more powerful tool than people seem to realise, and would only be easy and useful if you want to take an image of the smaller disk and place it on your larger disk. this wouldn't solve your problem.

g parted again seems to be similer sort of software, but there should be an easier way!

If you are able to have access to both disks at once, do you really need your root file system on the larger disk? Can you just format and mount it under a directory in your home directory for example - you could then use this extra space without issue!

If not, and you must have the one disk, are you able to have both disks plugged in at the same time? this would let you simpy format the new disk, copy the files over ensuring you use whatever option to keep all ownerships/permissions as they stand. then just ask lilo/grub to use the new disk. its about 3/4 comands in all, but I dont know the options well enough to give them to you now (i would need to look them up)

short answer - copying your root filesystem is never going to be a trivial task, but its well do-able. if your just after more space why not just put the extra disk in and mount it somewhere convinient?

The computer I have this hard drive dilemna with is a half-sized Dell Desktop Optiplex GX260.

I have it on my work table in my home lab and it's ideal for doing circuit simulations, schematics, etc...because it has such a small footprint.

http://www.fx-net.co.jp/item_img/wd/09-000038-1.jpg

It's a nice computer, quiet capable and works extremely well. I have it wirelessly networked to the larger family computer (also a GX260 but full-sized one) where it acts like a server for music, movies, also lets the kids do stuff without interrupting me at my home-lab work.

I have Ubuntu running on both of these Dell computers. The kids have their music, movies, games, etc....loading up the hard drive on the bigger computer so there isn't a lot of room for me to use as back up. If you have kids (10, 12 & 14), you will know they just need their stuff. (rolleyes)

Because my work Dell is very small, there is only room for one hard drive and even that is a tight squeeze.

To do the transfer from one to another drive, I'd pull the bottom off, lay the computer open like a book on it's side, disconnect the CD-ROM, connect the new drive while the old one is still installed, boot the machine up from the drive I want to copy/clone and try to get absolutely every bit of data/operating system/programs, etc... transferred onto the second larger drive, which I would then install into the machine after removing the smaller drive, reconnect the CD-ROM, close it back up and get back to work.

If this is possible without resorting to going back to university to study Linux, I hope someone is able to tell me how?

Thanks!

Jo,

"its a much more powerful tool than people seem to realise, and would only be easy and useful if you want to take an image of the smaller disk and place it on your larger disk."

Isn't that exactly what he wants to do? As I understand the problem, George wants to clone the current small hard drive to a new larger hard drive as he is running out of space but doesn't want the hassle of reinstalling everything on the new drive. Is that a correct summation? If so, I still dd will do the job but it's certainly not very easy to use if you are unfamiliar with it.

George,

Another option would be to use rsync. I found a little how to on that. Maybe it will work for you.

http://ithacafreesoftware.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53

Of course, ghost for linux is probably exactly what you want. I've never used it though so can't advise on that.

When I get home, I hope the power will have been restored (the snow storm last night brought down power lines along the road).

I'll be able to try rsync then.

I can't get Ghost for Linux to install, I don't know what's gone wrong with it. And DD sounds very risky and dangerous, I could wipe the wrong drive.

I'll try rsync as soon as I can.

Ghost for Linux is not something you install. I believe you burn an iso to a CD and then boot the CD. You can download G4L here --> http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/

I'd give it a look before messing with the more cryptic tools like rsync or dd.

I also found a similar project called FOG (free and open source ghost). I only skimmed the project but it may be more robust than G4L (i.e. overkill for your needs).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/

Which am I supposed to download and burn onto a CD (I didn't know it was supposed to be a bootable CD)?

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=119810

Please advise?

Probably the second one on the list --> g4l-v0.23.iso

If you have Ubuntu then just right click it and choose "write to CD". Don't extract it. Basically the same process as downloading and burning an Ubuntu iso.

I'm at work, using Windows. How would I burn this g4l-v0.23.iso file to a CD and make it bootable?

Check out

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

Specifically, the infra recorder.

I'm trying it now. First I tried booting from a Maxtor CD I have. Alas it only works with Windows drives.

Then I tried gparted but that only rearranged my target drive and I couldn't boot from it in the end. I have no idea why.

I'm trying to clone the drive now, I'll see where that takes me.

Wow, if anyone is a programmer out there, THIS is such an opportunity to simplify the whole nonsense!!

It's 11:10 pm now, I've been at this since about 7:00 this evening. I ended up using G4L to clone the drive.

At first I booted off the Rescue CD and trying to use GParted to repartition, then Copy & Paste the old drive's partition to the new one. That didn't work at all, it left the new drive unable to start the computer.

Since GParted failed, I booted off the G4L CD I burned at work and cloned the drive. That left me with a huge chunk of space unallocated!! Good grief, what's the point of all of this if I can't access the space! What silly and absurd nonsense!

So I had to reboot from the Rescue CD, use GParted to try and make the unallocated space usable (I edited the partition, made it into an ext3 partition).

The computer does boot from the replacement hard drive now (I'm typing this message from this computer after all of this effort) - but I can't use the dog-gone space that I rescued from the pathetic efforts of G4L. It doesn't understand the ownership of the drive so even if I log in as Root and try to mount the drive and put something on it, it will not allow me.

What a WASTE of time! Grrrrr!!! It looks like I will have NO choice :( but to simply wipe the entire drive and start over with Ubuntu 7.10 and hope I remember all of the programs I installed, all of the settings too!

Geez, something that wastes this much time really causes me HUGE disappointment, it's such a simple thing I'm asking the computer to do and yet it is so utterly impossible to accomplish.

