Hi all, I currently have a 9.3 box with 3 drives installed, hda (windows98), hdb (suse 9.1) and sda (suse 9.3) which is my default and almost always used boot. I want to ditch the hda drive, and either add a new drive in its place, or just use the current hdb drive. Three questions. 1. What is the best / easiest way to move or copy my current grub from the current hda to the new drive? 2. If I use my existing hdb, do I need to configure it to hda, or will it work as is? 3. Can I add another SATA drive (the sda is a SATA) and do away with the 2 IDE drives altogether? Many thanks, Jim F
On Tuesday 30 May 2006 19:28, Jim Flanagan wrote:
I currently have a 9.3 box with 3 drives installed, hda (windows98), hdb (suse 9.1) and sda (suse 9.3) which is my default and almost always used boot. I want to ditch the hda drive, and either add a new drive in its place, or just use the current hdb drive. Three questions. 1. What is the best / easiest way to move or copy my current grub from the current hda to the new drive? 2. If I use my existing hdb, do I need to configure it to hda, or will it work as is? 3. Can I add another SATA drive (the sda is a SATA) and do away with the 2 IDE drives altogether?
Hi Jim, I think you'd have better luck if you narrowed your question(s) down a bit. As it stands, some of the scenarios you've postulated contradict each other, meaning each requires a separate "write up" (too much work!) General responses: * Plan your changes so you understand, in advance, where each device is going to 'land'. * Write down what each device will be mapped to after the change. * Just before you shut down for the physical rearrange/upgrade, modify your bootloader (presumably grub) configuration and reinstall it in what will be the correct location for the new arrangement so the system will 'just boot' when you turn it back on. YaST's bootloader configuration module makes this part relatively easy. Also do the following: * When you move a Linux drive from one position to another, the only thing that /should/ change is the device label, i.e. if hdb1 is 'swap' and hdb2 is '/', and you move/add things so the drive becomes 'hdd'... 'swap' becomes 'hdd1' and '/' becomes 'hdd2', and so on. Therefore, in each root partition on the drives that will be affected, you would need to also change the appropriate entries in /etc/fstab from 'hdbX' to 'hddX'. These changes plus updating the bootloader should make it possible to boot into the new configuration without difficulty. * Check your system's BIOS to see what boot options are supported. If, for example, you wanted to eliminate your IDE hard drives, you'd need to confirm that you can enable one or the other SATA drives as the first boot device. * Take your time during the planning phase to "cross your T's and dot your I's"... double and triple check your device mappings and bootloader changes in advance... doing so will save you substantial headaches and 'repair' work. hth & regards, Carl
Carl Hartung wrote:
On Tuesday 30 May 2006 19:28, Jim Flanagan wrote:
I currently have a 9.3 box with 3 drives installed, hda (windows98), hdb (suse 9.1) and sda (suse 9.3) which is my default and almost always used boot. I want to ditch the hda drive, and either add a new drive in its place, or just use the current hdb drive. Three questions. 1. What is the best / easiest way to move or copy my current grub from the current hda to the new drive? 2. If I use my existing hdb, do I need to configure it to hda, or will it work as is? 3. Can I add another SATA drive (the sda is a SATA) and do away with the 2 IDE drives altogether?
Hi Jim,
I think you'd have better luck if you narrowed your question(s) down a bit. As it stands, some of the scenarios you've postulated contradict each other, meaning each requires a separate "write up" (too much work!)
General responses:
* Plan your changes so you understand, in advance, where each device is going to 'land'.
* Write down what each device will be mapped to after the change.
* Just before you shut down for the physical rearrange/upgrade, modify your bootloader (presumably grub) configuration and reinstall it in what will be the correct location for the new arrangement so the system will 'just boot' when you turn it back on. YaST's bootloader configuration module makes this part relatively easy. Also do the following:
* When you move a Linux drive from one position to another, the only thing that /should/ change is the device label, i.e. if hdb1 is 'swap' and hdb2 is '/', and you move/add things so the drive becomes 'hdd'... 'swap' becomes 'hdd1' and '/' becomes 'hdd2', and so on. Therefore, in each root partition on the drives that will be affected, you would need to also change the appropriate entries in /etc/fstab from 'hdbX' to 'hddX'. These changes plus updating the bootloader should make it possible to boot into the new configuration without difficulty.
* Check your system's BIOS to see what boot options are supported. If, for example, you wanted to eliminate your IDE hard drives, you'd need to confirm that you can enable one or the other SATA drives as the first boot device.
