[ale] dd vs clonezilla to replace hard drive

[Bob Toxen]

The critical thing is that the mounted partitions, especially the root
partition (/) normally are changing.  You will end up with corrupted
partitions unless you allow for this.

First boot single user mode:

  1. Reboot the system.
  
  2. When it gets to the LILO stage hit the shift button to stop the
     countdown to auto-boot.

  3. Hit tab to see what kernels to boot and determine the right one,
     say "Linux"

  4. Key "Linux single" RETURN.

  5. Login (to single user mode).

  6. Do "mount" and umount all the disk file systems except the root fs.

  7. Remount the root fs thusly:

       mount -o remount,ro /dev/something /

  8. Test that it really is mounted read only:
     Do:
         touch /root/foo
     Expect:
         Error: read only file system (or similar)

     
  If using other boot loaders do similar.  Alternatively, on some distros
  you can do:
    tcsh:
       setenv RUNLEVEL S
    sh/bash:
       tcsh
       env RUNLEVEL S

  Do that dd very carefully as botching it trashes your existing disk:

     dd bs=10240k if=/dev/your-source-disk of=/dev/new-disk-to-write-on
     fsck -f of=/dev/new-disk-to-write-on

You might want to expand the lask partition to enjoy your additional
space by using GNU parted or similar:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/features.shtml

Or you can add new partitions after the end of the last one with fdisk
or similar.

Check for typos before using above notes.

Bob


On Mon, Dec 26, 2022 at 05:35:34PM -0700, Jim Kinney via Ale wrote:
> Format the new one and rsync.
> Unless this is a boot drive then dd the boot sector and /boot partition.
> 
> On Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 5:29 PM Narahari Lakshminarayana via Ale <ale at ale.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > Friends:
> >
> > I bought a new SSD drive of the size 512GB the inland brand from
> > Microcenter.
> > I want to use that to replace my current laptop's 160 GB NON-SSD drive.
> >
> > Is it a good idea to use Clonezilla to make an img file of the current
> > disk and restore to the new SSD ?
> >
> > OR
> >
> > Is it faster and best to run the dd command and replicate bit-by-bit of
> > the current drive to the new SSD drive ?
> >
> > Please advise.
> >
> > -N
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> >

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