A power surge and outage interrupted the upgrade from Leap42.3 to 15.0. The upgrade failed, leaving no bootable OS or user data.
I have a backup from just prior to the attempted upgrade made as suggested at
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Home_backup#Backup_your_.2Fhome
How should I proceed to recover my original files and settings?
Ouch, that’s no fun. Do you have btrfs filesystem om / ?
I am not sure what file system is there now. I think it was ext4 before the failed upgrade.
I am in the process of installing 42.3 from DVD now as a first step toward getting back to the original system. I think it uses btrfs by default.
Should I install 15.1instead of 42.3? If I do, will I be able to recover my files (at least) and settings from the backup?
While I understand you want this solved asap, at this moment people are still unsure about your exact situation and it seems that you are already changing by installing over what you had. It will be very difficult for people to help you to recover with the minimum of impact when you already are overwriting things.
If you backed up your files, but did not store them on another drive and have already begun the reinstall process, then those files are likely lost. You could use a search engine to find linux recovery applications and try running them from a USB disk on a live distro, but that may or may not be successful depending on how for the installation process has gone.
If you backed up your /home directory on an external or secondary drive you should be OK. All you need to do is install LEAP (might as well go to 15.1) and copy your home directory back over, then reinstall whatever programs you need.
The old system had been upgraded for every release since openSUSE 11. It was time for a fresh, complete new installation. The power failure just forced the issue.
At this point, the situation is that I have Leap 42.3 installed and would like to recover my files from backup. If I can recover my settings also, it would be nice.
The backup is on an external drive in a Gzipped tar ball.
Should I use the Recovery method shown at https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Home_bac…p_your_.2Fhome or just copy the directory?
There is a lot of accumulated junk in the old home directory so I am not certain that a full recovery is even desirable. This failure may force me to start fresh whether I want to or not.
Your reference describes several different backup methods, and several use tar as the backup method.
Whatever backup method you used, you should likely use that to restore.
In most cases described in your reference though, the restore command is simply to uncompress your tar file to the original location… If you happened to extract to a different location, you could do a straight copy to your /home folder.
Note though…
I don’t see it explained or noted anywhere in your reference that your re-installation of openSUSE should be the same version when your backup was made, and should also be the same Destktop… Your restore of /home will contain settings specific to the originally installed Desktop, so your restore should be as much the same as before as possible.
And, I didn’t notice anywhere in your reference the importance of updating your system. You may run into inconsistencies or things that just don’t work properly. if you do then post and I (or someone else) can look up an archive of the last published 42.3 update repo if needed.
Good luck, you may want to ensure consistent power during your next upgrade try.
TSU
Thank you. Your notes address some of the questions floating around my head as I try to decide how to proceed.
When the backup was made, 42.3 was updated with all recent (thru Oct 16, 2019) updates so it is NOT the same as the version just installed. I installed from a DVD made in January 2017.
–> if I download the last version of 42.3 offered at the download site, will it be close enough to the pre-crash version to work smoothly?
There are a lot of things that are in the backup that I do NOT want restored. For example, there was a local Apache server I used to develop websites that I no longer need and the remnants of online courses that I took over the years. I had planned to clean up all this junk after the upgrade but that isn’t an option now.
–> If I install 15.1 now, can I just copy the folders I want, install the corresponding applications and expect it to work smoothly?
The critical items that need to be restored are 1) an encrypted password database; 2) Kontact emails, calendar and contacts; 3) many family photo albums that have been captioned and organized at great effort; 3) encrypted business files and correspondence and 4) Other things that will come to light as time goes on.
–> How is the best way to accomplish this?
2.By default, all parts of your Apache server are not installed in your /home so that should not be an issue (It would have been an issue if you had wanted that. Is why a full backup and restore of your entire system might have been more recommended rather than only backing up your /home) If you want to re-deploy in 15.1, you’ll want to re upgrade first, then when you’re running 15.1 re-install Apache, configure it and then re-deploy your websites… Depending on code may also need to be re-installed.
Good Luck,
TSU
Thank each of you for the prompt, helpful advice. I will try to follow it and see what happens.
Report and comment: (perhaps to help others who have similar problems)
The disaster recovery was a success with the following minor exceptions:
Several applications on the old system are not in the standard openSUSE repositories. They will have to be installed separately to access their associated data files, which were copied successfully.
tsu2 posted:
*“Note though…
I don’t see it explained or noted anywhere in your reference that your re-installation of openSUSE should be the same version when your backup was made, and should also be the same Destktop…”
This is a serious limitation when the object is to upgrade the operating system, eliminating accumulated junk but keeping all files, key settings, ownership and permissions intact. The disaster recovery was successful in that I got back to where I started. The upgrade problem remains unresolved.
Again, thank you all.