disk error / failure: need help! (smart failure predicted)

[iaccounts at northnetworks.ca (Steve Bertrand)]

> in one of our servers we have a disk where the bios reports
> 
> 	failure predicted (SMART)
> 
> unfortunately this happens to be our start volume (ad0) which has
> several slices/partitions.
> 
> At the moment the disk works (still). What is the easiest way to
> copy everything from this disk to another new one (including boot
> mgmr, mbr)
> 
> the system has in total 3 disks, but only the first (the broken one)
> is bootable.
> 

Put in another disk drive temporarily, and since this is only a one time
thing, you can use dd. Try to eliminate most, if not all access to the
box:

# dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/ad4

Substitute ad4 with the dev name of the temporary drive. Once dd is
done, take out the primary disk and replace it with the new clone. Read
man dd(8) as I don't know off the top of my head what the optimal
options would be for dd in this case.

Steve

> thanks,
> arie
> 
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-- 
Steve Bertrand
President/CTO,
Northumberland Network Services

t: 905.352.2688
w: www.northnetworks.ca