I have an older HP X360 13” Convertible that is obviously running Manjaro. It only has a 225gb SSD drive that is my primary boot drive
I have a 4tb drive I’d like to swap in its place.
The existing drive is ext4
?? will the 4tb drive be recognized?
?? I would love to ‘clone’ the existing 225 gb drive onto the 4tb drive - but unsure how best to do that? IF I do how would I go about making the 4tb bootable (or would cloning make it bootable?)
… perhaps clone from the 225gb drive to a 225gb partition on the 4tb drive and then expanding that partition?
What are the best cloning tool(s) to use - assuming my assumption I can clone is correct?
Cloning should work; I can’t recommend specific programs as I myself haven’t used “cloning tools” other than what the regular partition manager(s) provide, or manual copy. But then I do have to set up GRUB properly, etc. Cloning should avoid this as UUIDs etc. should be the same.
NOTE:Don’t mount the cloned disk when the original is connected/in use, due to the fact these identical UUIDs will clash.
I’d just create the partition scheme you want, and copy the data over. Of course you’d have to update the UUIDs in /etc/fstab, and if you use encryption then also /etc/crypttab.
You should be able to mount it, you just need to identify it uniquely. However the bootloader will use whichever is found first, which is more problematic.
Would it be ‘just as easy’/cleaner if I installed a fresh Manjaro on my new drive - then copy the data over from the old drive? Assuming I’d be losing all my ‘settings’… and apps? Or is there a way to 'backup’ and restore my apps and settings?
If you use the same username and copy the contents of your /home (most importantly: the “hidden” .dotfiles which contain (most of) your user configurations), you’ll only need to reinstall whatever software you need and these should work as before.
Sounds like more effort than just updating the UUIDs, but it could work if you avoid copying certain files.
As @BG405 said, user settings are contained in the user’s home dir, in .dotfiles.
Ideally you’d have a separate home partition, then it can easily be configured for use with a new install. If you don’t already - consider moving it to a separate partition (you just create the partition, copy the files, and configure fstab).
System settings are located in /etc, you can copy them to another filesystem (don’t replace the whole dir, just the files you need).
As for “apps” the package manager can create a list of installed packages (repo, AUR), which can be used to install on a new system. Obviously flatpaks, snaps etc are separate, so they’d have to be done separately.
Just copying the content of each partition to the new partitions (or cloning) would avoid all of that.
It’s not that difficult to update the UUIDs.
# list drives/partitions with UUIDs
lsblk -f
# find the correct UUID and copy it
sudo nano /etc/fstab
# find the appropriate entry and replace the UUID
Ctrl + S # save
Ctrl + X # exit
This is something I use for some tasks as it should give a 1:1 copy, although bear in mind this usually takes longer as it also copies unused/unallocated data blocks as-is.
You could also add status=progress to the dd command to see how it’s going.
I did exactly that operation a few months ago, following the provided link just above. You clone, you expand, you shutdown, you remove the old disk, you boot, it just works.
there are several possible reasons to this. one of them is:
what type of file-system is the usb-drive formatted ? exfat ? that could cause the problem.
try rescuezilla instead of clonezilla. this is more comfortable and has a clone-function that is more intuitive than the clone-function from the clonezilla-cli.
What exactly are you trying to do? Give your reply some careful thought so that your next post will be easily understood. Remember, we can’t see what you see; we can only rely on what you specifically tell us.
I’m attempting to use Clonezilla Live to clone my current primary 256gb ssd drive to a 1tb ssd drive so I can expand my storage. I can boot Clonezilla to ram from that 1tb ssd drive but when I have the option to select the from/to drives Clonezilla doesn’t recognize the 1tb drive and quits.
Note: I did try rescuezilla and it recognizes both drives but when I run the clone it fails due to an error with that 1tb drive. so I wonder if there is an issue with that drive? What is the best format for the 1tb drive? I’ve tried fat32 as well as ntfs and neither work…my current 256gb ssd is formatted at ext4, in case that matters
that’s why i already asked. what type of format is this drive formatted and what error messages are displayed ? you have to give infos, without it’s dicking into dark. please provide the infos what happened trying to clone with rescuezilla.
What are you talking about? You boot CloneZilla from one of the disk you’re trying to do the cloning?
//EDIT: Also now it is 1TB drive not 4TB drive? This is really confusing something doesn’t add up.
I don’t think the formatting of the drive is relevant too, as your are cloning drives.