Re: Need Help Cloning a Drive

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Author: Joseph Sinclair
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: Need Help Cloning a Drive
I feared this might be the case; clonezilla just isn't quite ready for the new sector sizes.

The best suggestion I can make from here is to create a partition table by hand on the destination drive that has the partition sizes and layout you want, then transfer the data one partition at a time.
You'll probably have to install GRUB in the MBR on the new drive to make it bootable.
Someone else here probably knows how to do this better than I do, but here's my take:
1) transfer all the data
2) remove the old drive and put the new drive in place
3) boot from a live "rescue" type CD (the latest system rescue CD works well here)
4) mount the new drive root partition and chroot to it's mount point.
5) check and adjust /etc/fstab to mount all of the other partitions in the correct places. Make sure you use UUID's for this, as System Rescue CD creates odd device names sometimes.
6) mount everything like you would when running (this may not be required, but it's just for completeness)
7) check everything looks like you expect.
8) verify /boot is correct and has the correct kernel(s)
9) check your grub configuration in /etc
10) run the grub installer and grub configuration to install GRUB on the MBR of the new drive, and setup the GRUB menu/configuration/modules to boot properly.
11) exit the chroot, shutdown the system, pull out the rescue CD, and reboot.
*) You should now have a bootable clone drive, if everything worked.

Note: If you have Windows in dual boot on the old drive it almost certainly won't be bootable on the new drive and will need to be reinstalled.


On 07/19/2011 10:03 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
> Well, using the proportional clone option in clonezilla failed as well.
>
> These are the drives I have:
> orca:/home/mark# fdisk -l
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x81d6785f
>
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1               1           5       40131   de  Dell Utility
> /dev/sda2   *           6        1918    15360000    7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda3            1918        7017    40963092+   7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda4            7018       38913   256204620    5  Extended
> /dev/sda5   *        7018       37615   245778403+  83  Linux
> /dev/sda6           37616       38913    10426153+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
> Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)

>
> Disk /dev/sdb: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 11400 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 4096 = 65802240 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x00004ae6
>
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> orca:/home/mark#

>
> The proportional setting got as far as creating the partition table and
> sda1. But then when it started on sda2, it failed saying there was no
> partition for sdb2, and so on for sdb3 - sdb6; these partitions did not
> exist. But that is what I thought cloning the "proportional" partition table
> was supposed to take into account. Clonezilla also reported that the target
> is smaller than the source, which is true based on sector counts if you
> don't take the size of the sectors into account.
>
> Googling for 'linux clone hard drive different sector size' and similar
> strings did not yield any helpful strategies.
>
> I would love to turn this wonderful 750 GB hard drive into something useful.
> Does anyone have some suggestions for cloning a 512b sector drive to a 4096b
> sector drive?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark
>
> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:39 AM, Mark Phillips
> <>wrote:
>
>> Joseph,
>>
>> Thanks. I thought that might be a problem, and clonezilla has the option
>> for a proportional partition table. I will try that tonight.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 11:24 PM, Joseph Sinclair <
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> You're dealing with something that's affecting more people.
>>> The old drive has what *was* the normal sector size for MANY years, 512
>>> bytes.
>>> The new drive has what *is now* becoming standard, 4096 bytes.
>>>
>>> The 'use the partition table from the source' option in clonezilla is not
>>> going to work.
>>> You CANNOT use a partition table for a 512 byte sector size directly on a
>>> disk with 4096 byte sectors. The partition table records a number of
>>> sectors, and you're copying it without translation, so the new drive thinks
>>> it has partitions 8 times the size of the old; and the later ones run off
>>> the end of the disk.
>>> I'm not familiar with clonezilla, but I think there are options to
>>> configure a destination partition table "proportional" to the source. That's
>>> a bit more complex, but it's probably the only way to make it work with your
>>> situation.
>>>
>>> Hopefully that helps.
>>>
>>> ==Joseph++
>>>
>>> On 07/17/2011 10:57 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
>>>> Well, Clonezilla is having problems cloning my drive.
>>>>
>>>> I first booted into Debian and created one big ext3 partition on the new
>>>> drive (750 GB), old drive is 320 GB. Then fired up Clonzilla. I took all
>>> the
>>>> defaults, chose device to device, expert, and local disk to local disk,
>>> and
>>>> chose sda as the source and sdb as the target. l kept the default
>>> options:
>>>> -g auto -e1 auto -e2 -j2 -v, and 'use the partition table from the
>>> source'.
>>>> I get a' successfully wrote partition table'. Then I get the "Error
>>> can't
>>>> have a partition outside disk" and Clonezilla dies. Here is what I get
>>> with
>>>> fdisk after booting back into Debian
>>>>
>>>> orca:/home/mark# fdisk -l
>>>>
>>>> Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
>>>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
>>>> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>>> Disk identifier: 0x81d6785f
>>>>
>>>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>>>> /dev/sda1               1           5       40131   de  Dell Utility
>>>> /dev/sda2   *           6        1918    15360000    7  HPFS/NTFS
>>>> /dev/sda3            1918        7017    40963092+   7  HPFS/NTFS
>>>> /dev/sda4            7018       38913   256204620 5  Extended
>>>> /dev/sda5   *        7018       37615   245778403+  83  Linux
>>>> /dev/sda6           37616       38913    10426153+  82  Linux swap /
>>> Solaris
>>>> Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)
>>>> Warning: ignoring extra data in partition table 5
>>>> Warning: ignoring extra data in partition table 5
>>>> Warning: ignoring extra data in partition table 5
>>>> Warning: invalid flag 0xbfbb of partition table 5 will be corrected by
>>>> w(rite)

