Using FreeBSD to migrate Windows XP?

[Andrew L. Gould]

On Tuesday 08 February 2005 09:51 am, Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > OK - I've finally come to the realization (a little slow, I know)
> > that a 5.8Gb disk drive is just not enough to support a desktop
> > environment (including JAVA) for both Windows XP and FreeBSD on my
> > laptop. :(
> >
> > I have used dump(8) to dump out my filesystems.  I am wondering
> > if I can just use "dd" to dump out all of /dev/ad0s1 also,
> > and then use "dd" to put it back again when I'm done.  Then
> > I'd boot the installation CD into "fixit" mode, build a new
> > MBR, make sure that the new s1 was the same or very slightly larger
> > than the old s1, and use dd to put it back again.  Can anyone
> > speak to either the "doomed to failure" or "I've done this and
> > it works" scenarios?
>
> I presume that /dev/ad0s1 is your MS-DOS slice?
> I have never done this, but you might try using dump(8)
> and restore(8) to move it as well as the others.  I would
> trying dumping it somewhere and then restoring it somewhere
> harmless just to check first.   If you keep the old disk and
> do nothing to harm it, then you could try this to the new
> disk and if it works (eg Messy Dos works), fine.  If it doesn't
> work then you still have the original on the old disk to go
> back to and try something else.
>
> As you mention, make the slices and partitions on the new disk
> and put in the MBR.    Then do the restores.   You might need to
> do something to put in a MSDOS boot partition on the new S1 as well.
>
> ////jerry
>
> > Thanks.
> >
> > BTW, just out of curiosity, does anyone know off the top of their
> > heads where dump(8) puts the snapshot name when used with the L
> > option? I assumed it would be in the .snap directory, but when I
> > did an "ls -la" of /home/.snap while it was running, there was
> > nothing there.  I suppose it could remove the snap after it builds
> > the map of what diskblocks to back up, but that could still lead
> > to "fuzzy" backups.
> > --
> >
> > John Lind
> > john at starfire.MN.ORG

You might also look at g4u (ghost for unix):

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

Best of  luck,

Andrew Gould