Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

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Gary Seven
Posts: 61
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 2:17 pm
Location: Tarragona, Spain

Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by Gary Seven »

Hello all.

About two months ago I had installed Linux Mint to an Intel 660p NVMe drive (1 TB) in my Asus Crosshair VII x470 system. After a few days I did a complete backup image of the the partitions (root, home, and swap) using IFL (don't remember version but it's very recent). After a few more weeks I started seeing massive "NVMe I/O errors" in my logs, and decided to drive was bad and corrupting my data.

I just today received a Samsung Evo 970 Plus NVMe (1 TB) drive, installed it, and tried to restore my Linux backup image to this new drive. IFL is complaining that there's not enough disk space on the destination drive, although my backup image is only about 120GB and I'm trying to restore to a new, 1TB drive.

I have Googled this and gone through the KB with no luck. Can someone help me out here?

G7
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

It's likely the sizes are slightly different. Did you try using the "Scale to Fit" option when restoring?
Gary Seven
Posts: 61
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 2:17 pm
Location: Tarragona, Spain

Re: Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by Gary Seven »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
> It's likely the sizes are slightly different. Did you try using the
> "Scale to Fit" option when restoring?

Just went to try that and same problem...getting "not enough disk space message." Here's more info:

IFL v3.30

Inside IFL "Restore" and going through menu items, when I get to "source" it shows my partitions list as follows:
Drive 976762 MiB (Entire Drive)
MBR 0 29996 Ext 2/3/4
MBR 1 942548 Ext 2/3/4
MBR 2 4212 Linux Swap

My new Samsung drive is showing less total available space (about 932GB) than my old Intel 660p (976762 MiB). I assume this is where the problem lies but I don't know what to do. Tried to restore the items one by one (instead of as one file. That is, clicking the top box to chose all three partitions) but was only able to restore the first one, MBR 0. Try to restore MBR 1 gives me same message. Pretty bummed about all this.
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

I assume the partition isn't encrypted. If you open the backup with TBIView can you browse the contents of MBR 1?

When you try to restore MBR 1 by itself, does it show that you can specify a resize after restore value? If so, try reducing it so it fits (leave room for swap if you'll be restoring that afterwards).
Gary Seven
Posts: 61
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 2:17 pm
Location: Tarragona, Spain

Re: Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by Gary Seven »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
> I assume the partition isn't encrypted. If you open the backup with TBIView
> can you browse the contents of MBR 1?
Yes

> When you try to restore MBR 1 by itself, does it show that you can specify
> a resize after restore value? If so, try reducing it so it fits (leave room
> for swap if you'll be restoring that afterwards).

Yes. I did this and yes, I was able to restore MBR1. But of course, this lead to problems in my attempts to restore MBR0 and MBR2. What a nightmare. After resizing and successfully restoring MBR1, I then restored MBR0 (the original /root partition where Grub2 was installed), but everything got renamed. So now I'm dealing with two MBR1's, which when I went into "Partition Work" renamed (under "Properties") MBR0 (the original /root partition) and MBR1 (my original "home" partition). Then I had to "copy" the original MBR0 to the free space I had so I could move MBR1 to it's expected second slot in the partition list. Then I had to do a ton of "sliding" free space and all to try and get the original partition structure the way it was when I actually made the backup. IFL (or Partition Work within the program) would not allow me to rename my restored "swap" partition to MBR2 like it was originally. Upon booting my Linux Mint live USB (to reinstall Grub2) my partition list appeared totally confused.

This should never have happened. The fact that I changed NVMe SSD manufacturers which report total available free space differently should NOT have curtailed my ability to restore my original backup image (all of which took up no more than 120GB of data). I've wasted not only hours but now almost 3 days on this issue. Bottom line is that I CANNOT restore my backup to a new (but different manufacturer) NVMe drive, so it looks like I have to start over from scratch.

Thank goodness I have a separate (not Terabyte related) backup of my /Home partition. At least I can do a new install of Linux and then restore the slightly dated /Home backup I made before this disaster. But I will lose TONS of tweaks and modifications I made to my original install, not to mention kernel tweaks. All because I thought, "No problem. I've got my IFL image backup and if all else fails, I can just restore." WRONG! It doesn't work, because I made the total "rookie" mistake of changing SSD manufacturers thinking 1TB is 1TB between them...my bad.

This sucks. The documentation sucks and is at best incoherent. I've been using Terabyte products for nearly 15 years now but this just breaks the bank IMHO. What good is a product that promises backup protection but only delivers in certain circumstances? Yeah, I quit. I will look for another alternative.

G7
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by Brian K »

Gary, did you try restoring using the Compact Data setting? That should enable you to restore to a partition that is smaller than the original and where the sectors in use don't fit into the target partition.

Edit... sorry, but it doesn't work on Linux partitions.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by TeraByte Support »

Restoring to smaller drives is covered in
https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=554

If needed, It goes in to how you can restore to a virtual drive, compact
(operation option when selecting partitions to backup), backup again to
fit your smaller target (presuming you compacted enough). You'd only
need to compact the large partition down, say to 800000.

The "compact data" restore option is only available for
fat/fat32/exfat/ntfs partitions. For other the linux types, you'll be
limited to the last required sector option. Where that falls depends on
how the data is laid out as explained in the article. You do have to
use the "scale to fit" option for it to fit the last used area (may want
to use "remove gaps" as well).

The message about not enough space should be giving you the required
amount as well. In addition to the "information" or "details" you can
get when selecting what to restore.

You also have the option of restoring, creating a new partition (leaving
room for swap if not restored first), then using tbiview or tbimount to
copy the files out of the large partition to the new one.



On 9/20/2019 9:20 AM, Gary Seven wrote:
> TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
>> It's likely the sizes are slightly different. Did you try using the
>> "Scale to Fit" option when restoring?
>
> Just went to try that and same problem...getting "not enough disk space message." Here's more info:
>
> IFL v3.30
>
> Inside IFL "Restore" and going through menu items, when I get to "source" it shows my partitions list as follows:
> Drive 976762 MiB (Entire Drive)
> MBR 0 29996 Ext 2/3/4
> MBR 1 942548 Ext 2/3/4
> MBR 2 4212 Linux Swap
>
> My new Samsung drive is showing less total available space (about 932GB) than my old Intel 660p (976762 MiB). I assume this is where the problem lies but I don't know what to do. Tried to restore the items one by one (instead of as one file. That is, clicking the top box to chose all three partitions) but was only able to restore the first one, MBR 0. Try to restore MBR 1 gives me same message. Pretty bummed about all this.
>
>

Gary Seven
Posts: 61
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 2:17 pm
Location: Tarragona, Spain

Re: Can't restore Linux backup image to new SSD

Post by Gary Seven »

I would like to carry on this conversation with David in private (via email?) as I have a lot of things to say that simply don’t belong on this fine forum.
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