Ubuntu :: Reinstalling But Keeping /home Partition?
Mar 15, 2010
I have a /home partition at /dev/sda3 and I am currently in Gparted. I wanted to know if I am supposed to re-identify it somehow when I re-install ubuntu on /dev/sda2.
It seems to me that it would try and create a new home directory on /dev/sda2 unless I tell it otherwise. Is this correct? I just want to make sure I don't do two things...
1. End up with 2 home directories
2. Delete my existing home directory at /dev/sda3 (with my files)
I have a netbook (Acer Aspire One ZG5) with ubuntu only partitioned this way:
/ swap /home
Since this ubuntu is 10.04 upgraded many times (since 8.04) I want to make a fresh install, and also want to take the oportunity to install and give a try to meego, so I want to...
/ ubuntu / meego swap (need to expand) /home (ubuntu)
My question is can I keep my current /home partition (which is encripted) and use it with my new 10.10? How?
I have Kubuntu 11.04 64-bit installed (software upgrade from 10.10) and I have a separate /home partition. I want to encrypt my /home partition (and perhaps the swap partition as well) but I don't want to have to reinstall Kubuntu. (Mostly because it was a software upgrade and I don't have an 11.04 disc.) I found a tutorial for Encryptfs via one of the stickies that mentions post-install migration, but it says that using Encryptfs on a separate /home partition is more complicated than if it were part of the root partition and that the CDs don't have any software to preserve and configure existing encrypted /home partitions. (Granted this tutorial is made for 9.04, so things may have changed.)
Also, this tutorial makes it sound like if you have your /home directory encrypted that the encrypted data is stored in a folder on the root partition. Is it done the same way if the /home directory is on its own partition? Because I don't think my root partition is large enough to have all of my /home data. (I purposely kept it small because the root partition doesn't seem to get very large.)
I'm upgrading to 11.3 (from 11.2) and will be keeping my current home partition. Will this keep my browser favorites? Also, I read somewhere that in order for things to work properly after upgrading (without reformatting my /home partition) that I would have to keep the same username AND user UID...? Is that true? How do I make sure I have the same UID if so...?
I purposely set up a seperate home partition so that when I changed distro's or upgraded I would still have my files, and some settings intact. (I switched distros a lot when I first started using Linux.) I set up a "bin" folder (in home folder) that had a couple of programs I had downloaded to keep from having to set up and configure everything all over again every time I felt like changing distro's as well.
Compiz settings, my entire GUI would freeze up after the startup splash. It did the little ubuntu jingle and so on but wouldn't actually load up the desktop. I would've booted into recovery mode and deleted the settings that were messing it all up for me, but pressing ESC during grub did nothing! So as a last effort I reinstalled Ubuntu (Karmic) from the live CD on the first partition only, but I don't know how to make the second partition (with my old /home directory) the normal /home directory. The instructions linked above seem to require having done the whole process of moving the partition (so as to create "old" and "new" dirs, etc.).
So there are really two problems here: 1) How does one restore things to normal when a few too many cheeky moves with the desktop effects turns everything to pot? And 2) How does one reinstall Ubuntu with a separate /home partitions
When the installer gets to the point to set up the partitions it offers something like
sda1 / sda2 /swap sda3 /home
I'm not sure which option to take now. I assume I choose the option to edit the partitions but I'm not clear how to preserve the /home as it's now got a different partition number or does that no matter as long as I choose not to format it? Also, to replicate the original partition structure I'd need to delete the partitions and add them in the correct order but would that destroy the /home?I'm a bit confused with how it will work.
I have 9.04 in my laptop and I want to make a clean install of Lynx.
My home partition is sda7 (ext4), so in the partition step during the install I'm telling the installer to use the partition as ext4 but don't format it (I'm explicitly checking sda6 as / mount point and set to format as ext4).
On the next step I see disabled options regarding the access to my home folder and "Require my password to log in and decrypt my home folder" is checked.
My current home partition is not an encrypted partition, so I am not sure of what will happen. I just want it to mount it and access it as Ext4, not encrypt it.
I also have a Private folder in my home partition, what will happen to it? Will I be able to mount it afterwards?
