New hard drive

[Lucio M Nicolosi]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Mark Panen <mark.panen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have three hard drives.
>
> /dev/sda
> /dev/sdb
> /dev/sdc
>
> /dev/sda is partitioned:
>
> /boot
> /
> swap
> /home
>
> i want to purchase a new hard drive and basically install 12.04 LTS from
> scratch when it is released but i want to copy my /home from /dev/sda onto
> the new hardrive and make the new hard drive bootable.
>
> Any pointers please?
>
> --
> Cheers
> Mark

Mark,

You don't really need to unplug anything. (I guess)

Physically install and partition the new disk, setting spaces for
12.04 /root, your new /home and whatever partitions you might want to
have. (old version of Gparted at repos or last release Live CD from
Gparted site).

Backup your current  /home into the new partition (Lucky Backup -
graphic rsync - on repositories can do it easily and you get a bonus
defrag)

Run the 12.04 Live CD iso from a USB stick (quicker than CDs) and
choose the RIGHT places for /root and /home (you may use an existing
/swap partition in another disk to be remained on the set).

Remember to set Grub to be installed on the new disk. It will probably
recognize every other system (thus the other disks should be plugged
in, although it can be done later).

Reboot (to your old system) and run (sudo) update-grub (if running
Grub2, else is another matter). Your old system is ready to recognize
the new 12.04 install in the new disk.

Eventually, set the Bios to boot from the new disk so that new kernels
(in 12.04) are automatically recognized by (the new) Grub. If not, you
might have to run update-grub at every new kernel release.

Consider carefully if you really want all the legacy configurations
that remain in your /home directory (directories beginning with dot)
to be present in your new /home. I would delete at least those
pertaining to software you do not use anymore (you have the original
home as backup).

Gparted can also copy entire partitions to your new disk, in case
you'd  rather upgrade than perform a clean install.

Last, but in any way least, WAIT until 12.04 Precise is released and
shows itself really stable. It'll take more than a couple of months...

Good Luck,

L.


-- 
Lucio M. Nicolosi, Eng.
Open Source Implementation
System and Applications
GNU/Linux