You can copy a disk of a Compute Instance from one account to another. This is a great way to prepare a disk for another customer and transfer it from one individual account to another individual account. Or if you have multiple accounts, this guide provides instructions to consolidate all the disks in one account.

📘
If you're copying a disk from a Compute Instance that hosts applications, complete the backup and migrate steps for those applications.

Preparing the receiving Compute Instance

You need to prepare the receiving Compute Instance before initiating the transfer. First, create a Compute Instance with a new disks to hold the files from the other Compute Instance.

Creating a new receiving Compute Instance

Log in to Cloud Manager with the username and password you created when signing up.
Click Create at the top of the page and select Linode.
Click X to not choose any Image in the Choose a Distribution section of the Distributions tab.
Choose the region where you would like the Compute Instance to reside. If you're not sure which to select, see our Choosing a data center guide. You can also generate MTR reports for a deeper look at the route path between you and a data center in each specific region.
Select a plan.
Give the Compute Instance a label. This is a name to help you easily identify it within Cloud Manager's Dashboard. If desired, assign a tag to the Compute Instance in the Add Tags field.
Skip the Root Password and SSH Keys fields, as they are disabled when creating an empty Compute Instance.
Click Create Linode. The system directs you to the Linodes page that reports the status of the Compute Instance as it boots up.

Creating new disks

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A Compute Instance can have up to 50 disks.

To hold the files transferred from the other Compute Instance, create two new disks labeled copy and swap:

Select the Compute Instance that is receiving the disk. The Compute Instance's dashboard appears.
Go to the Storage tab and click Add a Disk in the Disks section. The Add Disk window appears.
Type a descriptive name such as copy for the disk in the Label field.
Select ext4 in the Filesystem dropdown field.
Set the size of the disk in the Size field. The size of the disk must be large enough to hold the contents of the disk that you want to copy.
Click Add to create the disk.
Repeat the steps to create a disk labeled swap and select swap in the Filesystem dropdown field. Ensure that the size of the swap disk is the same as that of the swap disk of the disk that you want to copy.

The system creates disks to hold the files from the disk of other account.

Booting into rescue mode

Start the receiving Compute Instance in rescue mode:

Select the Compute Instance that is receiving the disk. The Compute Instance's dashboard appears.
Select the More Options Ellipsis and click the Rescue button.
Set the /dev/sda field to copy and /dev/sdb to swap.
Click Reboot into Rescue Mode.

Access the Compute Instance in rescue mode

After the Compute Instance has booted, connect to it through LISH.

Select the Compute Instance that is receiving the disk. The Compute Instance's dashboard appears.
Click Launch Lish Console . A new window appears that displays the Lish console, a Welcome to Finnix! message, and a root prompt.
Set the root password for the Finnix rescue environment by entering the following command:
```
passwd
```
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This root password is separate from the root password of the disk that you normally boot from. Setting the root password for Finnix does not affect the root account of the distribution.
Type the new password for the root user.
Start the SSH server:
```
service ssh start
```

You can now connect to the server as root with the SSH client on the local computer.
The Compute Instance is now ready to receive the files from the other Compute Instance account.

Copy the disk

To start copying the files on the disk from one account to another, initiate the file transfer:

Connect to the source Compute Instance through an SSH client.
Type the following command to start copying the disk, replace 192.0.2.0 with the IP address of the receiving Compute Instance:
```
dd if=/dev/sda | ssh -C 192.0.2.0 "dd of=/dev/sda" status=progress
```

The following output appears. Enter yes to continue connecting:

The authenticity of host '192.0.2.0 (192.0.2.0)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 20:f4:de:4d:5c:6e:a9:c7:e6:1f:8a:ad:60:62:96:3f.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

The system prompts you for the root password. Enter the password you created in the last section when you started the SSH server:
```
root@192.0.2.0's password:
```

The file transfer starts, as shown below:

2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 391.504 seconds, 2.7 MB/s
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 387.843 seconds, 2.7 MB/s

Wait for the transfer to complete. Note that this process can take a while, depending on the size of your disk.

Verifying the disk

After the file transfer has completed, you should verify the disk by mounting it on the receiving Compute Instance. Ensure that the Network Helper is on for the receiving Compute Instance or the Static IP is configured to enable networking with the new IP addresses.

Connect to the receiving Compute Instance through SSH as root.
To check that the disks are transferred successfully make a new directory for the disk by typing the following command:
```
mkdir linode
```
Mount the disk by typing the following command:
```
mount /dev/sda linode
```

View the directories in the disk by typing the following command:

ls linode/

The output is similar to:

bin   dev  home  lost+found  mnt  proc  sbin     srv  tmp  var
boot  etc  lib   media       opt  root  selinux  sys  usr

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If the system displays any disk errors, then perform the Copy the disk steps again.

Now the Compute Instance is ready to boot from the disk.

Booting from the disk

Boot the receiving Compute Instance from the disk. First, create a configuration profile on the receiving Compute Instance, and then boot the receiving Compute Instance with the disk that you just transferred.

Creating the configuration profile

To boot the receiving Compute Instance from the transferred disk, create a new configuration profile:

Click the Linodes tab.
Select the Compute Instance that received the disk. The Compute Instance's dashboard appears.
Select the Configurations tab followed by the Add a Configuration button. The Add a Linode Configuration window appears.
Enter a name for the configuration profile in the Label field, such as Received disk.
In the Block Device Assignment section, set /dev/sda to copy and /dev/sdb to swap disk.
Click Submit.

You have successfully created the configuration profile.

Booting the receiving Compute Instance

Now to start the receiving Compute Instance from the transferred disk, select the configuration profile that you created:

From the Configurations tab of the Compute Instance's dashboard, find the Received disk configuration profile that you created.
Click the Boot button to restart the Compute Instance using the selected configuration profile, and boot from the transferred disk.

The Compute Instance boots using the disk you transferred.