Trying to clean install 11.2 dual boot with Win xp already installed. How do I create a new home partition, don't want to preserve the existing home partition from a previous attempt. DVD installation and automatic config keeps saving the thing.
I have a dual boot windows XP/OpenSuse 11.3 system running from a hard drive. They are both 32 bit in spite of the fact that the system can run 64 bit.
I would like to upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit (the wife insists, not yet a Linux possibility) and OpenSuse 11.4 64 bit, but having the programme files on an SSD for faster loading, with my data files on the existing hard drive.
I'm happy with the notion of getting the SSD going as a dual boot system. With Windows, as I understand it, it can tell it fairly easily where to look for the "my documents" folder on the hard drive.
However, the Home directory in Linux is not quite the same. How (if it's possible) could I run the SSD but use my existing Home directory on the hard drive?
Having read several threads and received excellent previous advice there are just a couple of points I want to check please before proceeding on laptop. I want to upgrade to 11.4 from 11.2. My disk setup is as follows:-
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes 240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15505 cylinders Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes Disk identifier: 0x462d462c
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If I select existing /home root and swap partitions, format root but prevent formatting of /home and use a different user ID I believe that will leave my existing data intact and will allow me to trial new os. Is this correct approach? If all goes well and when I have new system working correctly, what is best way make old user id date accessible. Can I simply create my old id on new system and will that allow me to access data when I log on with that id?
Second question; at present I have the ability to boot to openSUSE, OS/2 and windoze. (It used to be done entirely by Boot Manager but during my last Linux installation I messed this up a bit so now machine boots to grub and this offers all three operating systems but chain loads Boot Manager if I select OS/2)
When I do the new installation what should I select to retain this setup so that I still have access to windoze and OS/2 but when selecting linux have new 11.4 system run.
I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 and I want to move to 10.10. The upgrade path would be very long so I want to do a fresh install. I have twisted a little bit my Gnome appearance (theme, icons in menu bar, etc.). I would like to install it, keeping all of my files in my home folder but using fresh visual settings from Maverick. What should I do?
I have a 32g usb stick and I am trying to install Ubuntu on it. But I want to keep 16g as storage space so that I can have it as a normal USB storage for daily use. It's my understanding that I need to create 2 partition ( Since I want to use ext4 for the system which windows doesn't recognize?). But when I created two logical partition and installed ubuntu onto the second partition <sdc6>, I can't seem to boot into there,the screen stays on the white cursor blinking mode, and the usb isn't being read. Is there any way that I could do this? I just want half used as storage and half as Ubuntu system.
I have triple boot machine Windows 7 + Ubuntu + Mac OS X in a single HDD.
Windows 7 -- /dev/sda1 Ubuntu 10.10 -- /dev/sda2 (In same Partition grub 2.0) Mac Snow Leopard -- /dev/sda3
I have installed GRUB 2.0 in same partition where current ubuntu is installed ie /dev/sda2 and basically Windwos Boot manager is installed within MBR.. & I have added GRUB 2.0 and Mac OSX entry into windows boot manger with some freeware from windows 7. So practically when I start my computer First Windows Boot manager comes up and asks me which OS to start first. I set up this type of installation with the thought that when grub 2.0 is not installed within MBR, I can format the whole /dev/sda2 partition without any difficulty and reinstalled any future release distro of ubuntu. So is it practically possible? If I format /dev/sda2 and reinstall new ubuntu release there.. Old grub won't affect the installation of new one.
Long story short, my Windows had a fatal crash the other day and since I couldn't find the installation disk, I burned the Ubuntu 9.10 disk image to a CD at a friend's place and installed it on one partition of the hard drive. The other partition contained tons of Windows programs and documents in an NTFS system. Ubuntu is cool and all, but when I finally found the Windows disk, I wanted to reinstall it for dual-booting, to use some programs that don't run well in Wine.
To keep some documents safe and not waste any CDs, I moved them over to the Ubuntu partition before installing Windows. As experienced ubuntuists know, the slightly clumsy Windows installer erases GRUB in the process, and it's recommended to install Windows first. So, now I ended up with a working Windows partition and an Ubuntu partition with all of the stored data, which I can access via guest status with the burned CD.
