[oclug] Copying partition contents: old -> new

[Johnathan Hicks]

I don't think I've ever had any problems with tar doing evil stuff like
that, but then it could have been a bug that has since been fixed.
Something I found interesting is that even though the '-C' option exists
for tar, people still shell wrap a 'cd somedir' before the 'tar xf -' on
the back end of a 'tar cf - . | tar xf -' pipe, or other places too.

--John

bbarnett at l8r.net wrote:
> 
> Part of the reason I mentioned the hard-drive-upgrade-mini-howto (that's a dash
> full :P), is because the author specifically removed tar as a method to copy
> the entire drive.  I'm not entirely sure why, but I have noticed some oddness
> with tar and symlinks occasionally.  (although there shouldn't, and doesn't seem
> to be one, at a first glance).
> 
> On 21-Aug-2001 Johnathan Hicks wrote:
> > I'm actually surprised that nobody yelled, "RTFM of tar!" Yet that is
> > what I did anyways because I couldn't stop myself. :) After much
> > consultation of the man and info pages, I came up with the attached
> > script. It might help someone here, it might not either.
> > Enjoy!
> >
> > bbarnett at l8r.net wrote:
> >>
> >> There are many ways, try reading the "harddrive upgrade howto".  It will
> >> help
> >> you with obscure things like the "bios" line in lilo, in order to assist
> >> your
> >> move to the new drive.
> >>
> >> On 21-Aug-2001 Johnathan Hicks wrote:
> >> > I just got a new hard drive which I want to move my current Linux setup
> >> > onto. I've got several partitions that need to be copied over. I created
> >> > the partitions on the new disc and have only to copy the data from the
> >> > old partitions to the new. I remember someone or a few people posting
> >> > some magic using tar, but I can't remember what exactly it was.
> >> > Thanks.
> >> >
> >> > --John