Copied system partitions to USB disk, how to proceed to make a clone?

[Bo Berglund]

On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 22:05:51 +0200, Bo Berglund <bo.berglund at gmail.com> wrote:

>>Now starts the "fun" part of trying to effect an upgrade to 20.04 server!
>>
>FINAL REPORT
>------------
>It went pretty smoothly and it also updated grub so now the top line in the boot
>menu "Ubuntu" actually means the upgraded server and not the desktop version
>installed earlier.
>I can boot into Windows10, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS from the
>grub menu now.
>
>Would be nice to be able to configure the menu texts such that it says Ubuntu
>Server 20.04 instead of just Ubuntu, though...
>
>After I trimmed some internal files and copied over from saved newly updated
>versions I had saved on the NAS the new migrated server is now in operation.
>
>I simply edited the router's DHCP setting to give the new server the old
>server's IP address and set anotother for the old server so they can run at the
>same time.
>After a power cycle on the new server (and shutdown on the old) everything is
>now back to normal except with a new server PC with SSD disk and 8 times RAM
>space etc.

Talked too soon!

Today I decided to use an idle spot on the server schedule to back up the disk
after the release update, so I wanted to boot to a USB drive with GParted Live
and in order to do that I intended to first boot into Windows 10.
The reason for that is that it is the only way I have found on this system to
boot into the USB.

But now the Windows option is removed from GRUB!!!!
I only have:

*Ubuntu
Advanced options for Ubuntu
Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS  (20.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p5
Advanced options for Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS  on /dev/nvme0n1p5

This means that I can no longer boot to the Windows 10 system and from there to
the USB connected GParted live disk. :(

Next I tried booting the second Ubuntu (should be the desktop version) but
failed. I got back to the server version...

So I tried to shut down the PC rather than reboot and when I started from cold I
could actually get to the desktop version successfully.
Still no sign of Windows 10...

And I can start GParted, but now I have this problem:
How can I back up the *entire* disk from Ubuntu 20.04 desktop running on that
same disk? Some partitions are locked...

What I want is a full clone of *all* of the partitions so I can (in theory)
restore the full content after the server had been release-upgraded to 20.04.3

Seems like my only option now is to copy the upgraded server partition to the
backup drive and leave everything else as is...
Has to go into an extended partition on the backup drive.

Also:
How can I stop Ubuntu Desktop from mounting my backup disk when I plug it in?
It is mounted inside /media/<username>/ with one directory per partition...


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden