[CLOSED]Moving Mageia partitons on boot drive - Clonezilla

[Myles]

Hi there again,
Not sure if I should be asking this here or in a Clonezilla forum, but here goes (as it does relate to Mageia).

I currently have a 240Gb SSD boot drive. (MBR) On this is the following: 100Mb Windows 7 reserved partition (NTFS); a 58Gb Windows 7 partition (NTFS); a 19Gb Mageia 7.1 / partition (less /var & /home) (Ext4); a 48Gb Mageia 7.1 /home partition (Ext4); a 14Gb Mageia 6 complete partition (Ext4) and finally (for some reason I can't remember) another 14Gb (Ext4) partition then free space.

I have had myriad problems with my system over the past several months, (which I had opened various issues here on the forum some I haven't).

Anyway I suspected my SSD so I purchased a new 500Gb SSD, but I am also getting my system upgraded at the same time - new MB and CPU, RAM and bigger power supply.

What I want to do is get the partitions onto the new drive, (not necessarily the MGA6 or spare one) BUT I would like to expand the 58Gb Windows 7 partition slightly to 70Gb and also my /home drive slightly, which means having to move Mageia / and /home partitions to the right as well. I can get rid of the MGA6 and spare partitions I'm pretty sure.

I'm going to use Clonezilla to either clone the existing SSD to the new SSD and then move and expand the partitions, or create the new larger partitions on the new SSD and restore the partitions into the larger partitions.

BUT, if I do either of these, what will happen by doing this (AFTER moving & expanding the partitions on the new SSD, will the cloned GRUB still be able to locate Mageia to boot it seeing that the start of the partition will have moved? Will I still have access to my /home drive/partition? Will I have to re-install GRUB? I just don't know how GRUB works - if it has the start of the partition hard-coded or not. I read an article on how GRUB2 and the boot process works but I'm still unsure of how it will affect what I want to do.

Any help or assistance greatly accepted.
Sorry if this is in the wrong place or is not relevant.

[doktor5000]

Grub references by partitions, so if you don't change the partition order then there should be no issue.
And you'll always have access to your /home partition as long as you don't corrupt the data.

Apart from that I'd take the opportunity to reinstall from scratch. A lot of cruft builds up over time, and as you only have a dual-boot system I'd say reinstall freshly and then move your documents / configuration back one by one or redo them.

I also don't think your problems will go away by simply using a new SSD. You don't go into details what particular problems, but I'd say that sounds more like configuration issues and not hardware-related.

[Myles]

doktor,
Thanks for that. It's lucky I have my laptop to write this on. As for the multitude of problems I was having you helped me with 2 or 3. As for the SSD I had had problems, on and off, with that for over 18 months or more. Plus it was a good excuse to update my 7 year old system.

Anyway, the issue is moot now as I just picked up my newly upgraded PC only to be informed that Windows 7 won't work on the new hardware (UEFI?). I didn't have time to check the booting of the system to check if GRUB2 works or not as the shop was closing. But I could run Windows 7 in Virtualbox couldn't I? This isn't so much of a problem as I rarely use the Windows partition.

Will GRUB2 work? (I haven't plugged in the upgraded PC as yet to test that). Also will Mageia 7.1 work on the new hardware: Gigabyte Aorus Elite Z490 Motherboard with Intel 10500 i5 CPU with 32Gb RAM? I haven't had time to test that either via the install DVD.

I was now thinking of creating larger partitions on the new SSD and cloning my current Mageia 7.1 partitions to the new larger ones but I'd have to install GRUB so it finds the relevant partition. Would that be possible, or, as you suggest, bite the bullet and take the opportunity to do a complete re-install (considering if Mageia 7.1 will install and run that is).

If I do re-install (most probable), does the new SSD (which will be the new boot drive) have to be GPT?

Sorry about all of the questions, it's just that I'm completely unsure of everything now. I really should have done more investigation - a lesson learned!

Anyway, any help is really appreciated.

