Copy perfect PCLOS 2009.2 installation from 40Gb HDD to 160Gb HDD

[ljwheeler]

I have what I consider to be the perfect PCLinuxOS 2009.2 installation on a 40Gb HDD.

Without going through a complete (re)install, I am hoping there's a very simple and reliable way to "copy" the entire 40Gb HDD to a 160Gb HDD as if the 160Gb HDD was the original HDD used to begin with.

Can anyone verify what I wish to do is even possible? And if so, lead me to the required step-by-step procedure to accomplish such a task?

Thanks in advance.

[Wildman]

There are several standalone programs to "Clone" from one drive to another. I use Acronis "True Image" however its not free..

[ljwheeler]

Thanks Wildman. I should have stated up front that I was hoping for something free if at all possible. 

[Old-Polack]

Thanks Wildman. I should have stated up front that I was hoping for something free if at all possible. 

When you say clone the whole drive, do you really mean that, or do you want to copy all the data to similar, or larger partitions? If you clone the drive, you also copy the partition table, the partition UUIDs, and all the free space of the original drive, and it appears as a 40 GB drive on the new drive, until corrections are made. If you partition the larger drive as you wish, and copy the data only, to it's respective partitions, you don't mess with the partition table, UUIDs, and don't copy the free space, just the data.

I do the latter with the rsync application, from the liveCD, to move my OS between drives, or to larger partitions on the same drive. The OS I'm typing this from is a copy from an OS on my external drive, which in turn is a copy from a drive on another machine. All three copies are runnable, with only minor edits to /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst to reflect the actual location of each, after the copy process, while still on the liveCD. Once the edits are made, grub can be installed to the MBR of the new drive with two or three short commands, from the liveCD, and then booted as if they'd always been there.

[ThirdOfSix]

The way that I have done this several times in the past is to first use the Make LiveCD function of PCLOS to make a copy of the working install.

Then boot from that CD and make certain that it actually works.

Then create the desired sized partitions on the new drive and install the system on the new drive using the LiveCD by telling it to use existing partitions.

The neat thing about this is that you can change the partition layout and or size when you reinstall from the live CD.

For instance, if you originally did not have separate root and home partitions, it does not matter. Your new install of your old system will happily install with whatever partition configuration you create on the drive ahead of time.

Now this, of course, assumes that you can get your system to create a LiveCD.

I used to do this and backup all of my installs frequently using Make LiveCD. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get it to work on any of my machines since PCLOS 2009.2.

I hope you have better luck.

Now I use my "free" copy of Diskwizard which is a lobotomized free version of true image that was shipped with a lot of Seagate drives.

It checks and only runs if you have a Seagate or Maxtor drive on the system.

You might check and see if any of your friends have a copy of it.

I think that you used to even be able to download from the Seagate site.

But, this was a couple years ago. So, the agreement between Acronis and Seagate has probably ended. Not to mention that it is based on a version of true image that has been superseded at least twice since then.

[Wildman]

Look here! 

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

[ljwheeler]

Excellent. Thank you so much Wildman! I obviously missed that link if any of my Google searches returned it.

One more question. Would I accomplish the intended result by using mklivecd to image my current system and then use that image to install to the larger hard drive?

Again, thank you for lending a helping had to someone finally getting the time to focus on the world's greatest OS.

[Wildman]

Excellent. Thank you so much Wildman! I obviously missed that link if any of my Google searches returned it.

One more question. Would I accomplish the intended result by using mklivecd to image my current system and then use that image to install to the larger hard drive?

Again, thank you for lending a helping had to someone finally getting the time to focus on the world's greatest OS.

Yes that does work, just Make sure you test the remaster (boot from cd drive) before using, as ThirdofSix posted.
You are very welcome, we all try to help each other here...