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Hi,

I've posted this question in some forums and a couple of mailing lists but
figured I'd pose it here also...

Just wondering what the best methods are for moving filesystems off a defective
(still works but giving hard errors on some sectors) 20 GB disk in a Raq4i onto
a replacement disk? I've purchased a new 80 GB disk which is installed in the
second position and currently don't have a restore CD so I'm wondering how to
get the filesystems moved over to the new disk?

The existing disk isn't reliable enough to run up the system with the httpd
running otherwise there might be a way using the GUI to set up and start moving
things to the new disk.

Since the system is running Linux, is it possible to boot the system off an OS
restore CD in single-user mode (via a SCSI CD-ROM drive connected to the
external SCSI port of the Raq4i) and use a method similar to an ufsdump |
ufsrestore pipe (which I use on Sun systems running Solaris) to move over the
relevant filesystems to the new drive?

Thanks for any advice you can provide. I'm used to Solaris methods but since
the Raq is a hybrid system with IDE disks internally and SCSI externally, I
don't quite know what the best approach is to salvage the filesystems from the
old drive.

Regards,

Craig.

--
Post by Craig Dewick (tm). Web @ "http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick".
Email 2 "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au". SunShack @ "http://www.sunshack.org"
Galleries @ "http://www.sunshack.org/gallery2". Also lots of tech data, etc.
Sun Microsystems webring at "http://n.webring.com/hub?ring=sunmicrosystemsu".

In comp.sys.sun.hardware Craig Dewick <cdewick@lios.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I've posted this question in some forums and a couple of mailing lists but
> figured I'd pose it here also...
>
> Just wondering what the best methods are for moving filesystems off a defective
> (still works but giving hard errors on some sectors) 20 GB disk in a Raq4i onto
> a replacement disk? I've purchased a new 80 GB disk which is installed in the
> second position and currently don't have a restore CD so I'm wondering how to
> get the filesystems moved over to the new disk?
Is the 80 gig supported? I've been told its not (by a hosting compnay)


> The existing disk isn't reliable enough to run up the system with the httpd
> running otherwise there might be a way using the GUI to set up and start moving
> things to the new disk.
>
> Since the system is running Linux, is it possible to boot the system off an OS
> restore CD in single-user mode (via a SCSI CD-ROM drive connected to the
> external SCSI port of the Raq4i) and use a method similar to an ufsdump |
> ufsrestore pipe (which I use on Sun systems running Solaris) to move over the
> relevant filesystems to the new drive?
ufsdump on a bad disk may end up causing the problems to get worse. If you don't
have backups, I would consider looking at logs to figure out where the problem
might be and using cp -r and rsync to try to make a mirror. I would also
no try to copy the entire disk0:/ to disk1:/ but more like disk0:/ to disk1:/olddisk/
That way you can verify the new disk is properly configured first.

I've had good luck running freebsd on the raq and I would be tempted to put a new
OS on the 80 gig disk and try to pull the old stuff over. If you don't have the restore
CD, can you even make sure the thing is patched properly if you did get it restored?

>
> Thanks for any advice you can provide. I'm used to Solaris methods but since
> the Raq is a hybrid system with IDE disks internally and SCSI externally, I
> don't quite know what the best approach is to salvage the filesystems from the
> old drive.
This disk types don't matter.

-tim
http://web.abnormal.com

Tim Hogard <thogard@abnormal.com> writes:

>In comp.sys.sun.hardware Craig Dewick <cdewick@lios.apana.org.au> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've posted this question in some forums and a couple of mailing lists but
>> figured I'd pose it here also...
>>
>> Just wondering what the best methods are for moving filesystems off a defective
>> (still works but giving hard errors on some sectors) 20 GB disk in a Raq4i onto
>> a replacement disk? I've purchased a new 80 GB disk which is installed in the
>> second position and currently don't have a restore CD so I'm wondering how to
>> get the filesystems moved over to the new disk?
>Is the 80 gig supported? I've been told its not (by a hosting compnay)

Not sure - the drive definitely works fine when it's jumpered to be the
slave on the second channel (shows up as /dev/hdd when I do 'fdisk -l').
I'd been able to set up some emply partitions, etc. on it using fdisk when
the OS on the original disk stayed up long enough without crashing from a
sector hard-error.

>ufsdump on a baddisk may end up causing the problems to get worse. If you
>do>have backups, I would consider looking at logs to figure out where the
>problem>might be and using cp -r and rsync to try to make a mirror. I
>would also>no try to copy the entire disk0:/ to disk1:/ but more like
>disk0:/ to disk1:/o>That way you can verify the new disk is properly
>configured first.

I found some good hints on copying filesystems under Linux though
something's gone wrong with the root partition of the original disk now and
the system just sits there at 'booting....'. so it looks like I will need
todo the restore CD method to get a fresh OS install on a new disk then
copywhat I can off the old disk or from backups if they're recent enough.

See some posts I've just sent to the cobalt_users and aussie-sun mailing
lists (they should mirror to some newsgroups) about problems writing
Zeffie's 'RaQ4-20022007.iso' updated restore ISO file to a CD-R. The
filesize is 703696896 but all my 700 MB (80 min) CD-R's report a data
capacity of about 22 MB less. bummer!

Craig.
--
Post by Craig Dewick (tm). Web @ "http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick".
Email 2 "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au". SunShack @ "http://www.sunshack.org"
Galleries @ "http://www.sunshack.org/gallery2". Also lots of tech data, etc.
Sun Microsystems webring at "http://n.webring.com/hub?ring=sunmicrosystemsu".

My newsreader forced me to trim to fewer newsgroups, so I trimmed to the
one in which I am reading/following-up.

On 2008-05-11, Craig Dewick <cdewick@lios.apana.org.au> wrote:

[ ... ]

> I found some good hints on copying filesystems under Linux though
> something's gone wrong with the root partition of the original disk now and
> the system just sits there at 'booting....'. so it looks like I will need
> todo the restore CD method to get a fresh OS install on a new disk then
> copywhat I can off the old disk or from backups if they're recent enough.

A suggestion: Mount the bad disk read-only, to minimize the
growth of errors by attempts to update access times and such while
copying. It still won't protect it from more damage from grit
originating from already damaged sections, but it may mimize the
corruption of data which was still good when you started. In
particular, it is likely to protect your directories and inodes from
more corruption.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: <dnichols@d-and-d.com> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" <dnichols@d-and-d.com> writes:

>My newsreader forced me to trim to fewer newsgroups, so I trimmed to the
>one in which I am reading/following-up.

>On 2008-05-11, Craig Dewick <cdewick@lios.apana.org.au> wrote:

> [ ... ]

>> I found some good hints on copying filesystems under Linux though
>> something's gone wrong with the root partition of the original disk now and
>> the system just sits there at 'booting....'. so it looks like I will need
>> todo the restore CD method to get a fresh OS install on a new disk then
>> copywhat I can off the old disk or from backups if they're recent enough.

> A suggestion: Mount the bad disk read-only, to minimize the
>growth of errors by attempts to update access times and such while
>copying. It still won't protect it from more damage from grit
>originating from already damaged sections, but it may mimize the
>corruption of data which was still good when you started. In
>particular, it is likely to protect your directories and inodes from
>more corruption.

Once I get the restore CD side of things taken care of this is what I plan
to do. I've found a local source of 800 MB CDR's now (didn't even know they
existed until today!), and will get Zeffie's Raq4 updated restore CD ISO
burnt so it can be put to good use.

Craig.
--
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Location: Sydney, Australia - Web: http://www.sunrk.com.au - Get back on track
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