[doktor5000]

You're mixing up quite a few things. Windows 7 supports UEFI just fine, not sure what you've been told. grub2 and Mageia also supports UEFI just fine.
I don't know whether Mageia will work on the new hardware, you could try with a live DVD.
And for the new install, the SSD doesn't have to be GPT formatted, and you also don't have to enable UEFI - only if you want a regular windows 10 installation.

[Myles]

doktor,
Yes, sorry that reply was pretty muddled up. My head was all over the place with this information I was told.

What you have said I sort of was actually pretty sure of for myself - both for Windows 7 and GRUB & Mageia. I' m not sure the PC install tech selected a drive to boot from so it just defaulted to the BIOS, then he tells me that Windows 7 won't boot with EFI. As I said, it was very late and the shop was about to close so I didn't have time to test it booting from my original SSD.

I finally got to read the M/B manual this evening (was out all day) and I can set it to Legacy settings if I had to (if that helps)

I was going to plug everything in tomorrow morning. I'll have to download the "Live" DVD and boot up with it tomorrow to see.

I will also try to test it booting from my original SSD.

If that fails I'll have to try booting with the "Live" DVD.

Failing that, I''ll have to lok at other options.

Darn fine mess I've gotten myself into!

As always, thanks for your assistance.

[doktor5000]

I' m not sure the PC install tech selected a drive to boot from so it just defaulted to the BIOS, then he tells me that Windows 7 won't boot with EFI.

Maybe he meant that as the PC was configured at that time (BIOS / legacy boot) windows 7 wouldn't boot in UEFI mode.
Which is correct, once installed one way or the other you cannot really convert it, you basically have to reinstall.

[Myles]

No, it seems as though this M/B will only run Windows 10 64 bit and therefore doesn't support Windows 7.

I have also been flabbergasted by the BIOS - I cannot for the life of me get the list of my drives under the "Boot" setting to be able to choose a boot device - either the DVD or my SSD!

I haven't had a chance to boot the Live DVD as yet as I said above, I can't see my drives to select to boot from so can't boot the DVD. I'm going to take my machine back to the shop and have the tech show me exactly how he was able to list them. Soooo frustrating!

I'll update when I know more.

[benmc]

having a quick gander at your bios manual, there is an option: CSM support => disabled.

if your existing drives are not UEFI bootable, ie do not have the /boot/EFI partiton, they will be not be displayed as bootable.
in saying that, if your install (Mageia 7 or later) media was made using isodumper, they shoud be displayed.

so, enable CSM support and reboot the bios and see if the drives are listed.

edit: I have an Asus gigabyte board, and it utilises a magic boot key on the keyboard[F8]
when this key when pressed at the correct moment during the boot splash, displays a list of all bootable drives.
the list can be made to include legacy only/ UEFI only / or all, via the CSM support setting.
my bios is obviously different that yours tho'.

[JoesCat]

No, it seems as though this M/B will only run Windows 10 64 bit and therefore doesn't support Windows 7

BIOS may need to be set to other-OS - and to keep your install simple, you may want to turn-off UEFI and CSM, plus set USB as "Full-initialization". Install Windows 7 first, then after it is up, use Mageia to resize the drive and install it to the higher "cylinder" locations. Avoid partitions higher than sda9 - there are still some old bits of software that confuse sda1 and sda10.
You may also find that some chips and hardware is NOT recognized since they were created long after Windows7 was supported.

If installing windows10, you are pretty-much required to use UEFI, you may have trouble with CSM. Turn-off CSM. After installing, start a command-line and set chkdsk /f before exiting (this way it checks after we've modified the drive). Use Mageia to resize then install to the upper "cylinders" - once again - avoid going beyond sda9 to avoid old scripts confusing sda1 with sda10,sda11,sda12....
If you have trouble resizing/installing - find the latest GParted and this will be needed instead for resizing the Win10 install.

In terms of SSDs - they are great for reads, but take note that SSDs wear-out quickly with writes, some are as bad as 500 writes worth of life, while the better ones are in the 10,000 to 100,000 writes worth of life. The better SSDs will tell you how many writes you can expect, or years based on an estimated write use. For example, a good SSD may claim to be 5years, but are built as maybe 750GB (with only 500GB available to the user), then as time passes, the worn-out bits are substituted in tiles of X amount of memory space - maybe small or large depending on the manufacturer, so "internally", the 750GB, becomes 740GB,730GB,720GB.....510GB,500GB ....and then you begin to notice...490GB,480GB,470GB......

