I'm trying to move everything from my desktop's 2 500gb drives to my new Linux server. Here's the current setup:

My Desktop:

74GB Raptor - Boot
200GB SATA WD - Random stuff, usually used to test an OS
500GB Hitachi IDE - Music, Movies
500GB Seagate IDE - TV Shows (lots of them)

Linux Box (Compaq Proliant Server - P3 866MHz, 320MB Ram, Running Debian Etch):

18GB SCSI - Boot
300GB Seagate IDE - Games, Programs, Copy of Music
300GB Seagate IDE - Empty
300GB Seagate IDE - Empty

I want to get these 2 500GB Hard Drives out of my Desktop and into the Linux box. I can only have 4 drives total in the Linux box, because of the case size and the IDE Channels. (CD-RW on that system is SCSI, so it doesn't need a channel) The biggest problem is that the Server's drives are ext3, and my desktops drives are NTFS.

I'll probably throw one of the 300s in my system, or something like that. My problem I've been having is that I want to play with Linux on my desktop, and be able to reboot whenever I want, without my roommates complaining that the show/music/movie they were watching stopped. I want it all off my machine.

I also have an extra 320GB SATA that I could use temporarily to move things around. (it's going in my media center, but currently unformatted.)

Help.

Does your linux box have 4 IDE channels?

If so,
boot into a live CD via scsi cdrom.
Have:
2x300gb (You'll need to format the empty ones to ext3)
2x500gb

Copy everything from 1st 500gb to 300gbs.
Format 1st 500gb to ext3
Copy everything from 2nd 500gb to 1st 500gb
Format 2nd 500gb to ext3
Copy everything from 300gbs to 2nd 500gb.

Done.

Alternatively, if you can't get 4 IDE drives, you can do the same thing, but taking one of the drives out between steps.

That's pretty much exactly what I'm going to do. Thanks! I had to think it all through and have it written down.

I need a new hard drive. : ( 160GB is just not enough these days.

When I was younger, so much...

Apparently, I can't use Knoppix because I only have 320mb of RAM. I'm using Damn Small Linux now, but it keeps freezing while copying files. When I had Debian it never did that... The only big difference is in Debian I had a 2.6 kernal and in DSL I have a 2.4. Plus I'm running X, where in Debian I didn't want any fluff, so there was no X server or desktop env.

Any ideas? Perhaps another bootable distro that will run on 320MB of RAM, and has NTFS support. I don't want to fuss with installing Debian and then trying to recompile so that I have NTFS support. I just need it to get info from one of the 500gb drives to the other.

Modern kernels include FUSE which means you should be able to use either Captive or NTFS-3G without having to recompile the kernel. You won't be able to boot off of an NTFS partition but apart from that r/w support should be complete.

It's not included in any distribution and likely won't be included by default for many years, if ever.

Why not run Knoppix in console mode? That'll run on much less RAM if I remember correctly.

It seems like it's just the implementation of APM/ACPI that is the problem. It's either trying to spin down the hard drive or blank the screen, and that's when it freezes. i've been copying a little at a time, and going and moving the mouse every 10 min, and it hasn't frozen yet. If this works I can partition the 2nd 500gb to ext3 and load Debian, and be done with it.

...younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.

For me, that's always been plenty.

Imagine having to work off of an 8GB drive. I had to do that on one of my ubuntu machines earlier this year before I was able to salvage a larger drive. In the end, I had only 2GB to work with after the software/swap got allocated.

She's done! I now have 1.6TB (500gbx2 300gbx2) in a Pentium III.

Named her Sheila. Anyone who watches Red vs Blue will understand.

Thanks for the help all.