Topic: Upgrade/restore workaround with bad disk

[Paul Miller]

Hi everyone,

I need help migrating (mainly my IMAP mail) to a new machine.

I have a home system running 4.1.1 on a 2.1g drive that apparently works OK.  However,  dmesg reports
...
md.c: sizeof(mdp_super_t) = 4096
Partition check:
 hda:hda: status error: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error
}
hda: status error: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hda: drive not ready for command
 hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 >
..

I have tried installing e-smith 4.2.2 on a larger machine and restore from backup.  The restore apparently does nothing.  No mail, no users, etc.

Apparently there is something wrong with my approach of upgrading to a new system and then doing a restore OR the the failing disk has corrupted esmithsg.bak.  

There are differences in the directory structures between versions.

v 4.1.1
my @directories = (
  'home/e-smith',
  'etc/e-smith/templates-custom',
  'etc/passwd',
  'etc/shadow',
  'etc/group',
  'etc/gshadow',
  'etc/smbpasswd'
   );
v 4.1.2
my @directories = (
        'home/e-smith',
        'etc/e-smith/templates-custom',
        'etc/e-smith/templates-user-custom',
        'etc/ssh',
        'root/.ssh',
        'etc/passwd',
        'etc/shadow',
        'etc/group',
        'etc/gshadow',
        'etc/smbpasswd',
    );

With the disk drive problem I fear I will lose my IMAP mail if I attempt an upgrade on this disk as is recommended by e-smith.  

I need a workaround to get my mail safely to another e-smith box.  For example, what steps would be necessary to tar the appropriate directories, mail or ftp them to the new machine, untar them in the proper places? If I can get my mail moved successfully I will then attempt a normal upgrade process or  I can restore everything else manually.

Thanks in advance.
Paul

[Alejandro]

Where did you get e-smith 4.2.2  ?

[Paul Miller]

Thanks for catching my error Alejandro.

Alejandro wrote:
>
> Where did you get e-smith 4.2.2  ?
Sorry, I meant 4.1.2.


By the way, I found my problem.  I had stuck an iso in a hidden directory within primary.  Moving it to temp resolved the restore to 4.1.2 problem I was having. I really thought I had enough space but apparently misinterpreted the e-smith-manager space report.  

Once I had another machine on 4.1.2 and restored I got the courage to attempt upgrade in spite of my disk errors.  The upgrade worked.  However, I was not able to get my mail until I added a new IMAP server to Netscape.  

Anybody know what files need to be moved to restore just IMAP mail?  It looks to me like the contents of /home/e-smith/Maildir should do it but I wouldn't bet on it.  Any pointers on how to study this part would be appreciated. Reliable mail restoration is the most important thing for me.

Thanks,