Also - Try not to fill your SSD to the maximum, but leave 10% or more free space - this will also give you buffer space to see the SSD wearing-out before you run into trouble....240GB,230GB,220GB.....out of free space.
If you decide to test your 240GB SSD you will probably note it is not 240GB any more, but maybe has less space available now, like maybe 200GB,180GB,160GB or something less than 240GB. It is best to replace it - unless you are going to use it for read only storage - but assume it is worn ....like using a bald tire on a car - it will go only so far before it destructs.

[Myles]

benmc,
Thanks for the reply. In times past when we have "talked" over one of my problems I didn't realise you were a cousin from 'across the ditch!'.

I enabled " CSM Support" and have Mageia 7.1 booted and running!!! Yay! EXCEPT I have no internet as I don't have the updated Realtek driver installed for the new 2.5GbE connection. I have downloaded it via my laptop (how I am replying to you) and will have to see if I can manage to get it installed without messing up my system!

I tried to boot Windows 7, it started but then I got the BSOD, so, no, it won't boot (as expected) so I'll I have to install Windows 10 (for the few times I actually use it!).
Now saying that, if I install Win X, will it boot in CSM mode or will I have to swap to UEFI. I have seen some posts (just searched) where people have installed Win X in CSM mode and if in UEFI it won't boot. Anyway, that's not Mageia related so I'll have to ask the tech (Asian and hard to understand) about that.

JoeCats,
Thanks for your helpful input. Yes the original SSD as you can see had my entire Win 7 system on it as well as the Mageia / and my /home. So it was getting written to quite a bit to the /home partition. I was going to do the same layout once again, except it look like I'm going to have to install Win X on the new SSD, then see if I can clone my / and /home to larger partitions on the new SSD. If that fails, I'll just have to restore them and then move then expand on the drive.

As I said to the good doktor, I will report back what transpires. I am taking the PC back to the shop this afternoon.

Anyway, it is great to have made some progress and be able to boot my Mageia system, even though I have no internet as yet.

[Myles]

Okay,
Not long back from the shop. Hooked up the system, copied over the Realtek driver.
AND, I managed to install it without stuffing up my system (rare for me!).
I am writing this on my upgraded desktop with the new Realtek 8125 2.5GbE driver installed!!!!!

I got Win X when I was down there that and installing that and the moving the existing Mageia partitions will be the next challenge.

If I can't successfully copy/clone them to the new SSD, I guess I'll have to re-install. I rather not go down that road again if I don't have to though!

I'll keep you posted.

[JoesCat]

Cloning a drive might not be quite the choice I'd choose here.
Cloning is basically taking a picture/photograph of the drive, and then trying to paint the same picture on the new drive.
Since the new drive is larger, I also expect that you likely gave more space for the partitions, and therefore the geometry is not going to be the exact/same either. copy may be the better choice.

I would suggest creating a live distro USB stick or CDrom:
dd bs=10M if=mageia.iso of=/dev/sdb
...assuming the USB stick is larger than 4GB and assuming it is /dev/sdb

then, add both good and bad SDDs to the PC, and boot from the USB stick.
as a live distro, you can open the bad SSD partitions, and the good SSD partitions....
my preference is /mnt/
su - <note the '-'
fdisk -l
md /mnt/a1
mount /dev/sda1
md /mnt/a2
mount /dev/sdb1
konqueror (or dolphin) (note it's running on the live distro as root/su)
....then graphically drag/copy from /mnt/a1 to /mnt/a2
or using commands...
cp -pR /mnt/a1/* /mnt/a2/

If you can't hook-up 2 SSDs and live distro at the same time, another choice is to use tar to backup the bad partitions, and tar to restore to the good partitions:
tar -czf ....
tar -xzf ....
be careful where you save the tar files, for example, VFAT cannot handle files larger than 2GB, therefore use split and cat, something like this (I think):
tar -czO....... | split -b 638m - backup/backup.img.gz.
cat backup/backup.img.gz.* | tar -xz.....