Why is this made so difficult? I just don't understand. And I'm left at the losing end of it.

Yes, I totally agree with you there. I've looked into this in the past for both cloning and for creating backup images. There is very little that is both clean and easy to use. I actually just installed a new HD myself. To be honest, I gave up and just did a new install and copied my files over. I'm using rsync to just copy the files from the old to new install but I did a clean install - no clone. You can also just open up Nautilus and copy files but rsync will help ensure you don't miss anything. Unless you have some aversion to installing, it might be the easiest way for you too. I've installed ubuntu so many times now that it's practically second nature. I also do new install with each new release. I like keeping things clean. I keep my files on a separate /home so when I reinstall my files are not touched and my settings are preserved.

:( It should be easier.......

I've just been trying to gain access to this additional space I cannot access.

The specific messages that block me?

When I get properties of the hard drive under "Computer", I look at "Permissions" and what I see is "unknown" and "read only".

When I try to change anything to "write and read" the computer says "Sorry the permission couldn't be changed".

Oh boy, what a mess! I have half a hard drive whose space I cannot fill and whose permission I cannot change, it's just a big empty blob!

It's 11:23 now, I have to go to work so I'll call it a day!

Jim, thanks for your input on this!! I appreciate it! And everyone else too!

Clearly it's something that has to come out of the world of the complex and to the world of the average desktop user if it's going to thrive. But most desktop users are not in a position to understand the underlying complexities of Linux (I certainly am not). And most desktop users ARE tired of being ripped off by the likes of Micro$oft.

The problem isn't solved. But I can see that it's not going to get any better so I'll click on the "Problem solved" button and tomorrow I'll just wipe the drive and start all over.

Sorry I nor no one else was able to offer a good answer. It's true that some things can be rather frustrating in Linux. In the past Linux was kind of a "for geeks" tool but thanks to Ubuntu is really opening up to more "average" users. Of course average users don't clone a drive so you are clearly no longer average. You are like me - in the category of "knows enough to be dangerous but not enough to do everything I want". It's that part of the learning curve where you plateau and think you aren't learning more but you really are - it's just a lot slower progress.

Hope you manage to get what you want in the end - even if it's not the way you want it.

I wasn't successful in getting the other part of the hard drive accessible, not with GParted. I gave up on it, so I brought the computer to work today so in-between tasks I can reformat the new hard drive and reinstall 7.10 onto it. It's a pain......

I got the computer up and running later this morning and reinstalled the wireless networking driver (I have to use ndiswrapper on this one, the only driver I have that actually works is one for XP).

I did manage to back a few things up to the other computer at home but some things I wasn't able to back up (not enough free space on the big hard drive on the family computer - that one is 100 Gig running Ubuntu 7.04, filled mostly with the kid's stuff like songs, pictures, videos, etc...).

I still have the old 20 gig drive that was out of this thing and that still has everything on it - including the lack of space. Maybe someday I'll be able to salvage files off of it and painlessly transfer them to this bigger (40 gig) drive.

Ghost for Linux seems like a nice idea - but using it renders the remainder of the hard drive you are cloning TO completely inaccessible and you can't reclaim it even if you log in as root and try to set permissions to this effect.

It's definitely something that can be improved up. I like Linux and the whole concept of free software. And if I knew any programming, I would be able to solve and share better. But I'm just like 90% of people, I know my job, my training and that doesn't happen to include Linux unfortunately. It is a very complicated system.

Thanks for you help!!! :)

If you can mount both hard drives at the same time you can copy files
from the old to the new just like copying files from one folder to
another. If there is an issue with connecting both at the same time,
there are devices that allow you to turn a hard drive into a USB
drive. If you are networked you could also install the old drive into
a networked computer and connect to it and copy the files. Finally,
you could boot the old hard drive and put the files into a folder and
zip it and burn it to a CD or DVD.

Sorry to hear G4L didn't work well. It's a nice idea and it would be
great to see it working well.

Jim

On 11/28/07, george_rutkay <email address hidden> wrote:
> Question #18736 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/18736
>
> george_rutkay posted a new comment:
> I wasn't successful in getting the other part of the hard drive
> accessible, not with GParted. I gave up on it, so I brought the computer
> to work today so in-between tasks I can reformat the new hard drive and
> reinstall 7.10 onto it. It's a pain......
>
> I got the computer up and running later this morning and reinstalled the
> wireless networking driver (I have to use ndiswrapper on this one, the
> only driver I have that actually works is one for XP).
>
> I did manage to back a few things up to the other computer at home but
> some things I wasn't able to back up (not enough free space on the big
> hard drive on the family computer - that one is 100 Gig running Ubuntu
> 7.04, filled mostly with the kid's stuff like songs, pictures, videos,
> etc...).
>
> I still have the old 20 gig drive that was out of this thing and that
> still has everything on it - including the lack of space. Maybe someday
> I'll be able to salvage files off of it and painlessly transfer them to
> this bigger (40 gig) drive.
>
> Ghost for Linux seems like a nice idea - but using it renders the
> remainder of the hard drive you are cloning TO completely inaccessible
> and you can't reclaim it even if you log in as root and try to set
> permissions to this effect.
>
> It's definitely something that can be improved up. I like Linux and the
> whole concept of free software. And if I knew any programming, I would
> be able to solve and share better. But I'm just like 90% of people, I
> know my job, my training and that doesn't happen to include Linux
> unfortunately. It is a very complicated system.
>
> Thanks for you help!!! :)
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are an answer
> contact for Ubuntu.
>

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