Here's the catch though - as a guest and without Linux properly installed I can't move anything I moved to the Linux partition from the Windows partition back anymore. All the folders have a little X on their top corner. I'd be glad to reinstall Ubuntu now, but I must know how to keep all that tranferred data safe. Can I keep it there during the reinstallation? Should I install Wubi on Windows and access the stuff through it?
I deleted the wrong line in grub.conf, and now cannot boot into my Windows Vista anymore. I really need to get it back right away, I am trying to do my taxes, and they are on there, and I can't get to them. I added this to grub.conf, but no luck.
recently i made a backup of my home directory in 10.10 before reinstalling 10.10. again.This time I chose to manually define the partitions (50GB Root, 25GB Swap, 325GB Home)Now i wish to migrate the old home into the newly installed home, which is on a separate partition.I have found the following documentation URL...Still, as a beginner I am not quite sure about the necessary steps to perform.As the new home is located on a separate partition is it possible to simple delete all directories there and copy all directories from old home to new home with rsync?
Do I have to install all the software that corresponds to the old home first followed by migrating home or first migrating home followed by installing the software such as thunderbird, Texlive2010 etc.Guess that migration should take place at a later stage. Otherwise my old profile files from firefox and thunderbird will be overwriten by new ones?
Been digging around and not finding anything that quite works.
Background: I had an existing 10.10 install and 10.04 on another partition. When I installed the 10.04 I told it to use the existing /home partition which is also being used by the 10.10 install. All good, both users have directories with all their data in the same /home partition.
Issue: So, as the 10.04 was 32bit (experimenting but another story) I decided I would replace with 10.04 64bit. All went well except when I did the manual partitioning I screwed up and instead of setting the existing /home partition to 'use but don't format' - which I think is what I must have done last time - I left it as 'don't use and don't format'. So, obviously, now the new 10.04 install has its /home inside /, which I don't want. I want it on the existing /home partition as it was with the previous 10.04 install.
Question(s): Is there any simple(ish) way of doing this without a reinstall? Not a major problem as I have only just installed and can do it again without losing anything but time, but I would like to figure out a way to do it without if possible.I want to essentially move the /home/user directory (rather than the /home) and make it /media/home/user inside the existing partition. Seems easy enough on the surface but becomes involved as I investigate.Ubuntu 10.04 minimal install with Xfce DE.
i have instaled ubuntu 11.04 wubi on my pc with windows 7. i installed and everything was going ok i navigate on ubuntu already. but the problems star here i went on my ubuntu to the partition section and i format my windows partion to be the home partion and changed the nfts to ext, i did the upgrades but i forgot that theyr running yet and i restart my computer when it boot again it gaves me an error:
try (0,0) : nfts5 : wubildr try (0,1) : ext2 :
and the windows7 says that i have to instal again. so i went to another pc and i made a cd boot and a pen boot. i burned the iso (downloaded from the ubuntu oficial site the 11.04 32 bit version) image to the cd and pen drive prperly, i adjust my boot options to star from usb or cd rom and nothing im struck.
I have finally been convinced to partition my 500GB hard drive from a two partition setup with root and swap to a three partition setup with root, swap, and home. I found a nice tutorial about how to do this, but here is my question:
A) How much space do I leave for the root partition and the home partition?
Installed Ubuntu along with Debian on my Notebook and use Grub Manager to choose between them on startup. Since i like Debian now a lot (in past days it was a very hard system to handle, but there has been some progress i noticed), i have to change some things (want Debian as main system now) For Ubuntu i have: (was meant to be main system on Notebook) "/", "/home" and a "swap" partition, but since i am now going to use mainly Debian, i wanted to store my files all in the "/home"-folder of my extended Ubuntu partition (has much more space available) not in the "/home" folder of the Debian system. So i want both (Debian and Ubuntu) to use the same extended partition ("/home") which i created for Ubuntu to save their files like downloads, videos, and so on.
My debian 5 is up and running smoothly and act as file-server in the middle of windows network jungle using samba the only problem is, after backup an external hdd (213 GB) to my /home partition, I end up with message say that I'm running out free space. Fyi my debian installed on 1TB SATA disk, and I separate my /home partition from system what happen to my free space ? here is screenshot of my disk, using disk usage analyzer: is there is a way to get my space back or something missing on my setup.or I have to reinstall my debian and use LVM when partitioning my disk?