[Myles]

JoesCat,
Thanks for that further info. The Mageia partitions on the original SSD aren't 'bad' per se, but I suspect the drive is showing it's age (7 years with a lot of writes).

So I was going to use Clonezilla to manage the clone/copy/restore (whatever is best) to get my current Mageia partitions onto the new SSD into larger partitions.

But now I have more to consider and ponder.

[benmc]

hello from across the ditch.

you might like to try this before running it on your new system.

create a new install Mageia7.1 medium USB using Isodumper -its in the repos.
Conveniently, all Mageia 7 and up (bar net-install32) are UEFI enabled.
Create an image of your HDD/SSD to an external drive, swap the drive out and then check that your backup is ok by re-imaging the drive.
(Clonezilla is great for this, it can reinstall 1,2 or any amount up to all partitions from the image)
reset your bios to UEFI only - CSM disabled.
this will allow you to boot up your Windows - check to be sure.
boot to your new Mageia7 install media.(it will have booted in UEFI mode.)
rerun your install, choose not upgrade, but install, and custom disk partitioning, but when you select your (existing) partitions for /, (and or/swap & /home), do not format them.
choose your desktop and go.
The installer will then install the necessary files for UEFI install and complete in a few seconds. (a dirty re-install (TM))
reboot and you should have both Windows and Mageia available in your boot menu.

if successful, rerun the install using your original SSD/HDD.

best of luck

[Myles]

Thanks benmc.
Wow, even more to consider. This approach sounds plausible but I'm not that adept at using Clonezilla (I've only used a couple of times, but need more practice).

I'll have to see how I go. At the moment I am having to go back in time with the Win X install (had to download a 2018 ver of Win X - yet to install in Virtualbox to test) as M$ have completely removed the option to have a local account (luckily I tested the install in VB first!) so they force you to have an online account that tracks you. I don't think so!

So once I get that sorted I'll return to my Mageia problem. At the moment I'm just enjoying having access to my Mageia system once again!

Bummer about the new cases over there, though nothing like we have here though!

I'll keep you posted.

[benmc]

Bummer about the new cases over there, though nothing like we have here though!

a BIT OT:
yep, only 13 new cases today.
unbelievable how difficult it has become to do my job- I am well out of Auckland, but parts / service all come through there- no phones /emails are being answered / actioned- frustrating.

Monday just gone- advising customers that - yep, part should be here weds /thurs.
Today- looking at 4-6 weeks for same, on the bright side.
highly likely that country will go into a 2 week lockdown - stay at home- only essential essential trips - medical / supermarket, while tracing of all likely infectees done and testing of same.
then when hotspots ID'd, continue lockdown or ease? to something less draconian.

it is what it is.

[kajosim]

Yes, first get your Windows sorted out. Not only does it track you, it also tracks the hardware it is running on.
Maybe try installing Windows without network connection.
Maybe install yout old Win7 in a VM. Depending on your needs you maybe can upgrade Win7 to Win10 without an online account.
Making a clone of the Win7 VM you can test upgrading without loosing the original VM.

[Myles]

Sorry people that I haven't updated for a little while. I was busy and ran into a few setbacks testing install of Win X in VirtualBox. Sorted out how to install with a local account (yes, just drop network connection and proceed). kajosim, I didn't think you could still upgrade from Win 7 to X still hence why I bought X.

Anyway, X is is installed on the new SSD now.

So, now I turn my focus on getting copies of my current Mageia partitions from the old SSD to the new one. I'll have to go through what you wrote benmc and Joecats and decide on a strategy.

I'm thinking of using GParted to create the larger partitions on the new SSD to house my restored partitions (taken with Clonezilla).
Then use CZ to restore the most recent partition copies (taken just prior to doing the GParted larger partitions work) to the new SSD. Then install GRUB.

Anyway, thatś where I'm up to ATM.

benmc
boy, sounds like itś pretty rough with the lockdown - similar to Victoria over here. It finally looks as though Vic have finally turned a corner and the case numbers are falling. Hopefully NZ will be able to control your breakout soon!

