Different approach to repair problem .. . hiring a technician?

[rudy5]

Hi all. Some of you may have seen my threads asking for help in migrating a broken 18.04 installation onto a fresh install on the same computer, but saving my data. (The upgrade path is irreparably broken.) Many thanks to the posters who have offered suggestions &c.

But after a month of thrashing about, I'm no further ahead, & am reaching the point of admitting to myself that I'm way out of my depth here, & lack the knowledge and skills to do this myself.

When my plumbing goes, or when I need electrical work done, I hire a plumber or an electrician, they do the repair, and I pay them.

Is there anybody with sufficient knowledge of Ubuntu linux, and the Dell XPS-13, living within ca. 150km of Vancouver, B.C., to undertake this task for me?

[Tadaen_Sylvermane]

Forgive me but can you not just boot a live image, copy the home directory to an external then just install over the top of it?
Trying to fix something like that is a chore, even for someone experienced in it. Once it gets out of support + whatever other non recommended changes a person makes can create a mess. Just copy the home directories and reinstall.
Then learn from it, and don't do it again lol.

[oldfred]

We have seen a variety of users who went to a computer store that really only knew Windows & manage to delete all data and not do a correct install.

Still always best to have good backups. Many posts in forums on backups.

If you do not format / (root) and /home partitions (if separate) then it should keep all your data. Back up still required just in case.
Configuration files will change to new defaults if you edited anything in /etc. I edit grub, but save copy into /home so backed up.

Benefits of a release-upgrade (over clean install) by guiverc, but I prefer clean install & restore from backup
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2501145
Over install without formatting to reuse same home data. "Dirty Install"
System settings or anything in / may be overwritten with defaults. Good backups still important
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuReinstallation &
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1941872
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2496620
https://askubuntu.com/questions/4461...451533#1451533

[rudy5]

Tadaen: No forgiveness required. And it's good to read that even experienced hands find this a chore! I've migrated between Linux systems in the past (been a continuous user since 2005) but I am by no means experienced, and this time the experience has been a raging nightmare.

What you are suggesting is what I've been trying to do. I hope you can stick with me / this for a few days, & help me navigate the various rabbit holes that I'm being sent down.

In order to copy my home folder to an external drive, I need a formatted USB drive. I have a 32gb drive here, formatted for Windows, so the first step is to re-format it for FAT --- correct? Because my Linux machine can't seem to mount the NTFS formatting.

Into the USB port with the drive. Using the GUI file manager, I select the drive for formatting, select ERASE, go. Result:

-Error formatting volume.
Error erasing device: Error writing 1048576 bytes to /dev/sdb1: input/output error (udisks-error-quark,0)

I don't understand why the drive doesn't simply format (I can format a 4gb drive and a 16gb drive but that's not big enough to hold my 30.9gb of data. But I can't parse this error message. Why can't linux erase the target drive? what are the 1048576 bytes it is unable to write? How do I understand this input/output error (udisks-error-quark,0)?

So that's my first big question. Could you give me some advice on formatting this 32gb USB drive --- what format should I choose, what options when I'm formatting? Terminal command line alternative is welcome!

Then the next question I have is --- from the command line, what command would you enter to copy the entire /home folder and its contents onto my external drive, labelled Oc24data? I need help with the syntax!

cp -prv /home /media/rudy/Oc24data
isn't doing it.

Should the "/home" argument be followed by /* ?

Should the target argument by /dev/ instead of /media/? do I need to put my account user name into this string? Do I need to specify the volume name? Do I need to specify /* so that all the files are copied?

If you can provide clear instructions about this, I might be able to move forward!

When you say "boot a live image". I've booted this 18.04 machine from my live-image USB drive with 22.04. With this live image USB in one port, do I need to put the target drive into the other USB port, and then use 22.04's copy tools to copy my home directory from this hard drive to the second, target USB drive?

I should just be able to copy /home to the USB drive from terminal, no?

And when you say "copy the home directory to an external then just install over the top of it", I'm confused by "then just install over the top of it" --- too many pronouns! Let's say I've got my copy of /home on the usb drive. Let's say I've finally been able to pave over this 18.04 yeeeesh and installed a fresh instance of 22.04 (on a Dell XPS-13 9360). Is my next step to copy my old /home folder from the USB drive where I've copied it, back onto the hard drive with its fresh installation of 22.04?

What is the terminal command that will copy my saved /home folder from the USB drive onto my hard drive with the new install of 22.04 on it?

[rudy5]

Hi oldfred, you've kindly tried to dis-confuse my confusion over on another thread. Believe me, I would like to be able to successfully migrate my data to a new install WITHOUT hiring some Windows / Mac repair dude who once read an article about Linux and figures he can handle this .. .

When you say "backups", is there a backup utility built into (or that I can still download & install) that will back up all my data to an external drive, and allow me to restore that data to a *different* linux installation? How would this differ from a straight copy of /home which is then copied back over the top of the /home directory of the new install?