* Take your time during the planning phase to "cross your T's and dot your I's"... double and triple check your device mappings and bootloader changes in advance... doing so will save you substantial headaches and 'repair' work.
hth & regards,
Carl
Hi Carl, Sorry to be confusing. The main thing I want to do is get rid of the current hda, containing grub and win98. I can either replace that drive with another drive, or use the existing hdb instead. My current install of 9.3 on sda will not change (until I upgrade to 10.0 or 10.1 at a later date). When you are talking about chaning device labels, where and how do I do this? In yast, or edit a file somewhere? I do realize that I need to make /etc/fstab point to these changes, but not sure where to start. Also, how do I get the boot configuration to the new drive? Many thanks, Jim F
On Wednesday 31 May 2006 00:18, Jim Flanagan wrote:
Sorry to be confusing.
The problem isn't "confusion" but indecisiveness. I can't tell if you're simply removing hda and want to reinstall the bootloader to hdb, or if you're replacing hda or substituting a new SATA drive for the current hda. Too many loose ends means writing an 'article' to address all possibilities. Better you make a decision then come back and ask specific, finite questions. All the possibilities you've raised are possible. Carl
Carl Hartung wrote:
On Wednesday 31 May 2006 00:18, Jim Flanagan wrote:
Sorry to be confusing.
The problem isn't "confusion" but indecisiveness. I can't tell if you're simply removing hda and want to reinstall the bootloader to hdb, or if you're replacing hda or substituting a new SATA drive for the current hda. Too many loose ends means writing an 'article' to address all possibilities.
Better you make a decision then come back and ask specific, finite questions. All the possibilities you've raised are possible.
Carl
Hi Carl, I didn't mean confusion on your part, but mine. Didn't realize there was so much differnence between my 3 quesitons, so I'll pick one. What do I do on my second question, that is remove hda, make the box boot from current hdb, booting up my current 9.3 install on sda? Jim
On Wednesday 31 May 2006 07:42, Jim Flanagan wrote:
I didn't mean confusion on your part, but mine. Didn't realize there was so much differnence between my 3 quesitons, so I'll pick one. What do I do on my second question, that is remove hda, make the box boot from current hdb, booting up my current 9.3 install on sda?
Hi Jim, Please send me (direct) copies of your /boot/grub/menu.list and /etc/fstab files. Carl
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2006-05-30 at 21:54 -0400, Carl Hartung wrote: ...
* When you move a Linux drive from one position to another, the only thing that /should/ change is the device label, i.e. if hdb1 is 'swap' and hdb2 is '/', and you move/add things so the drive becomes 'hdd'... 'swap' becomes 'hdd1' and '/' becomes 'hdd2', and so on. Therefore, in each root partition on the drives that will be affected, you would need to also change the appropriate entries in /etc/fstab from 'hdbX' to 'hddX'. These changes plus updating the bootloader should make it possible to boot into the new configuration without difficulty.
If you use partition labels, you can move the drives around without any editing in /etc/fstab. Like: LABEL=big_home /home xfs noatime 1 2 There are some exceptions, though: swap partitions aren't labeled, for instance. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFEfZ7vtTMYHG2NR9URAoLWAJ4nCJ7Jsh4HN+JBJ4GdfJLb1XbLagCgl5WX Tgs4biXNrNoDCzCR5QrekpQ= =xuG5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Wednesday 31 May 2006 09:49, Carlos E. R. wrote:
If you use partition labels, you can move the drives around without any editing in /etc/fstab. Like:
LABEL=big_home /home xfs noatime 1 2
There are some exceptions, though: swap partitions aren't labeled, for instance.
This is a great feature. It definitely shines in circumstances like Jim's. I wish I had more time to devote to this. As it stands, I may have to ask you to 'fill in' for me, Carlos. I'm on a deadline and Jim's setup needs some reasonable attention to detail. ;-) regards, Carl
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2006-05-31 at 10:13 -0400, Carl Hartung wrote:
LABEL=big_home /home xfs noatime 1 2
This is a great feature. It definitely shines in circumstances like Jim's.
Provided that partitions are already labeled... that's the catch.
I wish I had more time to devote to this. As it stands, I may have to ask you to 'fill in' for me, Carlos. I'm on a deadline and Jim's setup needs some reasonable attention to detail. ;-)
Not the label way this time for him, I'm afraid... too many things to change for a novice. Risky. The easiest way is, when formatting a partition using yast, give it a name (label) ant tell it to mount it using labels - it's somewhere in the options panel at the right. Yast does it all. Doing it manually, after the partition is in use, well... there isn't a unified label program, for starters: each partition type has it's own method. Then some partitions are no lableable (hugh! - spell?), like swaps. And I'm unsure that "/" can be used this way. Finally, grub is not aware of them, AFAIK. But it certainly does life easier, specially for people like me with dozens of partitions ;-) - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFEfag1tTMYHG2NR9URAv9mAJ4hYXZZ3Ke/n1P282QSTYzqX3nWsACgk6Ot rNjhqlX7UjRCCS1/ZQQL6OQ= =zAzG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (3)
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Carl Hartung -
Carlos E. R. -
Jim Flanagan