Clonezilla to another computer with empty partition for dual Windows boot

Thanks for your advice.

I gave up on saving the Windows partition. I never liked it anyway.

It turns out the computer’s problems have deteriorated into an abbys. I can boot up and use the computer as I have configured it, with a lot of help from @dalto with his brilliant BTRFS Assistant and I don’t want to go through configuring it again if I can get it on the new PC which is a clean Cassini BTRFS install.

The old PC will no longer recognize any bootable flashed device, so the idea of using Clonezilla (or Rescuezilla) it is no longer valid. I suspect this was an old BIOS related problem going back to when I embarked on my :enos: journey. It is the fateful reason I landed on :enos: Only :enos: Manjaro and Arco would boot up after following the install, so I always knew this problem would crop up again. Obviously I chose well and went with :enos: but I was never able to upgrade the BIOS.

So now it’s time to move it all to another computer, a desktop. and I have a clean PC with Cassini on BTRFS installed. But I want the look and feel of my Gnome setup.

I have the latest Pikabackup including the home directory. Would it be possible to just install Pikabackup on the Cassini PC and do a restore to get back all my programs and settings back? I just love the look and feel I have of this old PC and just want that on the Cassini PC.

I see its a little different on the lsblk has an extra /boot/efi entry in lsblk which the Cassini PC did not create during the install.

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 300M 0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2 8:2 0 456.7G 0 part /var/cache
│ /home
│ /var/log
│ /
└─sda3 8:3 0 8.8G 0 part [SWAP]
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

Do you want to see anything else from old PC?

Here is the Cassini PC

AME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 1 931,5G 0 disk
sda1 8:1 1 931,5G 0 part /var/cache
/swap
/home
/var/log

I don’t want to have to install the printer manually if all these settings and applications can be restored to the Cassini PC and have it just work. Is that how this Pikabackup works? I will just install pika-backup and await some advice.

It sounds like you booted the ISO in legacy mode and did a BIOS/legacy install. If it was me, I would reinstall in UEFI mode.

1 Like

That’s what I did :headstone:

So once I get that done, is it still possible to from the Pika backup to get all my look and feel and settings the same as the old PC?

I don’t use pikabackup so I can’t answer that question. If you restore a backup, you need to be careful not to restore more than you intend.

In the worst case, you could probably borg mount your backup file and copy the files you need from it.

1 Like

Since with Pikabackup which is borg based, I can browse the files, can you tell me what should I be restoring in home directory

I want Gnome setup and the extensions, the applications, and printer setup, since that was a pain to configure.

Start with the contents of ~/.config. That should be most of what you need. Logout and log back in after that and see what you are missing.

Am I supposed to be looking in BIOS? I don’t see UEFI mode? Its Asus BIOS version 1401 on P8H77-M PRO motherboard. I have opened Advanced mode in Boot,

First option in boot ISO IS:

EndeavourOS default (x86_64, BIOS) is that the one to choose?

You would need to disable Bios/Legacy/CSM boot mode.
You could consult the manual of your motherboard for info on how to.

Edit:

Will this help?

Typically there is usually a hotkey you can select to choose a boot device.

This only needs to be done in extreme circumstances. Like if you are using a laptop with some terrible BIOS that doesn’t allow boot selection.

Is there any rationale behind not disabling Legacy/CSM boot mode if one wants just a UEFI system?
Are there any caveats in disabling it?

Only the obvious one which is that you can’t boot legacy devices anymore without changing BIOS settings again.

Since I have never had a system that required disabling it(There are some in existence) and I have lost access to the BIOS settings before, I generally prefer to leave it enabled.

1 Like

Thank you. I set USB mode to auto and it showed up as UEFI in the boot device list.

It still appears as

EndeavourOS default (x86_64, BIOS)

in the EndeavosOS options at the beginning. Shouldn’t that show as UEFI since I set it in BIOS and its now recognized?

Not sure if I am following you.
Did you boot up your live USB in UEFI mode and installed the system in UEFI?

If you are going to install on the whole drive, perhaps you could start with a “clean slate”?
That is booting up your USB in uefi mode, launch Gparted and create a GPT disk and then launch Calamares to install the system.

:warning: Please note that creating a new partition table will wipe the whole disk.

1 Like

I’m unsure I follow, but if you clone/image from one computer’s partition to another with different hardware, isn’t there other things to consider. I tried from an i3 to i5;didn’t work.

The manual helped a lot. Thank you.

1 Like

The BIOS shows the liveusb is in UEFI mode
When I created the GPT table, Gparted did not offer /boot/efi mount point, so I added efi after the selected /boot option - the installation failed at the end.

Should the screen be displaying an option for UEFI?

That is booted in BIOS mode, not UEFI.

What can I do if it already says its set to UEFI?
What s the down side of using BIOS mode?

Hit F8 to go to the boot menu and select the UEFI option.

Here is t
he result of choosing UEFI