Bootmanager & move FreeBSD between disks

[Joshua Oreman]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 06:30:07PM +0200 or thereabouts, Guy Van Sanden seemed to write:
> Hello
> 
> I need some help to get something done in FreeBSD that I know how to do
> in Linux, but I miss some specifics in FreeBSD.
> 
> I have two 40 GB disks in my home-server.  One disk contains all
> filesystems (root and data), the other is free at the moment (it is
> intended to be a backup/mirror disk).
> 
> Ath the moment, I have two problems on that disk:
> 1. After a BIOS upgrade my disk geometry (in the BIOS) changed, which
> gives me warnings in FreeBSD (with disklabel)
> 2. My root filesystem is too small (154 MB, 50% used).
> 
> What I want to do is:
> 1. Boot the system from removable media (LiveCD?)
> 2. Copy all partitions from primary disk to backup disk (including the
> root filesystem) - I think using tar
> 3. Repartition the primary disk with the correct geometry and a larger
> root partition (300 MB should do it).
> 4. Copy the root and all data back to the primary disk (again with tar)
> 5. I don't have any idea how to do this, but I need to put the
> Bootmanager back on the primary disk, using the new disk layout.
> 
> I would appreciate any suggestions/recommendations and any help on
> re-installing the bootmanager.

Well, here are some suggestions:
* Copy all partitions except / to the backup disk BEFORE booting off whatever
  live CD you use
* Make sure the live CD includes tar (duh)
* Example command: (assumes ad0 is first disk and ad1 is backup disk, 'a' ptn
  on slice 1 of each is rootfs):
  livecd# mkdir /mnt/old /mnt/new
  livecd# mount /dev/ad0s1a /mnt/old
  livecd# newfs /dev/ad1s1a  # NOTE: this will destroy the 'a' ptn on the
                             #       backup disk
  livecd# mount /dev/ad1s1a /mnt/new
  livecd# ( cd /mnt/old && tar -cf- * ) | ( cd /mnt/new && tar -xpf- )
  livecd# umount /mnt/old
  livecd# umount /mnt/new
  livecd# reboot

By way of how to *make* the LiveCD, I'm sure a Google or SourceForge
search will turn up plenty of choices.
Also, I've done some work on porting Mondo Rescue to FreeBSD. You
can download Mindi at http://64.161.78.226/mindi-fbsd.tgz. Untar,
cd mindi-0.84 && bash install.sh; ./mindi. Press Enter, wait, n, y.
You'll find the ISO in /root/images/mindi/mindi.iso (Note: you
must be root, and you need /usr/ports/shells/bash,
/usr/ports/textproc/textutils, and /usr/ports/sysutils/fileutils).

HTH,
-- Josh

> 
> My configuration:
> FreeBSD 5.0
> Digital PC 3500 (Pentium II 333)
> 256 MB RAM
> 2x40GB IDE Harddisks.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Guy
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"