# Reinstall OS whilst saving ZPOOL data



## Mr-T (Feb 26, 2012)

Greetings,
I've recently upgraded from FreeBSD 8.2 to FreeBSD 9 using the [CMD=""]freebsd-update[/CMD] command. Since installing FreeBSD 8 nearly 12 months ago I had always known I would be reinstalling as I messed up my partition sizing, but now I've decided the time is here (predominately as I don't have the space in /usr to build Asterisk from ports, and also I boned my apache22 and php52 installs during upgrade - yes *I*'m a noob).

I have a HP N36L with a 250GB HDD which I use for my OS, and 4x2TB drives in a ZFS Raid-z zpool. 
[CMD=""]zpool list[/CMD]            


> NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
> data0  7.25T  3.48T  3.77T    48%  1.00x  ONLINE  -



Is it possible to reinstall and not lose the data in the zpool? I was considering removing the 4 drives in the zpool, reinstalling the OS, and plugging them back in to the fresh install. Would this be the best method to keep the data? would plugging them in to a fresh install auto mount the /data0 zpool?

Also, is it possible to install from a USB stick, as I don't have a cd/dvd drive.


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## Mr-T (Feb 26, 2012)

http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-pre.html <-- USB installation looks pretty straight forward. Just need to sort out the ZFS stuff and i'll be set!


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## Mr-T (Feb 26, 2012)

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=20125

Further searching has yielded a resolution. Sorry for the unnecessary thread.


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## gkontos (Feb 26, 2012)

Reinstalling the OS will not hurt your pool. You can export it for precaution, reinstall and then import it back.
You don't need to remove any drives. Just make sure that you specify the correct disk for OS installation in the bsdinstaller.


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