I installed fedora 13 64 bit and it works great but I encountered several issues when setting up guest OS with KVM. The problem seems to be related to selinux. But let me first ask question about logical volume. By Default fedora created logical volumes:
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"If you expect that you or other users will store data on the system, create a separate partition for the /home directory within a volume group. With a separate /home partition, you may upgrade or reinstall Fedora without erasing user data files." seems to suggest I have to create a separate physical partition and assign that to /home. But reading elsewhere it seems to suggest logical volume acts like a partition. My goal is to make it easy in case fedora is hosed and I have to re-install it without affecting /home where my cirtical data resides. Given above do I need to create a separate physical partition or I am just fine?
I have a second hard disk that originally had windows and all my data. Windows is hosed but I can see my data from within Fedora and Windows is gone and I created created new partition in its place which used ot be the C:/ drive appears as 53 Gb filesystem. My data which was originally D drive appears as 215 GB filesystem. As given in [URL] I want to create a new logical volume in 53 Gb filesystem which I want to use as space for virtual disk to install guest OS's in KVM. Currrently 53 GB filesystem is mounted as /media/3467BH89JK789 but this does not work well with KVM. how do I create this logical volume out of 53 Gb filesystem partition and add proper selinux info and do I add to vg_vostrolx volume group and in a different volume group?
I have a separate ext4 partition which contains all my data (music, movies, etc). When I delete files from this partition it is very slow because it copies files from my data partition to the Trash folder in my home partition. How can I avoid this? Can't the trash be configured so that it uses a trash folder in each partition instead of copying files to another partition (which is slow).
i have windows 7 installed on my laptop and working fine..i want to install Open Suse 11.2 along side. I tried installing by booting with DVD for Suse. But it gave me warning to delete the windows partition.I would like to keep the partition intact with windows 7 and install Suse. Any suggestions ?I can create partition on my laptop but i do not want to modify the current windows structure.
i installed fedora kde 32 bit and iam realy loving it. but i want to resize my home partition as i got a message there is no space in my home folder i downloaded a Disk utility application .... to try and resize .... but looks like i dont know what to do
I was surprised not to find an existing thread on this anywhere, as I would expect this to be a common problem: I have the following partitions on my eee PC 100HE:
10GB Windows XP 5GB Linux Mint 8 5GB Ubuntu 9.10 NBR (awesome distro by the way!) 130GB Home partition shared by Linux Mint and Ubuntu NBR 2GB Swap partition shared by Linux Mint and Ubuntu NBR
I installed Ubuntu NBR after Mint. Immediately after install, the panel layout, menus and colour scheme were slightly messed up - presumeably because they had been "adopted" from the Mint settings in the home folder. I corrected them easily, but now I have the same problem in Mint. Is there any way I can get both distros to use the same /home folder, but different settings (i.e. the /home/username/. folders)? Can I get these settings folders put on a different partition for example?
And is this problem due only to the fact that these are 2 Ubuntu-based distros? Or will I have the same problem if/when I replace Mint with another distro, such as Fedora or Moblin?
Summary: I want to have /var (and perhaps /tmp and/or /etc) to be on the same partition as /home.
Right now I have a simple setup. 7.4 GB /dev/sda2 mounted as / and 137 GB /dev/sda3 mounted as /home. /var is important, because that's where I have tens of MySQL databases. This setup causes several problems: * I'd like to have /var separately from / so that I can freely erase everything on /dev/sda2 and start over. * I'm running out of space (~800MB free) and I'm afraid that it might not be enough to dist-upgrade to Lucid.
I tried copying /var to /home/var and making a symlink to it, but that didn't work (had to reverse it from LiveUSB).
How should it be done properly? I've read something about bind in fstab, but haven't found a straightforward solution.
that's my fstab:
Code: # / was on /dev/sda2 during installation UUID=6aaab958-6d51-41f1-8c07-e1139fc9b222 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # /home was on /dev/sda3 during installation
