UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

can someone shed just a little light in the broadest sense, not actual commands, on what is involved in copying a UNIX install from one HD to another, or if that is even possible

Can I use DOS as a frame of reference or is that at all relevant? With DOS (and early Windows versions) You could copy all the o/s files from one disk to another, but the second disk would not boot unless you did the:
sys [drive letter:] command to move the correct system files to the boot sector of the target storage device.

If I simply copied all files from one Unix HD to another HD, I am guessing the second HD would not boot the first machine? Is it possible to copy UNIX to the second HD and make the second HD boot the first machine?

Again, not looking for step by step instructions, just wanting to understand what has to happen in general.

I know there are some license issues, but I am licensed to use the product and all I want to do is backup the Unix install and understand what I am doing instead of just typing a bunch of commands.

A bootable disk contains an OS-specific boot code. It is not a regular file.
Also there is partitioning information on the disk, and this is not a regular file either.
The frame where files are stored in is called a filesystem. Microsoft DOS only understands FAT filesystem, Windows understands FAT and NTFS filesystem. But SCO-Unix certainly uses a different file system. Linux understands many filesystem types, maybe the one from SCO-Unix.
You all-files backup will miss the boot code, the partitioning information, the filesystem.
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The BIOS on an X86 PC requires the disk to have an MBR, master boot record. This can contain the boot code, or contains code to find another boot code block (that in turn can find another boot code).
My knowledge ends here. Look at Wikipedia. Hope that other guys here know more...

It has been a while but IIRC I used

Code:

dd

as drive duplicator in an earlier version. Pulled the old drive out, put the newly created drive in its place, and it came up running.

Also used ghost on one long ago. Suspect that acronis would do the same.

you could also tar+gz (almost) everything and restore it later (using some LiveUSB for eg), but as pointed out, you'd need to create partitions, boot and filesystems manually.
advantage over dd is: backup takes less space and it defrags on unpacking.
disadvantage: more complicated, might take more time.

If you think that you are likely to want to do this on any kind of regular basis, I would suggest that Clonezilla is an excellent tool. However in some cases it will require that the system is taken out of production to allow the clone.

Works at a full disk level, partition level or even a file system level - from experience it works on almost all X86 systems and all the combinations of OS.

Regards

Dave