need to switch computers without losing data

[Tom Poe]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Tuesday 13 February 2007, Tom Poe wrote:
>   
>> Anne Wilson wrote:
>>     
>>> On Tuesday 13 February 2007, Tom Poe wrote:
>>>       
>>>> My daughter has a PIII with FC5 on it.  Troubleshooting flowchart
>>>> indicates power supply died.  We're going to the UMN recycle store, and
>>>> get a PIII or newer.  Can someone point me to the steps needed to take
>>>> the hard drive out of the dead computer, and put it in the new computer,
>>>> and not lose the data?  I'm thinking there might be issues with just
>>>> switching hard drive to another computer with different hardware
>>>> configuration.
>>>> Any help appreciated,
>>>>         
>>> My advice would be to mount the drive from the dead computer as a second
>>> drive, then wipe the hard disk in the new computer and install FC6 on
>>> that. Put /home on a separate partition on that drive.  All your data,
>>> settings, bookmarks, cookies etc. will be on the second drive and can be
>>> copied into the new /home.
>>>
>>> The reason I suggest doing it this way, rather than just using the /home
>>> on the second drive, is that configuration files used in one version
>>> sometimes cause problems in the newer version.  This way you have access
>>> to everything you had before, and can use it with the new setup.
>>>
>>> Of course, you could always just put a new power supply in the existing
>>> computer.
>>>
>>> Anne
>>>       
>> Anne:  the phrase, "wipe the hard disk" is the same as, "install FC6
>> install CD, and select 'New Install'"?
>>     
>
> Depending on the state of the hard disk.  If it's a new one, yes.  If it's an 
> old one, it will have directories already on it, and you'll want to get rid 
> of them.  All of it is possible in FC6, but some of it not as visible as 
> you'd wish.  It would probably be easier to prepare the hard disk by booting 
> from a rescue disk and running gparted or qparted.  I may get battered for 
> saying this :-), but if you know someone with a Mandriva install or live 
> disk, their partitioning tool is very easy to use and very good.  You could 
> run the install until after the partitioning, then abort and install Fedora, 
> if that's what you want on the disk.
>
> Anne
>
>   
Anne:  Good points.  I got into trouble (still in trouble) when I moved 
my old FC5 install hard drive over to another computer as a slave 
drive.  I installed FC5 on the master drive, but now I have two of those 
virtual groups, so the slave group by the same name can't be accessed.  
Thanks for reminding me about that little detail.
Tom