Cloning Mabox + LUKS to another drive

Technical Issues
1

Looking to migrate from HDD to SSD but I’ve had months of difficulty.
Cloned it, doesn’t boot. (Failed to mount /boot/efi, dependency failed for local filesystems).
Decrypts just fine but can’t boot from there using any of the options. How can I modify clone so that it can boot? maybe UUIDs are wrong if I do a dumb dd clone? Doing a dual boot.
I think I tried wiping, doing a fresh install and copying everything across but I have been trying things for many months so I can’t remember.
I am a newbie if it wasn’t obvious!!! Ü

Also I guess this means if I want to back up in the future I can’t just rsync the entire partition since it will break some things specific to the drive? Thanks.

2

HI @pseud0n and welcome.

In my humble opinion is better if you get rid of encryption first. Yes, it’s more secure but also a headache when cloning or doing data recovery if it fails.

  • Get the latest Mabox ISO and create a booteable USB.
  • Install the SSD alone in the computer (main slot) and install Mabox. I recommend not encrypting any partition yet.
    • With Calamares the install is intuitive assuming you understand the EFI part.
    • EXT4 is still a great filesystem for your / and /home partitions
  • Install the HDD (secondary slot, external), decrypt it and copy/rsync your documents, etc to the folders in SSD.
  • If you still want/need to encrypt your partition, do it now.
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3

Thank you! Just to check, so if I rsync the whole partition off a working OS to a fresh install of Mabox, it won’t change anything that causes the target to not be able to boot?

4

This is, in short, a very bad idea.

There is a high risk of breaking or damaging your OS as this can mess the files and permissions even if you know what you are doing. The safe approach is to rsync/pcmanfm your personal files only to your /home partition. :thinking:

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5

Hi,
I did the cloning of the encrypted drive with Rescuezilla and there were no problems after transferring to another drive or even computer.

https://rescuezilla.com

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6

I am searching/investicating for cloning too. Tested Balena-etcher cloning. (works)

But now i am currious about this package from manjaro, i just found.

:bird:

Edit:
hmmm : i don’t think it’s for cloning. More rescue running system.

7

I am a newbie, but /home partition? I only have one partition for Mabox. Do you mean directory? Also will /home contain everything? Shouldn’t I bring across /usr and others too?

8

Linux has a Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

Using Windows as reference, Linux doesn’t have letters but filesystems/mount points for disks and partitions. /home is the equivalent of Documents and Settings and typically is better to keep it separate because if the root (ie, C:\ ) breaks you can format and reinstall only that partition, meaning your files and personal configs are still there once you finish.