[Myles]

Not sure if anyone is still listening or not, but I'll update anyway.

Sorry people that I haven't updated for a little while. I was busy and we were having things done to the house.

Anyway, X is is installed on the new SSD now.
This afternoon I used GParted to shrink and move the Windows X partitions on the new SSD
After this I test booted into Windows X and it booted fine.

I then usied GParted to create the larger partitions on the new SSD to house my restored partitions (which I will take with Clonezilla).
Then use CZ to restore the most recent partition copies to the new SSD. Then install GRUB. Test boot.

Anyway, thatś where I'm up to ATM.
Does this sound like it should work successfully or should I install Mageia 7.1 onto the new partitions on the new SSD + GRUB - THEN dump the CZ images into the larger partitions with the new install of Mageia in it?

[benmc]

I was busy

life happens, we know (see also => the brown stuff hit the whirly thing)

anyway, on to more pressing matters.

what you propose should work (everything works *in theory*).
the only issue I see is that you are not restoring your grub bootloader.

how-ever that should be easily done by using the rescue function of your Mageia Classical install media- not currently available on the Live media.
if all else fails (and you do not have Classical install media to hand) you could make a net-install USB, and using a wired internet connection, re-install your bootloader that way.

best of luck

edit: just re-read all the topic.
the issue will be the bootloader.
so you have to re-install M7.1 and then overwrite with your CZ image,

[Myles]

benmc,
D'OH! I meant to write in my post that after restoring my current Mageia 7.1 partitions (taken via CZ), I will certainly re-install the GRUB bootloader via my full install USB (that I created recently) or via my original DVD.

So, hopefully I will get to that this week (fingers X)!

[Myles]

Okay,
I FINALLY got the partitions copied to the new SSD - with GParted of all things! I didn't know I could do that till - after a a LOT of searching the web on how to copy/clone single partitions I came across some instructions and they actually worked!
So far, so good.

So I re-booted with my newly created Mageia 7.1 USB (partly to test it) to install GRUB onto the new SSD.
Well, that DIDN'T turn out so well! I got an error msg to say it failed:

Code: Select all

Error: <grub2-install: error: /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi/modinfo.sh doesn't exist. Please specify --target or --directory.

So I re-booted into my existing Mageia - system on the old SSD (this one) - and checked on this. Yes indeed I am missing this directory and files. All I have is a i386-pc folder full of files.

So obviously I need to install this from somewhere/somehow, but I know not where.

SO CLOSE!!!!!!!!!

Any help greatly appreciated.

[doktor5000]

So obviously I need to install this from somewhere/somehow, but I know not where.

That is pretty easy to find out, urpmi will tell you which package contains a filename you're looking for.

Code: Select all

[doktor5000@Mageia7]─[18:48:33]─[~] urpmf /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi/modinfo.sh
grub2-efi:/usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi/modinfo.sh

[benmc]

All I have is a i386-pc folder full of files

this usually means that the install is 32bit.
so the question is, was the original Mga7 install 32 or 64 bit?
this also means that you wont easily be able to boot in UEFI mode.
(most UEFI systems are 64bit UEFI boot, unless you have something like a tablet/2in1, then it is likely a 32bit UEFI boot)

so you need to reinstall with a 64bit system, saving your new /home partition (dont format it)

[Myles]

benmc,
I can't believe that. I'm sure I downloaded the 64bit edition to burn to DVD. I just checked my DVD and it is indeed the 64bit edition with the EFI folder.

So the only thing I can think of that may have caused this is that my previous motherboard (that I just replaced - 7 years old) wasn't EFI capable so the 64bit install didn't install it.

So it looks as though you are correct and I am - unfortunately - going to have to go through the entire rigmarole again of re-installing the system and everything I have installed since!!!!
Darn!
At least it has taught me that I can copy partiotins with GParted. that is handy.

I know from something the good doktor said to me, in reply to one of my previous problems a couple of years ago or so, that there was a way of finding out what is installed on your system via an rpm cmd?
Any ideas?

I have installed some other things that just run from folders so that is no problem.

If not, no worries and thankyou for all of your help, I really appreciate it!