I used opensuse three years ago. Then I moved to ubuntu, because it was easier for me to use ubuntu at that time. Now, I move back to opensuse again. But I want to know how to clone the opensuse system to another hard disk. I mean I have my opensuse well, I do backup to my opensuse system and restore it to another harddisk with the same partition.
When I used ubuntu, I used a very good small open-source software, named ‘Ucloner’. You can find it at ucloner - Backup/restore/clone your Ubuntu, and make Live-Ubuntu. - Google Project Hosting . It is very handy to backup the ubuntu system and restore or clone it to a new harddisk. Especially, when restoring the system, the grub can be installed to the new harddisc automatically with the UUID of the new harddisc (very amazing). But it is only for ubuntu. I am looking for a software with the similar function.
I have tried Clonezilla. No problem to do backup and restore. But I failed to boot the restored system even with the same harddisc. I know it is the problem of GRUB. Even reinstalling the grub, I still can not boot into the system.
My question is
is there any software that allows me to backup the opensuse and restore it to another harddisc with the grub installed to the new harddisc automatically?
If no software for question 1, what software or application is good to backup and restore the opensuse and how to reinstalled the grub to the new harddisc with different UUID?
Since the Ucloner is open-source, is there anybody having interest in change the ucloner code to fit for opensuse? I guess there should be much change, because ubuntu and opensuse are linux both? I am not family with the linux script, so I am looking for help.
@OP: you can use the ‘dd’ command to clone partitions, to another disk or to an ISO image. ‘man dd’ will show the manual pages. On a two disk system the command below clones the entire first disk to a second:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
Can be done after booting from a LiveCD or -USB-device.
You mean do this before reinstall the grub on the new harddisc? So I backup the opensuse and restore it to the new harddisc, then I change menu.lst and fstab file, and finally boot from a livecd and reinstall the grub to the new harddisc. Am I right?
I notice some people use ‘dd’ command. I will look into it. Just quick questions:
by using ‘dd’, I get a backup of the opensuse system in the form of a backup file or image file?
by using ‘dd’, the grub will be installed to the new harddisc automatically or I have to handle with the grub manually?
I am investigating the source code of ucloner mentioned in my thread. It seems be possible to fit it to opensuse (ucloner also supports Kubuntu, so why not opensuse?), so I will have a try. If there is anybody have interest, very welcome, because I am not family with python.
dd will make a one to one binary copy of the whole disk. You may also want to check out rsync it is better for backups since it only transfers changed files. Thus after first run it is faster. In any case if you change disks you need to modify menu.lst and fstab to match the name of the new disk.
I do this often, it’s how I “backup” my system partition, but I use Parted Magic ].
Basically, you can boot with partedmagic cd, start the partition editor to view your drives, select partition to copy, change to new drive and paste. Whether using partedmagic or DD, you will have to edit menu.lst and fstab. So, while within partedmagic, you can mount the “new” partition, and use the file manager (under system tools) to make those changes. I then shutdown, remove original drive and reboot pm to install grub with new drive as sda (assuming that’s what you’re doing) I still use an older version of pm (4.x) to install grub, not sure if it’s on current pm release.
btw, you may want to swith from uuid to /dev/sda format as it makes this a bit simpler.
>
>Try clonezilla, it’s very good.
>
>Still, you will probably have to change /dev/disk-by-id etc settings.
>
>I would change it to disk-by-label (I know UUID is probably better, but
>it’s MUCH easier to remember labels).
Actually i consider it a tradeoff. I leave it as disk-by-id (UUID) when i
am making backups. I use /dev/sda when i change boot disks. And i use
disk by label for removable USB drives that i move between computers, then
it has the advantage that on computers where it has never been before i
get a consistent mount point.
> 1. by using ‘dd’, I get a backup of the opensuse system in the form of
> a backup file or image file?
Image file.
> 2. by using ‘dd’, the grub will be installed to the new harddisc
> automatically or I have to handle with the grub manually?
In this case “automatically”.
Notice that the command as stated clones the entire disk, including the
partition table - which will be incorrect if the HD is not exactly the same
size - but can be corrected.
> I am investigating the source code of ucloner mentioned in my thread.
> It seems be possible to fit it to opensuse (ucloner also supports
> Kubuntu, so why not opensuse?), so I will have a try. If there is
> anybody have interest, very welcome, because I am not family with
> python.
Seems an interesting tool. But no, we don’t anything quite like it. You are
not the first one to mention it.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)