I have a whole disk mounted at /home. I am upgrading the computer (and the OS drive, so fresh install), and I would like to retain the /home directory (disk) as it is. How complex is this process? Is it worth doing it this way, or should I just start fresh and restore all the user files from backup?
Nothing on the drive is encrypted. Current and target OS are both Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 x64
Other answers I've found do not address /home being located on a separate disk.
Yes, you can. Just don't forget to NOT format it, and you'll need to mount it as /home/ in the new OS. Just add a line to /etc/fstab.
Note: This is changed after installation of Ubuntu!
To make a more specific answer, do this (change it to your desired text editor, I'll be using emacs)
sudo emacs /etc/fstab
And at the end there should be something that looks like this:
/dev/sda1 /home ext4 defaults 0 0
Now simply replace /dev/sda1 with your desired partition. To find all of your connected harddrives do
df -a
And there you can find it's /dev/sd(variable name.) After you do that, save exit, and do
mount -a
You're done and your home directory should be moved!
