Cloning a hard drive

Last Updated: Sunday, February 01, 2009

The purpose of this section is to allow you to clone the content of a dec for backup purposes so that the entire database, including playlists and custom genres will be backed up.  It is much faster than trying to move files over the network but it does require you to take the dec apart.  The first thing to do is boot from a recovery CD with a new hard drive in the dec so that it gets partitioned and the OS installed on it.  Make sure that there are no music files in the /content partition.  This prepares it for cloning.  You will need a VGA monitor and a USB keyboard.

 1.   Using a 3-connector 80-conductor (UDMA) IDE cable you can borrow from a PC, connect the two hard rives so that you end up with the new drive as master and the original as slave.  You should refer to the manufacturer's directions for setting the jumpers for master/slave on each drive since manufacturers tend to have unique procedures for these settings. 

Note: Since the DEC only has 2 of the drive power connections, you may need to borrow one from the CD Writer unless you have a power “Y” adapter for the drive power connector.  If you do borrow the power from the CD Writer, please detach it from the secondary IDE cable until the procedure is complete.

 2.     Power up the DEC and allow it to “Welcome” screen.  With an attached USB keyboard, type the following keys: “Alt”  “Alt” “e"x” in four separate keystrokes.

 3.      You should see a login prompt.  Type root at the login prompt and then redhat at the password prompt.  

Pay attention in the steps below to include the spaces.  (That's why they are shown in a Courier font, so that the spaces are more obvious.)

 4.       Type the following line:  mount –t reiserfs /dev/hdb8 /mnt/disk 

·        This line will mount the content partition of the original hard drive.

 5.      Now, type the following line:  cp –rf /mnt/disk/* /content/       

·        This line will copy content including playlists and the database over to the new hard disk.

·        This could take up to 3 hours depending on content capacity.

6.      The standard Linux prompt will appear after all content has been copied to the new disc. 

Type: shutdown –h 0

This will properly shutdown the DEC.

7.       Power up the DEC.  You may receive some message screen informing you about a database rebuild.  This can take up to 2 hours depending on content volume.  When complete, the DEC will be at the “Welcome” screen. 

8.       Verify all content and playlists are restored and functional prior to formatting or disposing of the original hard drive and putting the dec back together.