>>>>
>>>> Disk /dev/sdb: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
>>>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 11400 cylinders
>>>> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 4096 = 65802240 bytes
>>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>>> Disk identifier: 0x81d6785f
>>>>
>>>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>>>> /dev/sdb1               1           5      321048   de  Dell Utility
>>>> Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
>>>> /dev/sdb2   *           6        1918   122880000    7  HPFS/NTFS
>>>> /dev/sdb3            1918        7017   327704740    7  HPFS/NTFS
>>>> /dev/sdb4            7018       38913  2049636960    5  Extended
>>>> Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
>>>> /dev/sdb5   ?       82628      130208  3057478824   48  Unknown
>>>> orca:/home/mark#

>>>>
>>>> Any ideas how I can fix this error and clone my drive to the new drive?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Mark
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 4:10 PM, Stephen <> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Woo hoo!
>>>>> On Jul 17, 2011 11:55 AM, "Mark Phillips" <>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> I took a look at clonezilla again, and found an amd64 iso in
>>> clonezilla
>>>>>> testing. I tried that one, and it worked on my laptop. I will try a
>>> clone
>>>>>> tonight (I like to make my laptop work while I sleep....;) ), so I
>>> will
>>>>> let
>>>>>> you know in the morning. Perhaps the ubuntu version was not amd64 and
>>>>> that
>>>>>> may be why it barfed? I tried the CD on a another machine (i386) and
>>> it
>>>>>> booted up OK.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As of right now, it is humming along nicely on the old drive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 8:52 AM, Mark Phillips
>>>>>> <>wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 3:51 PM, Mark Phillips <
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I tried the alt media and it did not work. - 20110530-natty,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Stephen <>
>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I have never seen that. It has run on a wild array of hardware. Try
>>>>>>>>> thealt media based on Ubuntu. You might have better results
>>>>>>>>> On Jul 17, 2011 8:46 AM, "Mark Phillips" <
>>> >
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Stephen <>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Honestly I suggest clonezilla for this. It will get everything
>>>>> windows
>>>>>>>>>>> Linux grub etc.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I forgot to add that I first tried clonezilla, and it would not
>>> run
>>>>> on
>>>>>>>>> my
>>>>>>>>>> laptop. All I got was a black screen and a gray box.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Jul 17, 2011 7:48 AM, "Mark Phillips" <
>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> I purchased a larger hard drive (~750 GB)) for my laptop and
>>> want
>>>>> to
>>>>>>>>>>> clone
>>>>>>>>>>>> my current laptop drive (~320 GB) to the new one. The new drive
>>>>> is
>>>>>>>>>>> connected
>>>>>>>>>>>> to the laptop via usb - I can mount it and read/write to it.
>>> This
>>>>> is
>>>>>>>>> what
>>>>>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>>>>>>> did, but it didn't seem to work out...
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> 1. Boot laptop using latest Knoppix
>>>>>>>>>>>> 2. umount both /dev/sda(old drive, internal to laptop) and
>>>>> /dev/sdb
>>>>>>>>> (new
>>>>>>>>>>>> drive connected via usb)
