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Migrating a linux install to a different drive (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The title pretty much speaks for itself... I have a linux install that I've spent a considerable time configuring, which is unfortunately installed on a drive that's starting to show signs of dying.

My question is: how, if there is a way, can I migrate said linux install over to a different drive, while preserving all the configurations and such.

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who commented! I made the transfer, using dd and it went mostly smoothly, even if it did take a while.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I usually use

dd status=progress conv=sync,noerror bs=64k if=/path/to/source/drive of=/path/to/destination/drive

Take a reading of the drive health first with something like smartctl and if it has a lot of failing attributes, consider lowering the block size to something rather smaller like bs=512.

Edit: To elaborate, using the sync and noerror arguments will instruct dd to ignore errors and continue in the event of read failures, while allocating zeroes to the remainder of the block space. Which is also why smaller block sizes are better for potentially failing drives. The copy will take longer, but a single error won't take large swaths of data with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Hm, using a smaller block size does make sense, but I imagine that cloning an entire drive with 512 byte blocks is gonna take 10 million years. Especially this one, since the main reason I'm suspecting that it has started failing is because it's slowed down to the point where it drags down the entire system when even the smallest of loads hit it...

[–] possiblylinux127 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's a bad sign. First off stop using it so that you don't make it worse. Next take a backup. I think dd automatically skips over bad blocks but I don't remember. Also, I would not go straight to another drive but instead go to a file.

I don't mean to freak you out but there is a chance you are going to lose data.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I already have all data I care about backed up, so even if I lose some, it's not a big deal

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

If you suspect a failing drive, you may want to consider using ddrescue as opposed to dd. The tool is specifically designed to help with failing disks.