Getting new hardware - can I just move the disk?

[Bo Berglund]

On Sun, 10 Oct 2021 12:54:42 +0200, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:

>> What is the "best/easiest" way to make a clone of the existing drive onto the
>> new SSD drive? I would not necessarily need to transfer all of the video files
>> at this stage. They make up the bulk of used space (like 150G or so).
>
>* make and test a bootable USB key with 20.04
>• boot from USB, run Gparted
>• partition the new machine's drive with MBR. No partitions; just an empty partition table
>• get an external SATA to USB cable -- they cost like €5 or something
>• remove the old server's drive; attach it to the new one by USB
>• boot from USB again
>• copy the root partition from the old disk the SSD
>
>I suggest this order so there is no way to accidentally partition the
>wrong drive.
>

Thanks for the howto!
I have downloaded Ubuntu Mate desktop 20.04.3 ISO now. (In order to use GParted)
Also retrieved the Ubuntu Server 20.04.3 ISO, for no good reason I believe...

A question regarding the bootable USB:
I have made it from the ISO using balenaEtcher, but in order for it to boot the
new machine I have to enter the BIOS and tell it to boot from removable media,
right?
This turned out to be a hard point to do, unlike on all other PC:s I have dealt
with over many years...

So I checked this before posting this reply hoping that it would not be needed,
but found that on start of the computer it always goes into a setup to get
Windows 10 installed, which I don't want anyway.
It disregards the bootable USB stick.

So after a good many iterations I had to let it run its Win10 install.

But it still doesn't boot off the USB when it is inserted on power-up, Windows
always comes up.

I finally found that this procedure works (part of a Lenovo document which was
erroneous on what would follow after startup):
- Insert USB stick in a USB2 port (NOT USB3!)
- Power on and start hitting F1 5-10 times
- Lenovo logo shows up, hit F1 again
- Now a graphic screen shows up where one can select from where to boot, the USB
stick is one of the items. Click it.
- And now finally the Live Ubuntu Mate starts up!

I could start GParted and I see the drive being split into the following 4
parts:

/dev/nvme0n1p1  EFI system partition  fat32 260MB
/dev/nvme0n1p2  Microsoft reserved  unknown 16MB
/dev/nvme0n1p3  Basic data  ntfs Windows    475GB
/dev/nvme0n1p4  Basic data  ntfs WinRE_DRV  1000MB

So now: 
how should I proceed in order to:
• partition the new machine's drive with MBR. No partitions; just an empty
partition table
• copy the root partition from the old disk to the SSD

Do I select the partitions one by one and hit the delete button?
And where does the MBR come from?

Then how does one "copy" a partition in GParted?
Is this howto accurate?
https://www.diskpart.com/clone/clone-partition-gparted-7201.html


If I succeed with the procedure outlined above it will hopefully result in a
running 18.04 server system clone with all of my tweaks and installs done over
the almost 3 years since the upgrade from 16.04 still there.

When that is done the next step is to do the release-upgrade to get to 20.04,
right?
And as safeguard I have a full backup on the old drive...

Not yet done anything apart from looking at the system.


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden