What's an easy way to replace a drive?

[Paul J. Pathiakis]

On Thursday 24 March 2005 13:57, Anthony Atkielski wrote:
> Gary Smithe writes:
> > May not be the best answer, but if the drive's data is still intact
> > (i.e. readable) and the replacement will be identical, maybe try DD
> > or similar from a bootable "rescue" cd, like freesbie?  If not
> > that, then you may be able to copy the data between the 2 drives
> > using same said bootable CD after creating the partitions.
>
> Is it possible to dd the entire contents of one drive into a single
> file on another drive (assuming the latter drive is big enough)?  If
> so, I could save time by just copying the drive wholesale to a huge
> file on another drive, replacing it, then copying everything back. 
> Not sure if "whole drive" would include content outside the FS,
> though (?).


Also, just an fyi....

Under just about any circumstances, mirror the root drive with either 
hardware (if your motherboard supports it) or (THANK GOD FOR POUL AND 
PAWEL) use geom_mirror.  It will save you an incredible amount of 
headaches if you can't do fdisk and bsdlabel confidently.  If 
configured correctly, just pull the bad drive, install another, tell it 
to sync up.  All done.  In a hot swap box, no down time needed.

P.