David Wright <deb...@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon 04 Nov 2024 at 17:17:44 (+0000), Chris Green wrote:
> > I have found how to get it to install, I removed the other (SATA SSD)
> > disk drive. It now boots successfully, phew!
>
> Good.
>
> > I've no idea why that second drive breaks things. I installed it when
> > I was still running xubuntu 24.04 and that OS could see the drive OK.
> > I actually copied the whole of my old (xubuntu) installation across
> > onto that drive.
>
> So you copied the entire system, with an ESP, onto sda, and then
> tried to install Debian onto nvme0n1, but always unsuccessfully
> with UEFI, and apparently successfully with MBR?
>
No, it wasn't a clone - see below.
> What were the partitions in the old installation, and how did you
> make the copy on the second disk: by copying the entire nvme0n1 disk,
> or copying partitions nvme0n1p1, nvme0n1p2, etc, or just recursive
> copies of the files in each partition into new filesystems created
> on sda.
>
> That information might well yield the reason that the installation
> stick wouldn't boot correctly. After reading Thomas's post about
> which partition is which on the stick, I think that:
>
> grub> set root=(hd0)
> grub> linux install.amd/vmlinuz
> grub> initrd install.amd/initrd.gz
>
> would likely have got the Debian installer running in UEFI mode.
>
> > I will try putting it back later to see if it breaks the Debian 12
> > installtion but for the moment I'm just relieved I've got it working
> > at last!
>
> It shouldn't break it, because you should have a freshly written
> and consistent set of efivars, ESP partition, and grub.cfg on
> nvme0n1. There's one possible wrinkle that I can think of, but it
> depends on how that copying onto the second drive was carried out.
>
It wasn't a 'clone' I just copied the major root level directories
using rsync. I.e. I did:-
rsync -a /etc /home /opt /root /usr /var /mnt
With the added disk mounted on /mnt. Thus there was no boot/grub type
stuff copied to the added disk and it was brand new so had nothing on
it before.
It's now re-installed (the disk drive that is) and is working
perfectly which I'm pleased about as it simplified configuring the new
Debian 12 installation. I do have 'off site' (as, in the garage)
backups as well but they would have been more laborious to extract
things from.
--
Chris Green
ยท
