Arch Linux

schome1

Member

Registered: 2004-02-15

Posts: 61

transferring hard drive

I would like to move my hard drive that contains Arch Linux using Grub as the boot loader from one system to another.  The systems do not have the same motherboards or processors.  I tried last night and while it was booting, a screen filled with the word "grub" repeated was displayed and the only way to stop it was to shut off the PC. 

Is there any way to transfer hard drives with linux installations on them from one pc to a completely different one?

Mr Green

Forum Fellow

From: U.K.

Registered: 2003-12-21

Posts: 5,920

Website

Re: transferring hard drive

Well unless you try to use  a live CD (Knoppix) to access HD ??

Or from another Hard Drive...

may be problems if Hard Drive is set up for CPU Mobo etc..

HTH

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Mr Green I like Landuke!

Dusty

Schwag Merchant

From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada

Registered: 2004-01-18

Posts: 5,986

Website

Re: transferring hard drive

I think you'd have to reinstall grub after moving the drive. The main partitions should be ok, but IIRC, the mbr has some hooks into it from the BIOS that are system dependent. That's how I understand it anyway.

So as Mr Green says, you could use a live CD to boot into the system with the new drive and then run grub-install.

Dusty

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phrakture

Arch Overlord

From: behind you

Registered: 2003-10-29

Posts: 7,879

Website

Re: transferring hard drive

IIRC Dusty is right on this - basically (if you know C) some pointers to and from the BIOS need to be adjusted.
You're going to have to redo grub-install

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schome1

Member

Registered: 2004-02-15

Posts: 61

Re: transferring hard drive

Actually, what I found is this.  On my arch system, I took the hard drive out and put it in an older system.  That's when I got grub errors.  Then I put that same hard drive into a different system again, and it worked fine.  The transfer worked from a P4 system to an AMD Thunderbird system.  It did not work from the P4 system to the PIII system.  Just thought someone might be interested in what I found.

soniX

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2004-01-23

Posts: 161

Re: transferring hard drive

I installed arch on my old laptop by riping out the harddrive, doing the install on my shuttle, and putting the harddrive back into the little laptop(toshiba portege)... everything worked, no reinstall of grub needed.
so in my case it worked perfectly doing the install on a P4 and moving the harddrive to a P3..

is this why you dont like grub Dusty?

sarah31

Member

From: Middle of Canada

Registered: 2002-08-20

Posts: 2,975

Website

Re: transferring hard drive

nah he just fears change

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