Recently I installed a new 4TiB disk to house all backups I have, including those for Leap 15.1 and Windows 10 and older disks. My problem now is to get rid of the old 1TiB disk, witch is the /dev/sda with the boot loader. I am asking for your help to reinstall the boot loader on the new (/dev/sda) disk and how can I rename a disk to /dev/sda. Should I connect the 4TiB to the same connectors used by the old backup disk?
My disks are: /dev/sda the disk I want to get rid of
/dev/sdb the new backup disk
/dev/sdc the Windows 10 disk
/dev/sdd the Leap 15.1 disk
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
The output of “parted -l” is showed bellow:
Model: ATA WDC WD10EZEX-00B (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/phisical): 512B/4096B
Partition table: gpt
Disk options:
Number Start End Size File System Name Options
1 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB ext4 primary msftdata
Model: ATA WDC WD40PURZ-85T (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 4001GB
Sector size (logical/phisical): 512B/4096B
Partition table: gpt
Disk options::
Number Start End Size File System Name Options
1 1049kB 4001GB 4001GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
Modelo: ATA ST1000DM003-1ER1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/phisical): 512B/4096B
Partition table: gpt
Disk options::
Number Start End Size File System Name Options
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB ntfs hiden, diag
2 525MB 1000GB 1000GB ntfs msftdata
3 1000GB 1000GB 105MB fat32 boot, esp
Modelo: ATA ST1000DM003-1ER1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/phisical): 512B/4096B
Partition table: gpt
Disk options::
Number Start End Size File System Name Options
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB fat16 boot, esp
2 525MB 984GB 983GB ext4
3 984GB 1000GB 16,7GB linux-swap(v1) swap
When you unplug the current “/dev/sda”, the disks will probably be renamed as you want.
As for installing the boot loader – how is it installed now? I see some ESP partitions. That suggests that you are using UEFI booting. And those ESP partitions are not on “/dev/sda”. So maybe it will just work already (if you are using UEFI booting).
When I installed the new backup disk I did not remove the older one. After doing the back up of the Leap and Win10 disks I unplugged the old backup disk and restarted to the Leap system in the Grub2 menu, but after a while the screen showed the console prompt as root user. So I reinstalled the old backup.
All four disks are GPT/EFI, but I don’t know what means UEFI booting. The Win10 and the new backup disks are NTFS. The Leap and the older backup disks are ext4.
About the the boot loader, I have no idea how it was installed. I just installed Leap 15.1 in the same disk used by the former installation of Leap 15.0. The Windows 10 was already installed, as was the old backup disk.
Is it possible to install the boot loader manually?
Check cat /etc/fstab and if the drive is in the list remove it (need to be root to edit the file). Then you should ale to boot without the drive in the machine.
If unsure post output here using code tags (# in editor tool bar)
berredo@linux-9i0p:~> cat /etc/default/grub_installdevice
cat: /etc/default/grub_installdevice: File or Directory not found
berredo@linux-9i0p:~> cat /boot/grub2/device.map
cat: /boot/grub2/device.map: File or Directory not found
About the former system configuration, I had three 1 TiB disks:
Leap 15.1
Windows 10
Backup
The Backup and Windows 10 disks were NOT automatically mounted.
With the new 4 TiB backup disk installed, the the old backup disk IS automatically mounted
All backup operations (Leap and Win10) were (and are) made by running scrips in Leap system after mounting the Backup and Win10 disks.
After the backup operations the Backup and Windows 10 disks are manually unmounted.
I am not an expert, but it seems to me that there is a /home partition on the old backup…
If true, is it possible to put the /home back on the Leap 15.1 system and get rid of this old_backup?
Based on your “parted -l” output, your EFI partition is on “/dev/sdc”. So that should remain unchanged.
It looks as if you linux system is currently on “/dev/sda”. But if you install to a new disk, that should update the UEFI boot information, so that you will boot from there. And UEFI booting normally use UUID to identify disks, so should continue to work after doing something that changes the disks.
In other words, the booting should take care of itself, as long as you install to the new disk in UEFI mode (boot the installer in UEFI mode).
You need an EFI system partition, a system partition and a home partition. Home can be a folder in the system partition, but this is cumbersome. You may want ext4 for the system partition. One of my configurations is: