Am I required to re-install?

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

Hi, ALL,
Do I have to re-install the system, if I add one more hard drive?

Thank you.

martoni · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 2:11 am Post subject:

Definately not. Why should you?

wjholden · l33t Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 826 Location: Augusta, GA

Not at all. You'll just need to fdisk and format the drive then add it to /etc/fstab. If your first hard drive was named /dev/hda (look at what worked in /etc/fstab) then the second will most likely be named /dev/hdb. You may want to use the hdparm -tT /dev/hdb command to make sure you've got it right though.

Sith_Happens · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 3:41 am Post subject:

How are you looking to integrate it into your system? Are you looking to use an existing directory as a mountpoint? For example, do you want to use /home as the mountpoint. If this is the case you can tar all the files in /home, mount the new hard drive at /home, (after partitioning it and creating filesystems), then untar the files to the hard drive using the -p flag to preserve permissions. Then add a line for it in your fstab. If you want to add a mount point in /mnt for it, like /mnt/storage, then just create the folder, partition and create filesystems, then mount your new hard drive (or a partition on the new hard drive) there. If you want it mounted at boot then you can add it to your fstab as well.
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ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

Thank you all for the responce.
I am actually looking to have it as a storage for my tools, like KDevelop, Gimp, and my programs that I will write. So, I guess, it will be more like /usr or /etc.

Thank you.

Sith_Happens · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:35 am Post subject:

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

Thank you for the responce, Sith_Happens,
Now, do I have to do anything for the swap partition? Or just make it and add a mount point?

Thank you.

bet1m · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:26 am Post subject:

syg00 · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:44 am Post subject:

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

Thank you, guys,
I am actually thinking abot increasing the size of my presently existing swap partition. Will I be able to do that?

syg00 · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 10:16 pm Post subject:

You probably can by taking it off first - I *NEVER* screw with my current partitions.
If I want to resize, I create a new one and copy everything over. Gives my an automatic backup too ...

For swap I prefer to do as I outlined above. Another option is to create another of the size you want to increase your swap by, and simply add that.
Linux handles multiple swap partitions just fine.

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

Hi, syg00,
You mean I just comment the line with the old swap partition in the fstab file, and add the line with the new one?
Also could anybody give me a tar command for archiving my files in /usr and /var, please? Like Sith_Happens said, permissions are vital...

Thank you.

wjholden · l33t Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 826 Location: Augusta, GA

If you just want to copy them over, use cp -vpR /location /newlocation/
If you want to make a real archive, tar -cvjpf newfile.bz2 oldfile1 oldfile2 olddirectory1 olddirectory2
To uncompress that archive, change -c to -x (create and extract). The only reason I mention using the -j (which makes a file typically associated with .bz2 and not .tar, although remember that UNIX doesn't do file-name extensions) is that bz2 gets so much better compression. The -p option keeps permissions.

Maedhros · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:21 am Post subject:

Moved from Installing Gentoo.
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BlackEdder · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:57 am Post subject:

I will probably just confuse matters, but I find the easiest way:

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

Thank you, guys. You are very helpful.
Now, since I am trying to copy /usr, /var and /etc how I will be able to differentiate between 2 hard drives? I will add the mount point for second one in the /etc/fstab for /usr for example, but how I can copy files over to the second hard drive?
Or in other words I would like to have a KDE, KDevelop and all other programs that I will install to be located on the second hard drive. Right now they are on the first one. I will be able to copy them over when I will have a mountpoint, but how to differentiate between 2 of them?

Thank you.

Sith_Happens · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:13 pm Post subject:

Lets say that your new hard drive is /dev/hdb, and you want to move /usr to /dev/hdb1, then:

BlackEdder · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:26 pm Post subject:

I wouldn't do the rm -fR /usr/* for a couple of days. Just mount the new hd (mount /dev/hdb1 /usr). When you are sure everything works ok after a few days:

Sith_Happens · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:48 pm Post subject:

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

Thank you.
I am running this script right now, but I have another question.
This is my fstab right now:

Sith_Happens · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 1:00 am Post subject:

I'm a little confused. Are you trying to move your entire root partition or just a few partitions? If your root partition is remaining on /dev/hda3, then you should leave that line in the fstab. Then, add lines for each additional partition you wish to have mounted at boot, i.e.

BlackEdder · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 1:01 am Post subject:

I'm confused as well

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

OK, then the little explanation is in order.
I installed Gentoo on the old computer. It had 9 GB hard drive, and didn't have much memory. It's 6 y.o. PC x86 Now I bought a new hard drive, which is much faster, and much bigger. All I want to do now is say: I have 2 hard drives. I will boot up from the smallest one, and run all my programs from the second one, since it's much faster. And I want to keep all system and boot-up files on the first hard drive, but move the "GUI shell" and everything that I will install, write and prepare on the second hard drive.

Thank you.

Sith_Happens · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 5:01 am Post subject:

Well, what I would do is create partitions for /usr, /home, /opt, and maybe /var, /tmp, and /lib on the new drive, and move the files as described above.
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ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3612

OK, what about /etc/fstab file? How I should change it?
Is the changes I put in my previous post OK? Or I should leave the root to the first one and just create partitions for /usr, /home and opt for the second hard drive?

Thank you.