moving Arch installation do different machine

Raqua · 2009-12-10 20:48:26

Hello.

Recently I decided to finally erase Ubuntu on a notebook and install Arch Linux. I am using Arch on desktop for quite some time, but I was lazy to set it up on NB. I had numerous problems with latest Ubuntu so - enough is enough.

My idea was, to get it with the same settings I have on a desktop, so I installed basic system. Then I copied my desktop's pacman cache to notebook. I copied /etc and my home folder as well. Then I got a list of packages that were installed on desktop and let arch to install it on a notebook.
With minor glitches all went well and after some small tweaks I have the same system running on both machines with much less effort that installing from scratch. So far, so god.

But I found one small problem. Gparted now reports my partition unallocated, although the system is there and working.
This issue does not show up, when I boot from live cd, so I suspect, that somewhere in the /etc (?) there is partition info stored that I have overwritten with my desktop settings.
Anyone knows where this could be please? Or any other comments to this issue?
Thank you.

mikesd · 2009-12-11 03:18:56

Partition mount points are in /etc/fstab however I doubt GParted uses them. It would use the disks partition table. It's strange that it gives different results. What filesystem is on the partition?

SoleSoul · 2009-12-11 03:29:44

I don't know, but:
The obvious difference between using GParted from your installation and a Live CD is that from the installation you can't manipulate your partitions that are being used wile with the Live CD you can because you don't use any partition (except for swap which you can swapoff).

I know, I didn't post anything new. I just thought that this difference may be connected to the difference observed in your case.

One more thing. Is GParted updated? Do you have the filesystems tools installed beside gparted?
What is the correct disk layout and what do you see with GParted? Maybe if we could see what's working and what's not we would have ideas.

good luck.

(IMPORTANT: don't try to change the partition layout with a program that can't read the current layout correctly. I made this mistake once and I had to restore my partition table with testdisk, and even then I could restore just part of the partitions).

Raqua · 2009-12-11 07:16:51

Ok, I just compared my desktop and notebook machines. Both are fully up to date, I just did pacman -Syu. Both machines use only ext4 and ext3 filesystems (except swap of course)

desktop:
- running gparted from CLI prints just version info. libparted:1.9.0
- I can see all my partitions in a GUI
- fdisk -l shows the same partitions

notebook:
- running gparted from CLI prints version info. libparted:1.9.0 and "Can't have partition outside the disk!"
- I can NOT see any partitions in a GUI, it says all is unallocated on the sole disk I have there
- fdisk -l shows partitions (see below)

Disk /dev/sda: 36.6 GB, 36594770944 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4449 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbd95bd95

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         973     7815591   83  Linux
/dev/sda2             974        1097      996030   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3            1098        4864    30258427+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            1098        4093    24065338+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6            4094        4864     6193026   83  Linux

and mount:

/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw)
none on /dev type tmpfs (rw,relatime,mode=755)
none on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sda5 on /home type ext4 (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/raqua/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=raqua)

toad · 2009-12-11 12:25:18

Obviously a gparted issue. How about getting rid of it completely? Or you may want to check through the files and see whether there is an obvious candidate which stores partition values...

HTH

SoleSoul · 2009-12-11 13:55:26

I can just repeat my previous warning to save you a big headache: Do NOT toch the disk with GParted when it doesn't see the current layout correctly.
Sorry, out of ideas.

Raqua · 2009-12-11 20:47:03

@toad: What do you mean by get rid of it completely? Uninstalling Gparted? I could not find any obvious candidate that holds these values in /etc.

@SoleSoul: Yeah, I am not planning to touch it, just wondering. I like my system to be without weird glitches like this.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-10 20:48:26

moving Arch installation do different machine

#2 2009-12-11 03:18:56

Re: moving Arch installation do different machine

#3 2009-12-11 03:29:44

Re: moving Arch installation do different machine

#4 2009-12-11 07:16:51

Re: moving Arch installation do different machine

#5 2009-12-11 12:25:18

Re: moving Arch installation do different machine

#6 2009-12-11 13:55:26

Re: moving Arch installation do different machine

#7 2009-12-11 20:47:03

Re: moving Arch installation do different machine

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