Hi all!
I currently have a new laptop (UEFI) with opensuse 13.1 and windows 8 (x 64 ).
I want to create a clone (exact copy of the laptops hard disk (750 GB) ) to another one of the same type but larger (1TB).
I found that it could be done using the command
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
but I am not sure if the clone disk will be bootable and if all the partitions (including windows8 ) and the OSs(win+suse) will work out fine.
Do I have to create an additional 250GB partition first? And how?
Thanks in advance!
On 2014-04-03 16:36, phaethon wrote:
> I want to create a clone (exact copy of the laptops hard disk (750 GB) )
> to another one of the same type but larger (1TB).
> I found that it could be done using the command
> dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
> but I am not sure if the clone disk will be bootable and if all the
> partitions (including windows8 ) and the OSs(win+suse) will work out
> fine.
The above is an exact copy, byte by byte, so it will have the exact same
partitions, identifiers, all.
Maybe it will boot, maybe not: it depends on what is used for booting.
UUIDs, for instance, will work. IDs, perhaps not, because part of the ID
depends on the disk serial number, I think.
> Do I have to create an additional 250GB partition first?
No, it will be destroyed.
The resulting copy will /think/ it is 750GB. You have to resize the
partitions later, if you can.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Try Clonezilla, it has a very good textual interface.
No, it won’t be bootable. Or, at least, it won’t be bootable to opensuse. Maybe you will be able to boot Windows, but I’m not sure of that, either.
However, it won’t be too hard to fix, if you know what you are doing.
First problem: the NVRAM entries used by the UEFI firmware may need to be updated to refer to the new disk;
Second problem: the “/etc/fstab” entries may need to be updated to refer to the new disk;
Third problem: the grub entries may need to be updated to refer to the new disk.
I guess the thing to do is to try it. Then be prepared to boot from live media to fix what shows up as broken.
I seriously doubt that the Windows OS will transport like that. Although I haven’t tried it with W8, the previous two versions of Windows would refuse to clone properly to a new system – or even to a new hard drive in the same system – much of the System gets broken.
But, you can try. Best bet would be with Clonezilla.
On 2014-04-04 05:36, Fraser Bell wrote:
> I seriously doubt that the Windows OS will transport like that.
> Although I haven’t tried it with W8, the previous two versions of
> Windows would refuse to clone properly to a new system – or even to a
> new hard drive in the same system – much of the System gets broken.
You have to clone the disk ID, or Windows may think that it is an
illegal copy. I did clone my laptop Windows to another HD, but it was
the same HD brand and model. AND, I had to clone the disk identifier in
fdisk.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Some tips when cloning your disk.
boot into any live media once you have cloned your disk and do the following.
Mount the partitions that has the files you need to edit. An example would be.
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
Adjust to your setup.
Edit this file and adjust to your new disk.
/boot/grub2/device.map
Using the output of.
ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/ata*
and
stat -c '%n' /dev/disk/by-id/ata*
You can see the ID and replace it with the new one.
This file you can (most of the time) cheat if you’re using mount by LABEL and not the default by-id, so you can probably skip it.
/etc/fstab
Look for the bootable flag in your disk, the * asterisk is what you’re after.
fdisk -l
This does not include UEFI/EFI system since i have not encounter them :-). You can just edit something about that uefi/efi but don’t ask me which one :-).
When you are done boot using the DVD, select installation then abort you will be ask again to install and other options too. Select BOOT-INSTALLED-SYSTEM and choose your (unbootable) cloned disk.
Open up yast and check the entries.
yast2 bootloader
If that is fine you can invoke grub2
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
Those are just some tips and it is a case to case basis imo, like if you have an lvm or btrfs and disk that do not use** by-id** , also i will not comment on your favorite Windows OS partition this aint Windows forum :-). You can play with it using a vm first
Good luck you’re gonna need lots of it 
I forgot to add.
mkinitrd
To see if your disk ID is correct. At least up until 13.1 mkinitrd still is present but it might not survive the next release in favor of Dracut. (maybe maybe not) 