>>>>>>>>>>>> 3. I was going to use dd, but read that dd_rescue is a little
>>>>> better
>>>>>>>>>>> (read
>>>>>>>>>>>> error handling, reporting progress), so I installed that and
>>>>> fired
>>>>>>>>> it iup
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sda /dev/sdb
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
>>>>>>>>>>>> rescued: 320072 MB, errsize: 0 B, current rate: 29753 kB/s
>>>>>>>>>>>> ipos: 320072 MB, errors: 0, average rate: 29513 kB/s
>>>>>>>>>>>> opos: 320072 MB, time from last successful read: 0 s
>>>>>>>>>>>> Finished
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> 4. I thought, time to use gparted to expand the Linux partition
>>>>> for
>>>>>>>>> my
>>>>>>>>>>> new
>>>>>>>>>>>> drive to the full size, and install the new drive.....but wait,
>>>>>>>>> there are
>>>>>>>>>>>> problems!
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ fdisk -l
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
>>>>>>>>>>>> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> Disk identifier: 0x81d6785f
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sda1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sda2 * 6 1918 15360000 7 HPFS/NTFS
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sda3 1918 7017 40963092+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sda4 7018 38913 256204620 5 Extended
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sda5 * 7018 37615 245778403+ 83 Linux
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sda6 37616 38913 10426153+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>>>>>>>>>>>> Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)
>>>>>>>>>>>> Warning: ignoring extra data in partition table 5
>>>>>>>>>>>> Warning: ignoring extra data in partition table 5
>>>>>>>>>>>> Warning: ignoring extra data in partition table 5
>>>>>>>>>>>> Warning: invalid flag 0xbfbb of partition table 5 will be
>>>>> corrected
>>>>>>>>> by
>>>>>>>>>>>> w(rite)
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Disk /dev/sdb: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 11400 cylinders
>>>>>>>>>>>> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 4096 = 65802240 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
>>>>>>>>>>>> Disk identifier: 0x81d6785f
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sdb1 1 5 321048 de Dell Utility
>>>>>>>>>>>> Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sdb2 * 6 1918 122880000 7 HPFS/NTFS
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sdb3 1918 7017 327704740 7 HPFS/NTFS
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sdb4 7018 38913 2049636960 5 Extended
>>>>>>>>>>>> Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
>>>>>>>>>>>> /dev/sdb5 ? 82628 130208 3057478824 48 Unknown
>>>>>>>>>>>> knoppix@Microknoppix:~$
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> It appears that dd-rescue did what I expected it to do....copied
>>>>> sda
>>>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>>>>>> sdb
>>>>>>>>>>>> bit by bit. I am not sure what the warnings are for sda, but it
>>>>>>>>> looks
>>>>>>>>>>> like
>>>>>>>>>>>> dd_rescue did what it was supposed to do. However, What do I do
>>>>>>>>> about the
>>>>>>>>>>>> errors on sdb? GParted does not recognize the partition table
>>> for
>>>>>>>>> sdb,
>>>>>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>>>>>> reports 698 GB of unallocated space.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Thanks for any suggestions you may have to solve/explain what is
>>>>>>>>> going
>>>>>>>>>>> on!
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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