Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (882 mails)

[Istvan Gabor <suseuser04@xxxxxxx>]

2010. december 30. 18:06 napon Sampsa Riikonen <sampsa.riikonen@xxxxxx> írta:

> Dear List,
>
> I have duplicated my hard disk using "dd", including the boot partition to 
> another hard disk (a sata drive in a usb box).  Now I am trying to boot from 
> this duplicated disk, but nothing happens.. grub does not start at all.
>
> I googled around and found these two posts:
>
> http://www.idlecool.net/how-to-clone-the-linux-root-file-system-and-set-up-boot-loader/
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/247030/
>
> Based on those, I tried the following:
>
> 1) My current (original) root partition is "/dev/sda4" (mounted at "/")
>
> 2) The root partition at the (duplicated) usb drive is "/dev/sdb4", 
> mounted at "/media/disk-17"
>
> 3) I login as the root and give the commands
>
> mount --bind /dev /media/disk-17/dev
> mount --bind /proc /media/disk-17/proc 
>
> 4) Then I give the command
>
> chroot /media/disk-17
>
> If I have understood correctly, now "/" will be "/media/disk-17" = "/dev/sdb4"
> But the system sees "/" as "/dev/sda4"
>
> Next I type:
>
> grub-install /dev/sda
>
> And get the following output:
>
> --------------------------------
> Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
>
>
>     GNU GRUB  version 0.97  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
>
>  [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
>    lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
>    completions of a device/filename. ]
> grub> setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 --force-lba (hd0,3) (hd0,3)
>  Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
>  Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
>  Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
>  Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,3)"... failed (this is not 
> fatal)
>  Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,3)"... failed (this is not 
> fatal)
>  Running "install --force-lba --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 
> (hd0,3) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu.lst "... failed
>
> Error 15: File not found
> grub> quit
> ------------------------------------------
>
> What might be the problem here..?
>
> Regards,
>
> Sampsa


Hello:

Earlier I also cloned hard disks and also had problems with booting the
clones. I don't see what can be the problem in your case but it still
may help how I made it finally:

1. Use a live system like knoppix os similar for cloning the image.

2. After the cloning boot your original OS (not the cloned one),
mount the cloned partition somewhere and edit the files on it:
/boot/grub/menu.lst, /etc/fstab (on the cloned
partition!)
I found easier to manage hard disk  partitions by their device IDs.
You can find it out by
$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-id
I replaced the hard disk partition names (eg /dev/hda, sda) by device
ID names.

3. You also might have to make a new initrd image, as boot partitions
are hard coded in it.
see:
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2010-01/msg00588.html

extract from the above message:

mount /target_partition.
mount --bind /proc /target_partition/proc
mount --bind /sys /target_partition/sys
mount --bind /dev /target_partition/dev
chroot /target_partition

(Those directories (proc, sys, dev) in the target should be
empty before the binding.)

Run mkinitrd.

4. Probably you have to install grub again onto the newly
cloned root partiton, I guess still in the chroot-ed enviroment:

# grub
> root (hd0,0)
> setup --force-lba (hd0,0) (hd0,0)
> quit

Assumed you don't have a separate /boot partiton.

Maybe this helps.

Cheers,

Istvan

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