Clone your BOSS installation onto a new hard disk

Requirement:
BOSS Live CD,
Two Harddisks

Preparing to clone

Before starting, it's a good idea to do three things in preparation. First, back up all valuable personal files to CD/DVD-R/RW disc, a USB keystick, or an external hard disk. The instructions that follow involve drastic fundamental disk management and the possibility of data loss.

Second, it's a good idea to check the filesystem of the original hard disk for errors and possibly enact repairs. Ideally, you should check the Windows filesystem for errors too.

Third, remove any USB memory sticks, card readers, or other kinds of attachable storage, such as MP3 players or mobile phones. This will avoid confusion when partitioning.

After all this, open a terminal window, and type the command sudo fdisk -l, which will scan the hard disks and list their partitions. Here are the results from my test system:

Disk /dev/sda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1c381c37

Device  Boot   Start      End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1    *       1     4742    38090083+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2         4743     9964    41945715    5  Extended
/dev/sda5         4743     9744    40178533+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6         9745     9964     1767118+  82  Linux swap/Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb94838a4

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Two hard disks are listed in the results: look for the headings Disk /dev/sda and Disk /dev/sdb. Beneath each heading is technical information about the disk, and beneath that the partitions on that disk are listed.

It should be obvious that, on my test computer, /dev/sdb is the new hard disk because it has no partitions (it "doesn't contain a valid partition table"), while /dev/sda has the standard partition layout of an BOSS system. Yours will probably be similar, if not identical.

Look for the reference to your new hard disk and make a note of it. In my case, I make a note of /dev/sdb. Then type sudo cfdisk -z /dev/sdb to start the cfdisk partitioning program, which we'll use to write an initial partition table to the disk. If necessary, replace /dev/sdb with the details of the new hard disk you discovered earlier. When cfdisk starts, type W (note that's Shift+w) and then type yes to write a blank partition table. Then press q to quit cfdisk. You can ignore the handful of minor errors that are reported.

Cloning the disk

Now that we have this information, we can install ddrescue and use it to clone the disk. This needs to be installed because it isn't a default system tool. Although the computer is running the BOSS install CD live distro mode,

After this, type sudo apt-get install gddrescue at the prompt to install ddrescue.

Use ddrescue by first specifying the old hard disk, then the new hard disk. Add the -v command option to provide a status report as the command progresses:

$ sudo ddrescue -v /dev/sda /dev/sdb

It's extremely important that you ensure you get the old and new disks in the right order. Otherwise, you might well overwrite the data on your old disk!

Once the cloning has finished -- it will probably take an hour or more, depending on the size of the original hard disk -- you should shut down the computer, remove the old disk (you must disconnect the old disk before you can continue!), and boot from the cloned copy to test things. If you use Windows XP/Vista, it might object to a new hard disk as part of its Windows Genuine Advantage system, and you might have to revalidate online. Of course, BOSS work fine without any such worries.

Assuming everything works correctly, you can move on to the next step: expanding the partitions to take advantage of the larger hard disk.

Expanding the partitions

Before attempting to expand the partitions, it's a good idea to check that your BOSS partition's filesystem is sound. To do this, boot into the BOSS install CD's live distro mode as before. Open a terminal window and type the command sudo fsck.ext3 -f /dev/sda5 to perform a disk check (assuming that BOSS is installed alongside Windows on your hard disk in the standard configuration).

Once this has completed, close the terminal window and click System -> Administration -> Partition Editor. What happens next depends on your requirements. If you just want to expand the BOSS partition, follow these steps:

1. In the Partition list, right-click the linux-swap entry and select Swap off. This will stop BOSS live distro mode from accessing the swap partition so that it can be moved on the hard disk.
2. Before anything else can happen, you must resize the extended partition that contains BOSS. Right-click the extended entry in the list and select Resize/Move. In the dialog box that appears, change the Free Space Following (MiB) box to read 0, then press Tab. This will cause the partition to be expanded to fill the space. Click the Resize/Move button when done. Bear in mind that no changes are carried until you click the Apply button, which you will do after making all the changes to the disk's partitions.
3. Right-click the linux-swap partition once again, and select Resize/Move. In the dialog box that appears, click and drag the graphical representation of the partition to the end of the free space (in other words, click and drag it to the right of the graphical display). After this, the Free Space Following (MiB) box should read 0. Click Resize/Move.
4. Back in the main GParted program window, right-click the ext3 entry in the list, and select Resize/Move. Click and drag the rightmost edge of the partition in the graphical representation so that it "grows" to fill the free space. Eventually the Free Space Following (MiB) box will read 0. When this is the case, click the Resize/Move button.
5. Finally, click the Apply button on the main GParted toolbar. Then click Apply in the dialog box that appears, and sit back and wait while the partitions are moved and resized. If you want to see what's happening, click the small arrow alongside Details in the Applying pending operations dialog box.
6. When GParted has finished, close the program, then open a terminal window. Enter sudo fsck.ext3 -f /dev/sda5, which will once again check the BOSS partition for errors (and, again, these steps assume that BOSS is installed alongside Windows on your hard disk in the standard configuration). If there are any errors, you'll be prompted to repair them. Usually you can agree to the repair.

After the filesystem check, you can reboot your computer from the new hard disk. You should find BOSS partition is now larger.

If you want to resize your Windows partition too, these steps are still relevant. However, you will have to move the swap and ext3 partitions, as well as the extended partition containing them, before resizing the NTFS partition.