Cloning the 40 GB Master HD (/dev/hda) to a bigger HD (/dev/hdb).

The example assumes a 160 GB IDE HD.

For this task you need to boot from a USB stick, because our server mainboards (AMD64) only have two IDE ports left. Detach CDROM drive and attach 160 GB harddrive jumpered as slave. If you don't have a bootable Linux stick, visit Knoppix or GRML website for details.

Install hda(source) to the IDE-slot as Master.
Install hdb(destination) to the IDE-slot as Slave

Wipe MBR on the 160GB HD.

fdisk -lu

should show you /dev/hdb 160 GB

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdb bs=512 count=1

Create new partitions hdb1 to hdb8

cfdisk /dev/hdb [New].

Do not forget to assign the File Type for the above created partitions:

File Type=82 for swap (dev/hdb1), File Type=83 (Linux) for the other partitions.

Reboot the machine. (IDE is not hotplug like USB)

Format partitions

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdb2 .......... hdb8

Transfer FILES to Partitions (using rsync)

Create source and destination directories

mkdir /s
mkdir /d

Mount the source and the destination partition

mount /dev/hda2 /s
mount /dev/hdb2 /d

Verify correct mounting with mount command:

mount

Now transfer the files:

rsync -av /s/ /d --devices -–specials

After work is done umount the source and the destination partition

umount /s
umount /d

and prepare fore the same job with hda3/hdb3:

mount /dev/hda3 /s
mount /dev/hdb3 /d
mount
rsync -av /s/ /d --devices -–specials

After this work is also done we have to create the GRUB-boot-stuff on hdb.

Leave both harddrives attached to IDE and reboot to hda2 (x2go Server Master harddrive)

mount /dev/hdb2 /mnt
ln -s /mnt/boot /boot
grub-install --no-floppy --recheck --->
--root-directory=/mnt /dev/hdb

Now the grub bootloader is also hdb !!

Release the Master drive hda from the IDE-slot and rejumper the 160 GB hdb-Slave-HD
as new hda-Master.

Suzan/Dominki todo:

Finish doku for udev/rules.d and student/teacher script (add some screenshots)