Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

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JayM
Qualified MX Guide
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#21 Post by JayM »

I think that all Clonezilla does is provide a series of menu choices that configure dd with the proper command-line switches and options for you. It's possible that by studying the dd man page and documentation you can get a better understanding of what Clonezilla is doing. (I say "you", not me! :smile:)
Please read the Forum Rules, How To Ask For Help, How to Break Your System and Don't Break Debian. Always include your full Quick System Info (QSI) with each and every new help request.

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Adrian
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#22 Post by Adrian »

JayM wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 10:07 pm I think that all Clonezilla does is provide a series of menu choices that configure dd with the proper command-line switches and options for you. It's possible that by studying the dd man page and documentation you can get a better understanding of what Clonezilla is doing. (I say "you", not me! :smile:)
I think there's a bit more than that. Also you can install and run clonezila on MX, you don't need a special disk for that.

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sunrat
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#23 Post by sunrat »

One issue I've had with Clonezilla is that it needs to mount the backup partition itself and some OSs will automatically mount certain partitions as soon as they are detected meaning Clonezilla is unable to mount it. Thunar seems to do this too so MX has been particularly tricksy to run Clonezilla from. To get around this, I always run Clonezilla from a dedicated recovery flash drive running something like PartedMagic which doesn't mount drives until you ask it to.
Apart from this little issue, I've found Clonezilla to be very reliable for backups although I haven't used it so much for disk cloning.
Also it doesn't necessarily use dd although it can be specified to do so. For partition cloning it uses partclone by default.

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m_pav
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#24 Post by m_pav »

sunrat wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:02 pmThunar seems to do this too so MX has been particularly tricksy to run Clonezilla from
Agreed, the default is to automount partitions, but a tool a provided to fix that.
Here's 3 ways to get to the GUI....
Click on MX-Menu > type "rem" without the quotation marks and click the result "Removeable Drives and Media"
or
Click on MX-Menu > mouse over Settings on the right, scroll down the list on the left to "Removeable Drives and Media"
or
Click on MX-Menu > at top of the menu box, click the spanner/gear icon (All Settings tooltip will show)

Remove as many check marks from the relevant boxes and close the window, All done!.

I remove them all on my systems because I don't want anything automounting, but on my Wifes, I enabled desktop icons because that's where she works from.

MX-Menu > Settings > Under Personal click Desktop > White space at bottom, scroll down, expand Removeable Devices and select or deselect to your liking and close.
Mike P

Regd Linux User #472293
(Daily) Lenovo T560, i7-6600U, 16GB, 2.0TB SSD, MX_ahs
(ManCave) AMD FX 6100 CPU, nVidia, 8Gb, 3.25TB mixed, MX_ahs
(Spare)2017 Macbook Air 7,2, 8GB, 256GB SSD, MX_ahs

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sunrat
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#25 Post by sunrat »

That may work for removable drives. I use eSATA drives for backup which are external but detected as internal drives. It was a while ago as I ended up working from PartedMagic live which works great so became the final solution. I vaguely recall trying noauto parameters in fstab but still having complications.

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jj1j1
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#26 Post by jj1j1 »

Here's 3 ways to get to the GUI....
I was able to get to this from within Thunar also.
Click EDIT|PREFERENCES|ADVANCED tab|under volume management click CONFIGURE.
True freedom is never asking the question; Am I free?

nathan2423
Posts: 217
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 8:33 am

Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#27 Post by nathan2423 »

Sounds like Sunrat has hit on my problem. Had I read his post before trying my two computers tonight, maybe the result would have been different.

However I tried on both my two Lenovo notebooks, and for the 100th time I crashed and burned with Clonezilla.

I return here, however, to report SUCCESS and to sing the praises of my new discovery -- G4L !!!

https://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/

I found this, downloaded the very small iso and burned to a flash, booted from that flash and VOILA -- simple, direct, and successful clone - and none of Clonezilla's obtuseness!

I found it first on an old partedmagic cd I had from ten years ago -- that version worked too!

I ran the clone two ways: One computer I simply attached the new ssd to an external enclosure and left the original drive in place. On the other drive, I substituted the new SSD into the machine, and took the old drive and mounted it in an external enclosure. So I copied in opposite ways on the two different machines, but after copying (and on one machine swapping the hard drives) both machines booted immediately from the new ssd's.

With any luck I will never try to use CLonezilla ever again. G4L seems to me to be much more direct, much more simple, and so far -- foolproof --- two for two machines without the hint of an error.

I highly recommend anyone having problems with Clonezilla to give G4L a try!


Also given what Sunrat is saying, sounds like I need to delete clonezilla from my Mx system (and thus from my Mx snapshots). Sounds like every couple of years I am forgetting about these problems, trying to run Clonezilla from my MX snapshot flashdrive, and then crashing and burning all over again due to the problem Sunrat specifies.

It is interesting to consider that G4L might not have this issue and therefore might run better from my MX flash key, but I don't see a deb file or any way to install G4L in MX. Of course maybe if the problem is the automounting like mpav says, then G4L would have the same issue. I don't want to turn off automounting just for the very occasional clone operation.

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sunrat
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#28 Post by sunrat »

So I presume you are running G4L as a live distro. I suspect if you run Clonezilla from a live dedicated recovery distro like PartedMagic or Clonezilla Live it may also work fine. They both appear to be similar programs.
G4L is still on the latest PartedMagic (and I'd guess all of them) according to the website so I might try it (from my slightly older PM) for my next backup.
I always prefer to do disk management, backups, and cloning from a purpose-built recovery distro anyway. It seems to uncomplicate things.

nathan2423
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#29 Post by nathan2423 »

Yes sunrat that is what I am doing. Their iso downloads at a small 75mb size, and boots very fast from a usb stick. You're probably right that if I had used a live-boot clonezilla I would not have run into those problems.

I have always found the very talky screens on clonezilla very confusing. This G4L also has some "talkiness," in that it has a series of screens explaining the history of the program, and some options that let you connect to your network if you choose to do this over the network.

But once you get to the main option screens the heart of the cloning is very simple.

You choose the source, then choose the target, and then hit clone disk. None of this "clonezilla needs to mount this that and the other...."

The difference might be as simple as that the author of G4L seems to write better and more clear English. Or maybe it's just me and there seems to be something about G4L that I find it much more intuitive.

But of course everyones' tastes vary.

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sunrat
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Re: Migrating MX18 from one SSD to another

#30 Post by sunrat »

Any program with any kind of complexity is much easier to use once you know it and some are easier to know than others.
Good you finally got the job done anyway. That's the main thing! ;)

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