Hard disk partition copy

elmu · 11-10-2005, 03:20 AM

Hello,

I'm using Debian Sarge and I have 4 hard disks in my system. The first was partitionad during the install and the other 3 were added after the system was installed. All of the 4 are the same type and size.

I tried to copy the partitioning schema with the following command:

Code:

sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk /dev/hdc

But I got an error:

Code:

debian:~# sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk /dev/hdc
Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ...
OK

Disk /dev/hdc: 8322 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Old situation:
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/hdc2          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/hdc3          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/hdc4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
New situation:
Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot    Start       End   #sectors  Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *        63    257039     256977  83  Linux
/dev/hdc2        257040   8385929    8128890   5  Extended
/dev/hdc3             0         -          0   0  Empty
/dev/hdc4             0         -          0   0  Empty
/dev/hdc5        257103    626534     369432  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdc6        626598   8385929    7759332  83  Linux
Warning: partition 2 does not end at a cylinder boundary

sfdisk: I don't like these partitions - nothing changed.
(If you really want this, use the --force option.)
debian:~#

If I try to call it with --force options than it create a different schema.

Code:

debian:~# sfdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 8322 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
  for C/H/S=*/255/63 (instead of 8322/16/63).
For this listing I'll assume that geometry.
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *      0+     15      16-    128488+  83  Linux
/dev/hda2         16     521     506    4064445    5  Extended
/dev/hda3          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/hda4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/hda5         16+     38      23-    184716   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6         39+    521     483-   3879666   83  Linux
debian:~# sfdisk -l /dev/hdc

Disk /dev/hdc: 8322 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *      0+    254     255-    128488+  83  Linux
/dev/hdc2        255    8319-   8065-   4064445    5  Extended
/dev/hdc3          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/hdc4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/hdc5        255+    621-    367-    184716   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdc6        621+   8319-   7698-   3879666   83  Linux
debian:~#

I think the problem is the:

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 8322 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
  for C/H/S=*/255/63 (instead of 8322/16/63).

How can I solve this problem and make an exact copy from the first HDD?

Thanks!

saikee · 11-10-2005, 08:31 AM

Use dd command for cloning if your target hard disk is same size and type as the source disk. Thing couldn't be easier with dd command

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc bs=64M

You don't need to prepartition the disk. dd does a 100% mirror image and the resulting disk is bootable exactly as the original.

The block size 64M is the optimum reported by many users. A 200Gb disk takes about 100 minutes. Some distros can do it a lot faster than the other though.