#1 2026-03-21 03:42:25

dbickin

Member

Registered: 2015-09-30

Posts: 88

How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

I have never trusted dist upgrades. (Back in the day, Ubuntu would remove my selected software with the fresh Gnome software, and tell me it was for my own good!)

I finally bit the bullet and did a fresh install of Boron (Carbon was still RC at the time) and manually dealt with changes in config file formats and the lost of my preferred software. It was a mildly painful experience.

With Carbon the version du jour, I want to try to upgrade to see if it is less painful. But I don't want to do it on my hard won Boron install.

SO... How would I copy the Boron root folders from sda6 on to sda7? I know I can't just copy it because there are files in the distro with drive UUIDs that would have to be changed.

My googling the issue assumed I was copying from one physical drive to another PC so that I gather the UUID could coexist on the two machines. Though that would mean the UUID wouldn't be a universal unique ID, so I must have misread what I thought I read.

What is the best way to do what I want to do?

Oh, I don't just want to backup Boron, do the upgrade and restore if Carbon doesn't work. I want to switch between the two until I end up deciding to use one or the other going forward.

Thanks,
David

WizardofCOR

Member

Registered: 2023-07-28

Posts: 50

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

I'll gladly defer to the experts, but it sounds like you want to duplicate an installed and configured Boron OS onto another partition/disk, upgrade the original partition to Carbon, and then copy over select folders/files.  Does that sound right?
I'm confident that others here have experience with this sort of thing, so again I'll gladly defer to them.

Personally, I'm just going to gather my nerve and perform a full upgrade and see how it goes - although I admittedly do really love my Boron.  So there's a little bit of trepidation towards taking the plunge, as it were.

However you approach your upgrade, I'm confident - and wish you much success.

Last edited by WizardofCOR (2026-03-21 05:28:51)

---

Just a dude playing a dude, disguised as another dude...

unklar

Back to the roots 1.9

From: #! BL

Registered: 2015-10-31

Posts: 2,898

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

^There are many methods for realization.

The easiest method is probably "gparted".
The prerequisite is that you have gparted on a live system or, perhaps in your case, that this tool is on one of your partitions sda1 to sda5.

In preparation, it makes sense to delete all unnecessary "garbage" from sda6. EVERYTHING is transferred (UUID; file system; errors on it). It may or may not be an advantage if sda7 has not been used before. So, the partition, which didn't exist yet, appears in gparted as free space.

The partitions sda6 and sda7 must NOT be mounted.
The size of the partition sda7 must NOT be smaller than sda6.
You copy sda6 with right click and paste it again by selecting sda7 with right click.

Once the preparation is complete, the operation is only carried out by clicking on “Apply”. All DATA on sda7 will be destroyed.

After the operation is complete (it takes a different amount of time depending on the size and amount of data), you must do:
-check the fstab for correctness
-check the network to see whether the names LAN, WLAN are correct
-reinstall the bootloader on sda7, or if you have a main bootloader from another system in sda, then run update-grub there.

Good luck! 

dbickin

Member

Registered: 2015-09-30

Posts: 88

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

Okay, I obviously didn't do something right.

First off, sda7 was in use, so sda9 was the next available partition.

I booted from sda5, which is running Helium and has control of the main grub.

I then used gparted to copy sda6 to sda9. Applied it and everything seemed okay.
I mounted the new sda9, and changed fstab so that / mounts on /dev/sda9.
I ran update-grub, and it created a menu that had sda5 for Helium, sda6 for Boron and the new sda9 (also with Boron.)

Everything looked okay.
I rebooted and selected to boot Boron on sda9.

As it booted, I noticed it was making sure sda6(!) was clean, and indeed when it finished booting, it had booted from sda6.

gparted (run from sda6) now showed / as sda6. It showed sda9 as unmounted.

When I boot from sda5, thunar allows me to mount sda6 and sda9
When I boot from sda6 (or the grub entry for sda9), thunar shows neither as being available to mount.

You said I should check to make sure that the network is correct in LAN and WLAN, but I have no idea what those are so I couldn't check them.

Any idea what I did wrong?

