Arch Linux

rep_movsd

Member

Registered: 2013-08-24

Posts: 133

[Solved] Migrating an installation

I have a Dell Precision M6700 laptop with Arch

The system has 4 hard disks and I run software mdraid based RAID-0 for the root partition spread on the 4 drives. I use grub on EFI
It's been years since I set that up I barely recall how I did it
The last command in my (iinfinite) bash history related to that is "sudo grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/mnt/UEFI --bootloader-id=boot"

I am going to upgrade to a M7710 in a day or two - that laptop will have 1 NVME based disk
I want to migrate everything from this there - probably will stick to one single / partition for everything and maybe not even UEFI

My installation is just too highly customized to reinstall from scratch.

What's the best way to go about it?

Thanks in advance

Last edited by rep_movsd (2019-05-01 13:15:01)

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,919

Re: [Solved] Migrating an installation

that laptop will have 1 NVME based disk

If this is an nvme2 drive, you have to use uefi (and may have to disable csm leagcy) to boot from that drive.

You could avoid gpt formatting the disk, but you will need an Efi System Partition.

Does your current install have a separate /home partition ?

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rep_movsd

Member

Registered: 2013-08-24

Posts: 133

Re: [Solved] Migrating an installation

I dont have a separate /home

I guess I'll need a root, a UEFI partition and a very small one for grub_bios too?

WorMzy

Forum Moderator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 11,858

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Re: [Solved] Migrating an installation

Check the wiki, but AFAIK grub_bios is only necessary if you are installing grub on a gpt disk in a legacy-booting system. You don't need it on a UEFI-booting system.

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rep_movsd

Member

Registered: 2013-08-24

Posts: 133

Re: [Solved] Migrating an installation

So it was relatively painless - I copied my RAID0 install to a separate partition on 1 drive and got it to boot on the old system

Then put that drive on the new system and setup the EFI entry in the BIOS setup and it booted.