I'm perfectly happy to accept the configuration determined by the fresh 22.04 install. I *DO NOT WANT* my old configuration --- it's been kicking up a blizzard of un-met dependencies &c. type of errors, & this is what has me trapped in this can't-upgrade-until-you-update-but-you-can't-update-because-broken-dependencies death loop. I want a FRESH install, that doesn't even know I ever had linux installed before, and I want to copy my current data *ONLY*, but *NOT* my SETTINGS, which seem eff'd.

I only use a tiny handful of extremely vanilla applications, which I want to install fresh: Libre Office, Thunderbird (saving my old profile & history, if possible), Firefox (don't care about history). That's it.

The release upgrade path is closed to me. I've read the forum posts you point to. The repairs of the broken 18.04 that are suggested are far, far beyond my capabilities. I tried some of the suggestions, frustration has been the only result. I don't want to rescue my 18.04. I want to pave it over with 22.04, and copy my existing data --- e-mail history, word processor files, spreadsheets --- onto the hard drive with the new OS.

I hope that I have been able to clearly state my needs & questions.

[oldfred]

Why are you using another Windows format FAT32? If also has limits on file size (4GB max) and no journal.
NTFS may not work if Windows sets hibernation flag.
Windows formats do not support Linux ownership & permissions, best to use ext4.
30.9GB of data may be a bit too large for a 32GB flash drive as after partitioning & formatting it often is about 29GB usable.

If flash drive used with Windows or as an installer it may have partition table issues. Often a dd to zero out the partition table sector at beginning of drive may be required for partition tools to see drive.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/mk...e_the_pendrive
Note this effectively erases entire drive, sometimes after reboot drive order changes, so always double check that correct drive is specified.
sudo dd if="/dev/zero" of="/dev/sdX" bs=4M count=32 #(X being the block device of the USB drive)
sudo fdisk -lu
sudo parted -l

I prefer rsync, but cp should work.
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....2465035&page=2
# a simple rsync backup script:
rsync -avz $HOME /mnt/backup/

[rudy5]

Hi oldfred, there's a language gap, but you're providing some interesting suggestions for other rabbit holes to go down before I give up on this.

FAT32 because that was the formatting option that was suggested as Linux OS compatible by the operating system I'm using, which is Ubuntu 18.04. Thanks for letting me know that this is now a deprecated format; I'm lucky that my 4gb and 16gb drives formated as FAT32 work!! You see why I want to leave this 18.04 install behind?

I wlll look for the ext4 formatting option the next time I try this, which will possibly be on a 64gb external drive that I'll have to find time to pick up this week. However, your post does not explain why this OS which can format a 4 and a 6 can't handle a 32.

I cannot understand "If flash drive used with Windows or as an installer it may have partition table issues." I'm not installing Ubuntu over a Windows OS; I'm working on an older 18,04 Ubuntu install. Where does Windows come into this? Two years ago we formatted a Dell Optiplex using a boot drive, is this now deprecated? Should we be doing the fresh install from the current OS instead? I am already aware that installing a fresh OS erases the data underneath.

I've read through the your linked post about rsync. It appears to be about creating manual backups for your data (and a bunch of it is, literally, "Greek to me"!). I guess that's an option, if I can't use cp to make a copy of my home directory. I'll do some experimenting with rsync next week to see if that might help towards a solution. Rsync is however seven pages in my Linux manual, way more complex than cp, & it will take some time to learn it. When all I want to do is make a copy of my home folder to an external USB drive!

Let's say I've used rsync to backup my complete home folder to an external drive, and it's time to "restore" it to the new 22.04 OS that I've installed. What is the command / structure that will restore my home folder data from the external drive to my new home folder?

[yancek]

FAT32 because that was the formatting option that was suggested as Linux OS compatible by the operating system I'm using

FAT32 is recommended to use when creating a bootable usb on which to put a LInux iso to use as a 'live' system and/or installer. If you are copying data from a partition with a Linux filesystem, copy it TOO a partition with a Linux filesystem. The default for Ubuntu has been ext4 for years. You can get that information for your partitions with the command below:

lsblk -f

If your /home partition is ext4, then create a partition on which you wish to back it up as ext4.

Should the "/home" argument be followed by /*

Yes.

[oldfred]

FAT32 is intended for smaller partitions. It still is used for the ESP - efi system partition. As that is used by all UEFI based systems. FAT32 then is also required for the live installer, so it can boot in UEFI mode.
Microsoft for some reason has a .wim file in its ISO that is too large for FAT32, so it cannot be directly copied into a FAT32 drive for required UEFI install. The Windows install tool splits the .wim file. Some other work arounds also exist.

But any other Windows format is not recommended unless also running Windows as chkdsk & defrag are periodically required and can only be done from Windows. Linux cannot fix any or maybe only a few Windows issues.

[TheFu]

Just buy a 2TB external USB HDD. They should be $40 and provide more than enough room. When you are all done, you'll have storage for weekly backups for at least a year.

Oh, and use native Linux file systems, not MS-Windows file systems - so don't use FAT32, exFAT, NTFS. Choose ext4 if you don't have a specific reason to choose any other file system for use on Linux.