Thanks,
David

dbickin

Member

Registered: 2015-09-30

Posts: 88

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

Found the problem!

sda9 had the SAME UUID as sda6. So I used gparted to give sda9 a new UUID.
However, grub is still building the entry with the old UUID.

	set root='hd0,msdos9'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos9 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos9  fe94c2b4-ee18-42f2-a46a-d388e96bca81
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root fe94c2b4-ee18-42f2-a46a-d388e96bca81
	fi
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-44-amd64 root=UUID=5a57fe62-84ba-4d40-befa-b08de73ab9d4 ro quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-6.1.0-44-amd64

fe94* is the correct new UUID
5a57* is the UUID of sda6.

How do I fix this?

Thanks,
David

unklar

Back to the roots 1.9

From: #! BL

Registered: 2015-10-31

Posts: 2,898

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

  It seems you've lost track a bit. This is not good for such operations.

What did you do after the new UUID?
If the change was made with gparted in sda5, it is not sufficient to do an update grub here. Because the Grub in sda9 doesn't know anything about it.
He would only know about it if you chrooted sda9 and reinstalled grub.

To avoid chrooting, you could change the new UUID manually. And, exclusively in sda5/Helium for sda9.

Then, without updating grub, restart, select the corresponding entry in the grub menu of sda5/Helium and hope that it has eaten it.
If you're lucky, you'll get into sda9 and then be able to do the repair here without having to chroot...

Network
In the file of the copied system /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules the interfaces eth0 and wlan0 are available. In the new system they are called eth1 and wlan1.
That's why you check this and delete this file in the new system, because with reboot they get the names eth0 and wlan0 again.

dbickin

Member

Registered: 2015-09-30

Posts: 88

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

I am now able to boot on sda9!

First, network, there is no file called /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules. I gather that is okay?

Second, steps I took:
1 booted from sda5
2 used gparted to copy sda6 to sda9
3 edit fstab on sda9 to mount root to /dev/sda9
4 ran update-grub (on sda5)

A this point, I was unable to boot sda9 because it had the same UUID as sda6

5 used gparted to give sda9 a new UUID
6 re-ran update-grub (on sda5)

Still unable to boot sda9 because grub still had the old UUID

7 manually edited the grub.cfg on sda5
8 boot into sda9 (AND IT WORKED)
9 ran update-grub on sda9
10 rebooted sda5
11 ran update-grub on sda5

I am not sure if I am reading you correctly that I should have done something different for step 5 above. If so, what should I have done?

At any rate, thank you for all your help.
My next step is to read up on doing a dist-upgrade to get Carbon on sda9, which was the whole point of this mad escapade!

David

PS. missed a step, 2.5 was I had to e2fsck(?) sda9, I assume because it was larger than sda6.

PackRat

jgmenu user Numero Uno

Registered: 2015-10-02

Posts: 2,858

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

Excellent you got it working.

Way late to the party, but for future reference, have a look at fsarchiver - https://www.fsarchiver.org/

I've only used it a couple of times, but I think it's designed for these types of operations. It's in the Debian repos.

---

You must unlearn what you have learned.
    -- yoda

unklar

Back to the roots 1.9

From: #! BL

Registered: 2015-10-31

Posts: 2,898

Re: How to copy my Boron install from one partition to the next

I am now able to boot on sda9!

First, network, there is no file called /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules. I gather that is okay?

Second, steps I took:
1 booted from sda5
2 used gparted to copy sda6 to sda9
3 edit fstab on sda9 to mount root to /dev/sda9
4 ran update-grub (on sda5)

A this point, I was unable to boot sda9 because it had the same UUID as sda6

5 used gparted to give sda9 a new UUID
6 re-ran update-grub (on sda5)

Still unable to boot sda9 because grub still had the old UUID

7 manually edited the grub.cfg on sda5
8 boot into sda9 (AND IT WORKED)
9 ran update-grub on sda9
10 rebooted sda5
11 ran update-grub on sda5

I am not sure if I am reading you correctly that I should have done something different for step 5 above. If so, what should I have done?

At any rate, thank you for all your help.
My next step is to read up on doing a dist-upgrade to get Carbon on sda9, which was the whole point of this mad escapade!

David

PS. missed a step, 2.5 was I had to e2fsck(?) sda9, I assume because it was larger than sda6.

^^Congratulations! Great job!

Your question, after 5 you could continue with 7. So, you could have saved 6. Because in this case the update-grub destroys the manual correction. 

2.5 would have to fix gparted itself. But what the heck, you were successful.