How 'portable' is a Linux installation?

AgtSmith · #1 31st December 2005, 07:11 AM

Here is my situation. I have several raptor s-ata drives in two striped arrays that I cannot install Linux on because there is no Linux driver for my EX8350 controller. I had an ata drive laying around though so I installed it and had it dedicated to Linux. problem I have now is that i need to install Vista and want to put in on that same drive, and I know installing windows after linux is toruble, allthough repairable I suppose. but more than that the problem is the size of that drive, only 40G. So I want to replace that 40G ata drive with an 80 I got coming back from an RMA and use Acronis to copy the 40g drive to the 80g drive. then I will have enough space to install Vista and the repair the Linux install so that drive dual boots Linux and Vista.

What I am unsure about is the copying of the current Linux drive to the new drive - can I do this with Acronis? Or is there a Linux specific imaging program I might have better luck with? Any suggestions other than what I outlined here for accomplishing this? And lastly, what if I threw into the mix changing the drive to a s-ata 80g intead of the ata 80g I firstmentioned (would like Linux and vista on a s-ata drive but I suppose I can live with ata if I must). I have both an NVIDIA (NF4) and SiS s-ata on board.

Thanks in advance for suggestions/information.

ieuuk · #2 31st December 2005, 10:44 AM

well you best bet to be honest it to just save all of your files off of linux and burn them to cd or something and then just start again... you will probably end up doing that anyway even if you get the files copyed across because getting it to dual boot again is very tricky and it doesnt like doing it.

If you can find linux drivers for the sata drives then feel free to go for it because the performance increase will be nice but the problem is that sata in linux is a bit hit and miss... it'll either work fine and you'll get no problems, or it'll never work i've found

AgtSmith · #3 31st December 2005, 09:51 PM

Whst about using a win based program like Acronis to image a Linux drive? Good success rate or not so much? I was thinking I could just copt the disk to a bigger ata drive and hten have room for Vista and deal with wahtever happens as a result thereafter.

AgtSmith · #4 1st January 2006, 12:23 AM

Let me ask that question another way to be more clear. If I have Linux installed now on a 40g ata HDD what utility would you recomend to copy that instal to an 80g ata HDD? I have Norton Ghost but it sux, and I just got Acronis Drive Image but am not sure if it can copy Linux partitions correctly.