Copy sda2 -> sda1?

Many thanks for the responses. Let me address
the points you made. FWIW I spent over 30 years
in the data storage industry ( 67 -> 98 ) first
half as a Hardware Design Engineer ( Disks and Tape )
the second half in Sales and Marketing.

LarryT
------

> I guess you try to past sda2 ON sda1 ; you first
> need to destroy sda1, but this may cause problem
> because number will change....

I'll give that a try in the next days. Thanks

> You must know that gparted is not a backup tool,
> but a tool for partitioning :-p.

True but it can be, and I am attempting to use it as
a "mirror image" backup system.

> To backup, your'd better use partimage,
> which is within the livecd.

Thanks, I didn't know that was there. I'll look for it.

plors
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> actually, since the last couple of releases Gparted CAN
> copy to an existing partition AND to unallocated space

Yes, I am aware of that and it works just fine for me
so long as I am copying up in partition numbers not down.

Let me give you an example of one program I am using now

http://www.ranish.com/part/

The Ranish Partition Manager will actually boot from
floppy and works at a low enough level that you can bit
copy any partition it creates to any other partition.
Unfortunately The Ranish Partition Mgr is getting very
long in the tooth and cannot create EXT3 partitions.
I always make sure that the target partitions are
exactly the same size. This is also possible in GParted.

FWIW
----

Presently I am running a number of drives ( removable
drives ) using the Kingwin removable drive modules both
SATA and ATA. GParted works wonderfully well with those drives.
Most intersting is using GParted create an SATA ( 80GB ) test
drive with four partitions

MBR GRUB Text dual boot
sda1 EXT3 10GB Mandriva 2007
sda2 EXT3 10GB Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft
sda3 EXT3 59.5GB Just lots of shared space
sda4 500MB Linux Swap
IMO these two distros complement each other

another application:
MBR GRUB Text dual boot
sda1 EXT3 10GB Ubuntu 6.10 Basic Install
sda2 EXT3 10GB Ubuntu 6.10 test
sda3 500MB Linux Swap
sda4 EXT3 59.5GB Unallocated
This install allows me to work with ( blow it up )
sda2 test then when finished simply copy sda1 -> sda2
and start fresh again. Right now the lastest release
of Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft has some issues concerning
Multimedia codecs, how you install them and install in
what sequence is a problem.

I've been using Ranish on my server ( 160GB Mandriva 2006 )
and would like to transition that to EXT3 using GParted

160GB
MBR GRUB Text dual boot
sda1 EXT3 20GB Mandriva 2007 working copy
sda2 EXT3 20GB Mandriva 2007 backup copy
sda3 EXT3 119.5GB Just lots of shared space
sda4 500MB Linux Swap

In the last year I've only had to copy the backup partition
to the working partition only once. In this kind of a
backup setup your working backup copy is only a boot away.
No restore needed. You can then restore sda2 -> sda1 when
you have time for it.

Thanks again.