[lug] lilo, dd, /boot

[Alan Robertson]

"D. Stimits" wrote:
> 
> "D. Stimits" wrote:
> >
> > I'm experimenting with upgrading a system to use XFS filesystem, and one
> > of the main problems with this is usually the requirement to have an
> > entire mirror of the original install (including being able to boot it).
> > I'm at the point where I have probably a good mirror on an IDE drive for
> > "/" of a scsi, now I need to make a valid "/boot" for the IDE based on
> > the scsi. Once I have them copied, I can do a chroot and run lilo to
> > install on the IDE; I then merely switch my bios to boot IDE before scsi
> > (they are both integrated controllers). What I'm interested in doing
> > here is avoiding what looks like a snafu in the making. During the copy
> > of /boot on scsi to /boot on IDE, I probably need to use dd rather than
> > cp or cpio or tar. Can someone confirm that? If so, what is the simplest
> > way to do a dd copy of all files in one /boot to all files in the other
> > /boot? Pretend the original is /boot/, and the IDE is /mnt/ide/boot/.
> > Can I specify just if= and of=, or must I specify block sizes or counts?
> >
> > D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com
> 
> Does anyone have a suggestion for
> making a complete copy of an existing "/" onto a new partition? I can
> use dd separately for /boot/ items, but am looking for something less
> clumsy than cp -adpR for other things.

"find /dev -print | cpio -pdm" copies device files, fifos, etc. nicely.

	-- Alan Robertson
	   alanr at unix.sh