OK, steps 1-3 went fairly smoothly. Now, however, I'm unable to get grub-install to work. When I do the following:
mount /dev/sda1 /newboot grub-install '(sd0,0)' I get the error message: /usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /boot/grub (is /dev mounted?) I get the same when I do grub-install /dev/sda1 . Clearly, I have not done some crucial preparatory step for installing grub from the live rescue CD to the new hard drive's partition. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance, -PT On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Peter Tenenbaum < peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi again -- > > As I'm studying the situation, my plan for how to do this recovery has > evolved a bit. What I'm planning now is the following: > > > 1. Install the new hard drives > 2. Boot off the rescue CD > 3. Use fdisk to set up one of the drives as the system / boot drive, with > 3 DOS-style partitions (boot, swap, and everything else) > 4. Install grub in the boot partition > 5. Recover my backup to the new system disk via restore > 6. Update /etc/fstab to match the configuration I set up in (3) and (4), > since I'm not setting up the new hard drives exactly the way that the old > drive was configured > 7. Follow the instructions at > http://linuxconfig.org/Linux_Software_Raid_1_Setup to incorporate the > system disk and the second disk as a RAID-1 array. > > If anyone wants to jump in and shout, "No, you fool!" when they see this > plan, let me know. > > Mark -- I've decided against using LVM because (a) it adds another level of > complication to the overall recovery / RAID-ification procedure, which at my > low level of expertise I really do not need, and (b) it's not clear to me > that LVM offers that much benefit for a relatively simple home system with > more hard drive capacity than I really need. Maybe on my next system... > > -PT > > > On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Peter Tenenbaum < > peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Klistvud -- excellent, thanks, that is definitely the way to go! I can >> see that the rescue CD from live.debian.net (actually from >> cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/squeeze_live_beta1/amd64/iso-hybrid/) contains >> everything I need, so I'll use that. >> >> Now: in the interim, I've decided to take this opportunity to make my >> system RAID-1, so that I get an extra level of protection and also so that >> if I ever have another drive failure I can limp along on the other drive for >> the few days it will take me to get myself organized to recover. Also, I >> get to set up a RAID-1 array, which I don't yet know how to do, and learning >> is fun. As I understand it, the steps I need to take are: >> >> 1. Install the new hard drives >> 2. Boot off the rescue CD >> 3. Use fdisk and mdadm to set up the 2 drives as a RAID-1 array >> 4. Use LVM (or fdisk?) to partition the resulting array (boot, linux, and >> swap) >> 5. Recover my backup to the array via restore command. >> >> So now, a few new questions: >> >> 1. Is the list above generally correct? >> 2. When I installed Debian back in the summer I let the install script >> handle the disk partitioning. This time I have to do it manually. What >> size should I use for the boot and swap partitions? >> 3. Do I need to manually install and configure grub in order to make the >> RAID-1 array the boot disk? Again, this was handled for me by the installer >> script the first time around. >> 4. What, if anything, do I need to do so that the RAID-1 array is >> activated at boot time? >> >> Whew! Sorry for the huge stack of questions, any and all help, >> encouragement, etc, is welcome! >> >> Thanks in advance, >> -PT >> >> >> On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:16 AM, Peter Tenenbaum < >> peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi everyone -- a few days ago the hard drive in my home Debian system >>> started making unhappy noises and refuses to boot. I discussed the >>> situation with knowledgeable people and they diagnosed that indeed the hard >>> drive had failed and needs replacement. >>> >>> I have a recent backup of the hard drive which I made using dump, and I >>> have a new hard drive on order. My recovery plan is as follows: >>> >>> 1. Burn a new netinst CD from a recent build (I am running Squeeze, btw) >>> 2. Replace the hard drive >>> 3. Use the netinst CD to set up the filesystem on the new hard drive >>> 4. Recover the backup using restore. >>> >>> Here's my question: should I allow the netinst CD to install Debian on >>> the new hard drive, given that I plan to use restore to restore everything >>> and thus would overwrite any new installation? I realize that I can >>> probably tune the action of the restore command so that it only restores >>> what I need from the backup and doesn't touch a new OS install; but I think >>> that the process of making the decisions for what needs to be restored and >>> what does not would be complex, time-consuming, and error-prone; so I would >>> rather just restore the whole thing. >>> >>> Any advice you can offer would be welcome. >>> >>> Thanks in advance, >>> -PT >>> >> >> >
