The laptop was just too darned cramped (not to mention geeting a tad old) so
I’m putting in a larger drive. The problem is showing up as being unable to
boot the system after I copy it over.
For the transfer I’m using oS 12.3, the os that is on the current drive.
The hardware is an older Toshiba Satellite A105 with 2GB memory, 32 bit AMD
processor. No speed demon but it has served me well thus far. I’ve had
12.3 running on it since that came out with no problems so the extra space
and (hopefully) a direct copy of this system as a testbed for 13.1 will ease
that transition.
What I did was to first install 12.3 fresh to a couple of partitions so that
I had a tool to work with. Then I copied the old drive partitions to the
new drive. I used cp then ran rsync to check that all was copied ok - the
copy didn’t miss a lick. I made the necessary changes to the copy of fstab
to get the disk IDs correct. I also manually edited the /boot/grub2 files
to get the correct UUID info, etc. The fresh version of 12.3 picked up the
copy and (using YAST) rewrote the boot loader showing the copy. The system
hung solid and could not find the copy when I selected it from the boot-up
GRUB.
I modified the copied fstab, /boot/grub2/grub.cfg and grub.env. What am I
missing here?
Where does the booting stop?
Are both harddisks in the laptop, or is one replaced by the other?
When using “cp” what options did you give it?
A tip:
Boot from a live CD, with only the new hdd in the laptop
Take over the installed system (described in the Articles section), run Yast and setup the bootloader
>
> Some things unclear:
>
> Where does the booting stop?
> Are both harddisks in the laptop, or is one replaced by the other?
> When using “cp” what options did you give it?
I’ve tried two methods to boot from the copied system: directly from the
BIOS “Select Boot device” and from the grub2 menu on another partition.
Both go to a black screen, all disk activty stops, and the keyboard does not
respond (CAD won’t even reboot. Typical of a trip into the boonies trying
to find a boot system.
> A tip:
> Boot from a live CD, with only the new hdd in the laptop
> Take over the installed system (described in the Articles section), run
> Yast and setup the bootloader
>
I figure on repeating this exercise several times as I have some issues with
updating to 13.1 that have to be resolved. The first thing I did was to do
an “upgrade” from the 12.3 DVD. That got the grub.cfg and grub.env cleaned
up but I had already patched the target fstab before I started. The update
failed on installing the boot loader - couldn’t write to a target disk.
I’ll try a couple of more things then re-read that article. I’m missing
something simple I’m sure. Fortunately, swapping drives is a matter of just
plugging in the new one - no fighting with cables, etc.
>
> Some things unclear:
>
> Where does the booting stop?
> Are both harddisks in the laptop, or is one replaced by the other?
> When using “cp” what options did you give it?
>
> A tip:
> Boot from a live CD, with only the new hdd in the laptop
> Take over the installed system (described in the Articles section), run
> Yast and setup the bootloader
>
Progress! Now I get an error message trying to boot the transfered system
from the clean system grub menu:
CODE
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root on unknown block-(0,0)
Looks like fat fingers struck again Time to start from scratch again.
What I understand is, that you seem to be able to have both drives connected at the same time,
in order to be able to copy the files that you need (and even more ?).
What I don’t understand:
Why don’t you just install openSUSE 12.3 on the new drive and boot from that?
Does that work (a quite simple question, as it seems) ?
If this works successfully, then you would well be able to run the system,
and as well to copy all the data you need.
> Why don’t you just install openSUSE 12.3 on the new drive and boot from
> that?
>
I did just that.
I’m all the way to 13.1 on the test system now. The answer was so simply
that my hair line now receeds even more: somehow I managed to repeatedly
munge the install location for grub. One system had grub installed on the
MBR, the other put it on the root partition of the extended partition I was
using. I also noticed that when installing the 13.1 system it adjusted the
partition table in some way - missed the details as they flew past but
that’s the first time I’ve seen that bit of info show up.
End result, 12.3 → 13.1 worked just fine on the 32 bit system. Now for the
64 bit that gave me problems on the first shot…
Time to start from scratch again.