In article <Olwve.186743$w15.94555 (AT) tornado (DOT) tampabay.rr.com>,
Barry L. Bond <barry (AT) barrycon (DOT) cfl.rr.com> wrote:
:
: If I could just manage to get at least two good backups of my data
:files before I wind up replacing the hard disks and installing a newer
:version of Linux (and then having a different backup scheme), I would be
:happy! I have a couple of other ideas to try, and one will be to clean
:the drive head (differently and possibly better than the cleaning travan
:cartridge I purchased).

Why don't you just temporarily attach the old drives along with the new
and copy the data from disk to disk. That's going to be a lot more
reliable than any Travan tape. Your new disks are probably so much
larger than the old ones that you could keep a complete copy of your old
system in an "oldsys/" directory on the new disks and hardly notice the
space it took up. I have that going back a couple of generations of
systems. Heck, the stuff from that "huge" 4GB disk on my old '486
system takes just a tiny sliver of a modern disk drive.

OK, so I'm a data packrat.

--
Bob Nichols AT comcast.net I am "rnichols42"

Hi Bob!

:-D

In one sense, I am, too. One reason I'm deciding to do it this way
is, I have a number of files on my current disks that I won't need. (For
example, /usr/src collections of many things that involve rebuilding
specific libraries, so they would have newer/additional calls, that will
be taken care of when I get the whole lot of new libraries.)

While there are some things I *definitely* will want on the new
disks, there are so many things I won't need/want, that this was one
reason I was just getting new disks and installing a newer version of
Linux on them.

On the other hand, though, I do need to be as absolutely certain as I
can be that I can get certain files! And, this would be an idea approach,
even if I just copied those certain directories/files from the old to the
new disk, after I installed the newer version of Linux on the new disks.

Money is very nicely returning to good. I was laid off near the end
of 2002, and I've been not working some of the time, and working temporary
jobs for part of what I needed for my bills (and taking from my IRA for
the rest). I am now back in my field and making enough again. But, it
just started, last month, and I'm trying to be as careful as I can be with
the money situation. (I have savings and an IRA to rebuild.)

I haven't looked yet, but I probably will need to get a SCSI cable
capable of connecting five, instead of three, devices.

But, you have made me realize that since there are files I absolutely
must get, this is a *very* nice way to assure I can get them, if my backup
tapes may not...

And, while a part of me is still in the older days, you're right,
even the entire old (9 GB) disks would be easily accommodated on the newer
(at least 80 GB, and probably larger, still deciding) disks. (I still use
bit fields for binary data in C and other languages, able to place eight
binary data items in ONE 8-bit byte.) :-)

I just still like conserving memory and disk space, overall... :-)

Bob, thank you VERY MUCH, though, for this kind suggestion. If I
wound up deciding that I was going to ship my travan tape drive back to be
looked at/repaired, that probably would cost more than finding a SCSI
cable that could connect more devices!

Barry
--
Barry L. Bond | http://home.cfl.rr.com/os9barry/
Software Engineer, ITT Industries | (My personal home web page, last

In article <DPPve.169004$IO.43343 (AT) tornado (DOT) tampabay.rr.com>,
Barry L. Bond <barry (AT) barrycon (DOT) cfl.rr.com> wrote:
:
:Hi Bob!
:
:>Why don't you just temporarily attach the old drives along with the new
:>and copy the data from disk to disk. That's going to be a lot more
:>reliable than any Travan tape. Your new disks are probably so much
:>larger than the old ones that you could keep a complete copy of your old
:>system in an "oldsys/" directory on the new disks and hardly notice the
:>space it took up. I have that going back a couple of generations of
:>systems. Heck, the stuff from that "huge" 4GB disk on my old '486
:>system takes just a tiny sliver of a modern disk drive.
:
:>OK, so I'm a data packrat.
[SNIP]
: Bob, thank you VERY MUCH, though, for this kind suggestion. If I
:wound up deciding that I was going to ship my travan tape drive back to be
:looked at/repaired, that probably would cost more than finding a SCSI
:cable that could connect more devices!

Here's how I would probably do it:

1. Decide which of my new disks will have a partition with a lot of
suitable spare space on it.

2. Connect only that new disk drive and one of my old drives.

3. Boot the installation CD in "rescue" mode.

4. Create the partition(s) on my new disk and format the partition
that will receive my old data.

5. "cp -a" the data from the old disk to a directory on the new one.

6. Shut down the system and swap in the other old drive.

7. Boot in rescue mode again and repeat step 5.

8. Shut down the system and hook up both new drives.

9. Begin the installation, telling the installer to preserve the
existing data on the partition I created above.

Pruning the deadwood out of the copied data can be done later --
much later (considering the chronic shortage of round tuits).

While it would be logically simpler to dedicate a partition to
hold the old data, reclaiming that space is far simpler if you
just use a directory in one of your permanent partitions.

--
Bob Nichols AT comcast.net I am "rnichols42"