Topic: How do I transfer from a 5.6 machine to a new 6.0 machine?

[jdarrough]

 I want to install SME 6.0 on a completely new machine with different motherboard, modem, video, etc. How do I save the existing system files and setup (SME 5.6) and restore it to the new 6.0 once I get it up and accessible from the network? I tried to do so by saving to desktop using the user manager option, but when I tried to restore from desktop when I had the new machine on the network, it did nothing at all.

Thanks, Jim

[raem]

An easy approach would be to Ghost the existing hard drive to the new hard drive.
Then run the v5.6 instal (over the top of the existing 5.6 instal) and choose the upgrade option, this will setup sme for your new hardware.
Then run the v6.0 instal to update the OS.

If anything goes wwrong you still have the original drive and data untouched (to try again).

The backup/restore with the backup to desktop function may not have worked because your backup file was larger than 2Gb (there is alimit with tar and smb). If that's the case you need to use backup2ws contrib from D May and split the backup file into less than 2Gb chunks.

There are a lot of posts answering both these issues so search if you want more information.
Regs
Ray

[Dave]

This is exactly what I want to do, except that I want to create my live data on my test server, swap my test server across to replace live, then to upgrade my live server to the latest version of SME.

So, due to that fact that I'm not that famililar with Ghost.

What is the correct procedure to follow. Ie which partition do I ghost ???

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Dave

[raem]

I'm not totally sure I understand what you want to do. I think it's this.
Create your setup on the test server with the version of sme you want, then remove the drive from the live server and copy (ghost image) the whole drive contents from test HDD to live HDD (temporarily in the same box while ghosting) and then move the live drive back to the live box. It will probably take longer to remove and reinstal the drive than it will to do the ghost copying between the 2 drives.
If you copy the whole drive all the partitions will be copied and sized to suit the new HDD capacity.
I use Norton Ghost but there are similar GPL products.

Ray

[Dave]

Thanks Ray, that's exactly it.

Problem is when I use Norton's Ghost I see three partitions on the source drive, in this case the drive from the live box. I can't remember exactly how big each one is, I'll have to attempt to do it to get the exact sizes.

So maybe I'm selecting something incorrectly in Ghost to be able to see the three partitions ??

Dave

[raem]

Using Norton Ghost 2003 I just select to ghost the whole drive. All the partitions are copied the exact same size except / which is adjusted automatically to fill the extra capacity if the new drive is physically larger. I think it works the other way round too, ie if new drive is smaller, the / partition is reduced (I vaguely remember doing that too).
I never specified partition sizes etc, let the system do it automatically.
Best you experiment first if you're not sure of how to use Ghost.
Regs
Ray