reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

goatmale · 2009-03-02 01:25:13

here's basically my arch setup.
I have /dev/hdc1 as my boot partition
/dev/hdc2 is my swap
/dev/hdc3 is my root partition
and /dev/hdc4 is my home.

How can I reinstall arch and keep my home partition intact while only reinstalling the root and boot. I have no room to back up home to a separate partion nor do I have an external harddrive.
I'm sure there are tons of ways to do this but what is the BEST and ARCH way to do it?

Last edited by goatmale (2009-03-02 01:37:30)

utore · 2009-03-02 01:27:15

Just out of curiosity, why would you need to do this?

dannytatom · 2009-03-02 01:33:41

Use cfdisk?

goatmale · 2009-03-02 01:35:09

I'm having the same problem described here http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 69#p372069 and none of the solutions helped.

goatmale · 2009-03-02 01:36:22

Also, I have no room to create a separate partition or any external hard drive to back up my home partition.

mcmillan · 2009-03-02 01:40:05

Just don't format your home partition when you choose your partition setup during the install. Since it's already a separate partition there's no tricks necessary

goatmale · 2009-03-02 04:35:14

Wouldn't you have to make a symbolic link to /home/yourname here to your previous home partition? or can you mount it to /home/yourname here from the fstab?

cerbie · 2009-03-02 04:39:46

What mcmillan said. I'm on at least my 7th Linux install with the same /home. It really is just that easy. make sure the format column is "no", and you'll be fine. Usually, you can even use the old ~ (IE, /home/goatmale), as adduser typically sees it and asks if you want to keep it...but I've had upgrade issues doing that before, so I usually make a new user, and copy specific files over once I get DEs and apps installed.

Last edited by cerbie (2009-03-02 04:42:45)

mcmillan · 2009-03-02 16:01:02

goatmale wrote:

Wouldn't you have to make a symbolic link to /home/yourname here to your previous home partition? or can you mount it to /home/yourname here from the fstab?

Just mount it in fstab. This is what the file looks like for me having a similar setup (I also have a windows partition and a shared partition that I can access from both windows and linux)

# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0


UUID=b43fd83a-6bcc-41e8-8c59-0d3c576520b5 / ext3 defaults 0 0
UUID=e34f34f4-54ff-4768-b638-2d861e6852e8 swap swap defaults 0 0
UUID=aea97983-d5d9-4a73-9e2a-282a75526f9d /home ext3 defaults 0 0

UUID=4634-BDEC /mnt/share vfat defaults,gid=1000,uid=1000,umask=002 0   0 
UUID=CE001BB4001BA28F /mnt/win   ntfs noauto     0    0

jacko · 2009-03-03 08:35:53

How can I reinstall arch and keep my home partition intact while only reinstalling the root and boot.

You just don't format the /home partition when you mount it during the install. The arch live CD setup will ask you to mount the partitions so arch can install. So when it ask for root, you tell it sdaX and then it will say do you want to format this drive with w/e fs. the answer is YES. Do this for root and /boot.

BUT when it ask you to mount /home, you tell it sdaX and then when it says, do you want to format this partition with XXXX filesystem. you say NO. Formatting will destroy your data. Do Not format /home partition, just point arch to the partition so it will be mounted automatically in fstab during the re-install.

I did this just about 2 months ago to my / and /boot partition. So I know very well that it works.

Last edited by jacko (2009-03-03 08:37:41)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-03-02 01:25:13

reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#2 2009-03-02 01:27:15

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#3 2009-03-02 01:33:41

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#4 2009-03-02 01:35:09

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#5 2009-03-02 01:36:22

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#6 2009-03-02 01:40:05

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#7 2009-03-02 04:35:14

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#8 2009-03-02 04:39:46

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#9 2009-03-02 16:01:02

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

#10 2009-03-03 08:35:53

Re: reinstall arch but keep my home partition?

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