Migrating the system to new ssd - boot issues

[clericc]

Hey,
so i abandoned windows completely and hence want to move Endeavour from the pesky 2nd SSD to the big cool main one, moving from ext4 to btrfs in the process.

I set up the new partitions, rsynced’ everything over, including /efi

• replaced the UUID in the loader entries with the new btrfs partitions’
• wrote a new fstab.
• rebootet, fails at "start for for /dev/disk/by-uuid/xyz, showing an unprintable character instead of the first uuid segment (see screenshot at bottom), what the f***

Context from my 2nd-drive-booted system, with the migration target ssd mounted to /mnt and /mnt/efi:

[julian@julian-endeavour-desktop /]$ lsblk -f
NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL       UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
nvme1n1                                                                                  
├─nvme1n1p1 vfat   FAT32             C502-7E1D                             780,4M    24% /mnt/efi
└─nvme1n1p2 btrfs        endeavouros c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4    1,5T    20% /mnt
nvme0n1                                                                                  
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat   FAT32             DF59-A651                             780,4M    24% /efi
├─nvme0n1p2 ext4   1.0   endeavouros bdbb8463-eadd-4ca3-ba75-937f93683bce   70,9G    79% /
└─nvme0n1p3 swap   1                 e3bc30c3-7965-495c-ad4c-10ff46cd1ac4                [SWAP]

[julian@julian-endeavour-desktop ~]$ sudo blkid
/dev/nvme0n1p3: UUID="e3bc30c3-7965-495c-ad4c-10ff46cd1ac4" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="c07f8dcd-ce85-498d-9bb9-861a5c925ed4"
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="DF59-A651" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="b55ce0f6-c051-46dc-bc1e-cac2066d9b30"
/dev/nvme0n1p2: LABEL="endeavouros" UUID="bdbb8463-eadd-4ca3-ba75-937f93683bce" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="endeavouros" PARTUUID="98e709bc-ec8f-eb42-80cb-361308375797"
/dev/nvme1n1p2: LABEL="endeavouros" UUID="c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4" UUID_SUB="9650b75b-15b2-43cd-bec4-7edce2167a16" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="btrfs" PARTUUID="a6c7692c-3ce2-4d8e-becf-f17df9840821"
/dev/nvme1n1p1: LABEL_FATBOOT="EFI" UUID="C502-7E1D" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="e4cb6505-f7ea-4dea-b98a-0ace7a4e37f2"

new fstab:

# <file system>                           <mount point>  <type>  <options>                          <dump>  <pass>
UUID=C502-7E1D                            /efi           vfat    defaults,noatime                   0       2
UUID=c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4 /              btrfs   defaults,noatime                   0       1
UUID=c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4 /.snapshots    btrfs   defaults,noatime,subvol=.snapshots 0       1
UUID=c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4 /home          btrfs   defaults,noatime,subvol=home       0       1
UUID=c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4 /etc           btrfs   defaults,noatime,subvol=etc        0       1
UUID=c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4 /swap          btrfs   defaults,noatime,subvol=swap       0       1
tmpfs                                     /tmp           tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777         0       0
/swap/swapfile                            none           swap    defaults                           0       0

[julian@julian-endeavour-desktop /]$ cat /mnt/efi/loader/entries/7c2884c38d164ef0ad0224a40aef9baf-6.6.2-arch1-1.conf # /mnt because i mounted the new filesystem here to rsync over, new boot part is mounted at /mnt/efi
# Boot Loader Specification type#1 entry
# File created by /etc/kernel/install.d/90-loaderentry.install (systemd 254.1-1-arch)
title      EndeavourOS
version    6.6.2-arch1-1
machine-id 7c2884c38d164ef0ad0224a40aef9baf
sort-key   endeavouros-6.6.2-arch1-1
options    amd_pstate=guided nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvme_load=YES rw root=UUID=c5e408f7-d3d1-490d-8550-41295dfdd5c4 systemd.machine_id=7c2884c38d164ef0ad0224a40aef9baf
linux      /7c2884c38d164ef0ad0224a40aef9baf/6.6.2-arch1-1/linux
initrd     /7c2884c38d164ef0ad0224a40aef9baf/6.6.2-arch1-1/initrd

after seeing the unprintable character, i checked above and beyond for strange unicode sequences, non-printable spaces - nothing. I tried referencing PARTUUID instead, which gave me “start job /dev/disk/by-part[square character]>-3ce2-4d8e-becf-f17df9840821” at boot.

I also generated a new uuid for the partition, hoping there is some weird escape sequence i hit by accident, but apparently no.

I am at a loss here. Does anyone have ideas?

[dalto]

Did you copy over your old initrds? If so, you need to rebuild them.

Also, did you edit the entries directly? If so, make sure you change /etc/kernel/cmdline as the entries get overwritten.

[clericc]

thank you, no i wasnt aware of the cmdline - that is fixed now

could you give me a hint, how i can rebuild initrd without being booted into the new system? can is just chroot /mnt and run dracut-rebuild?
EDIT: i cannot, as /dev, amongst other things, is missing. --sysroot?

[dalto]

You need to mount the root to /mnt, mount the EFI partition to /mnt/efi than sudo arch-chroot /mnt

Then you can run dracut-rebuild

You will have to boot off the ISO to do that.

@clericc

EDIT: i cannot, as /dev, amongst other things, is missing.

arch-chroot handles all that for you.

[clericc]

Thank you so much
Reporting in from the migrated system!