You should find this helpful if you need to move your Linux installation to a different hard drive or partition (and keep it working) and your distro uses grub.

To start, get a live CD and boot into it then follow the steps outlined below.

Copying

    * Mount both your source and destination partitions.

    * Run this command from a terminal:

        $ sudo cp -afv /path/to/source/* /path/to/destination

      Don’t forget the asterisk after the source path.

    * After the command finishes copying, shut down, remove the source drive, and boot the live CD again.

Configuration

    * Mount your destination drive (or partition).

    * Run the command “gksu gedit” (or use nano or vi).

    * Edit the file /etc/fstab. Change the UUID or device entry with the mount point / (the root partition) to your new drive. You can find your new drive’s (or partition’s) UUID with this command:

        $ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/

    * Edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst. Change the UUID of the appropriate entries at the bottom of the file to the new one.

Install Grub

    * Run sudo grub.

    * At the Grub prompt, type:

        find /boot/grub/menu.lst

      This will tell you what your new drive and partition’s number is. (Something like hd(0,0))

    * Type:

        root hd(0,0)

      but replace "hd(0,0)" with your partition’s number from above.

    * Type:

        setup hd(0)

      but replace "hd(0)" with your drive's number from above. (Omit the comma and the number after it).

You should now have a bootable working copy of your source drive on your destination drive! You can use this to move to a different drive, partition or file system.

--
Techtip by Ningappa Koner published in the Linux Journal.