I have a functioning Manjaro SSD with multiple other Linux distros that I run via Vbox. They all work fine.
My pc is a desktop gigabyte ga0990fxa etc, an older motherboard that gigabyte support says wont boot nvme.
So my thought was to install a small SSD (40GB) and install a vinilla Manjaro system to hold the grub “stuff” and let grub start Manjaro (My daily version, not the new one) after I clonezilla the complete daily disk to the newly installed nvme disk. (The 2 drives are the same size so the device to device clonezilla copy went well. )
I know clonezilla will copy everything, including the UUID from the old SSD so I disconnect the old SSD and boot the vinilla ssd and install a new grub2 (Just to be sure ) and update-grub. But cannot select a nvme partition containing the copy of the daily manjaro, the complain is that grub can not find the UUID that I know is there, on the nvme. I installed gnome-disk-utility and I can display the nvme disk and the UUID is correct, and matches what is in grub (I stop grub and edit the daily entry and check the UUID) .
So how what is out of sync ? Or better yet how do I fix the issue, or what info do I need to collect to identify the issue(s) ?
THanks for any help !!!
It should be pretty easy: boot live usb, clone the ssd to nvme. Shut down, disconnect usb and ssd, the computer should now boot the nvme with your normal os.
You don’t have to remove the disk as you can use sgdisk - after cloning - to randomize the guids on the source disk.
The command to do so is
sgdisk --randomize-guids /dev/sdxY
From the manual sgdisk(8) — Arch manual pages
-G, --randomize-guids
Randomize the disk’s GUID and all partitions’ unique GUIDs (but not their partition type code GUIDs). This function may be used after cloning a disk in order to render all GUIDs once again unique.
The problem with booting “cold” from the nvme is, that when I contacted Gigabyte support they said my motherboard does NOT support booting from nvme. (I had to add a daughterboard to mount the nvme, so I think they are right.) My solution, or attempt at a solution was to install a minimual Manjaro on a 40GB ssd assuming I could boot that Manjaro and build a grub.cfg that would allow access to the nvme distros. (I have 20 volumes defined on the SSD/nvme so I can run various distros as vbox clients. This works fine with my Linux disk as a ssd, I wanted to speed up access etc via nvme, thus the above attempt to migrate to nvme.
In addition, as a test, using a spare SSD I clonezilla device-device to the spare ssd and switched out the original ssd for the cloned copy, and all work weil. So there is something unique to a nvme copy that is NOT the same as a ssd copy.
As to sgdisk, I’m not sure that is needed as i totally remove the source ssd before booting the system to the minimal Manjaro. Then I do a re-install of grub(To be sure) and then update-grub to rebuild grub.cfg. Also, as above, when testing cloning to another ssd rather then nvme all works well as I remove the sorce and replace it with the cloned copy.