1 Topic by tiggerntatie (edited by tiggerntatie 2006-10-05 18:52:59)

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Topic: [SOLVED] Linux novice trying to boot the disk cloned with Gparted

I am trying to clone a Ubuntu server installation to a larger disk. I successfully copied the / partition, /home partition and the swap partition and resized the /home partition to fill the new disk. Then I set the boot flag on the / partition so everything on the new disk looks just like the old disk (except the size of course).

Then I pulled the old drive and tried to boot from the new, but it does not work. There is no error message; it just hangs before grub does anything.

Obviously my mental model of how disk cloning works is faulty.. smile

Is there an additional step I need to perform to bring the new drive to life? Some magical invocation of grub perhaps? Must I use something other than the gparted live CD to finish the job?

2 Reply by LarryT

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Re: [SOLVED] Linux novice trying to boot the disk cloned with Gparted

To clone drive, you had better try G4U smile

Larry
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Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)

3 Reply by tiggerntatie

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Re: [SOLVED] Linux novice trying to boot the disk cloned with Gparted

Well G4U did a fine job, thanks. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now I have a hammer and a screwdriver. smile

After cloning the drive, it booted fine. Then I booted the gparted CD and resized the (ext3) /home partition to take up the free space on the new drive. That seemed to work fine and it completed without error.

Now the gparted GUI somehow shows that most of resized partition is still consumed by data?? It is as if growing the partition grew the data as well. When I boot the system, df tells me that the partition size is unchanged from what it was and that I have no more free space than when I started.

Again, I feel I am missing something crucial...

4 Reply by LarryT

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Re: [SOLVED] Linux novice trying to boot the disk cloned with Gparted

tiggerntatie wrote:

Now the gparted GUI somehow shows that most of resized partition is still consumed by data?? It is as if growing the partition grew the data as well. When I boot the system, df tells me that the partition size is unchanged from what it was and that I have no more free space than when I started.

yes i met this bug, but i guess you dont use the last version are you ?

tiggerntatie wrote:

Again, I feel I am missing something crucial...

should an old version ???

Larry
GParted-project Admin
Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)

5 Reply by tiggerntatie

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Re: [SOLVED] Linux novice trying to boot the disk cloned with Gparted

LarryT wrote:

yes i met this bug, but i guess you dont use the last version are you ?

Umm... well, no, I'm not using the last version. I just grabbed the gparted CD that flawlessly resized an NTFS partition a mere three months ago. That would be version 0.2.5...

So, what have I learned from this experience?

1. Use the correct tool for the job. G4U is perfect for cloning. Gparted for partition juggling.

2. Keep your tools sharp. Gparted is improving at a breathtaking rate. The differences after only three or four months are amazing. Version 0.3.1-1 is a huge improvement over 0.2.5.

Thanks for your help!!!

6 Reply by plors

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Re: [SOLVED] Linux novice trying to boot the disk cloned with Gparted

about point 1, this bug might be interesting to follow:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=344347