in case it's useful, a simpler way to duplicate the partitions from /dev/hda to /dev/hdc is the following:

sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk /dev/hdc

or in two steps:

sfdisk -d /dev/hda >hda.txt

sfdisk /dev/hdc <hda.txt

as for copying, i like to mount both the source and dest fs's in subdirectories of /mnt - avoids having to worry about not copying stuff like /proc - and then use rsync. something like this:

cd /mnt

mkdir sys1 sys2

mount /dev/hda1 sys1

mount /dev/hda5 sys1/usr

mount /dev/hda6 sys1/var

mount /dev/hda9 sys1/home

mount /dev/hdc1 sys2

mkdir sys2/usr sys2/var sys2/home

mount /dev/hdc5 sys2/usr

mount /dev/hdc6 sys2/var

mount /dev/hdc9 sys2/home

rsync -avuSHl --delete sys1/ sys2

the "/" after "sys1/" in the above matters. you can add a "-n" to the above and pipe it into less if you want to preview what it'll do.

ya gotta love 'nix - so many ways to get stuff done.

regards,

al