[SOLVED] [Clonezilla] Can't boot restored PC?

[littlebigman]

Hello

Since the Clonezilla mailing list doesn't seem very active, I figured I should ask in a Linux forum to see if someone else has experienced this issue and knows if something can be done.

On a test host, using the PartedMagic live CD, I created two partitions: One to hold an OS I wish to use for testing (/sda1), and a second partition to hold images (/sda2). Unless I overlooked it, when saving /sda1 into an image file in /sda2 (ie. /dev/partimage), I was not prompted whether to include the MBR.

After trying out Windows7, I used Clonezilla to restore an XPSP3 image, and GParted to set /sda1 as Boot (ie. active, I guess). FWIW, Gparted tells me that /sda1 starts at Sector 63.

When rebooting the PC, the screen remains blank, with no error message.

Could it be that Clonezilla didn't save/restore the MBR? Does it mean that the images I made so far are all unusable? :-/

Thank you for any help.

[devils casper]

I am not sure if Clonezilla include MBR or not but its really easy to fix this problem. Just boot up from Windows Installation CD and select Repair. Execute Fixmbr command at repair prompt.

For Linux distros, you can install GRUB manually using LiveCD of any Linux distro or SuperGRUB CD.

[yancek]

Using Clonezilla to copy disk to disk will include the mbr. Copying partition to partition to partition will not since the mbr is not on any partition. No sure if there is an option to include the mbr manually when doing partition to partition copying. mbr is on sector 1. devils caspers suggestions should get you going.

[littlebigman]

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not getting much further :-/ Can Grub boot XP without any Linux partition on the hard-disk?

The reason I ask is that the infos I found on the Net always assume that people want to restore Grub after installing Windows and ending up enable to multi-boot to Linux and Windows.

In my case, I want to fill the MBR with a bootloader that can boot XP since Clonezilla apparently doesn't save the MBR when cloning a partition into an image file, and for some reason, empties the MBR afterwards.

So at this point, I have XP in /sda1, some Clonezilla images in /sda2... and an empty MBR. Any idea what tool I could use to be able to boot whatever OS lives in /sda1?

Thank you.

[devils casper]

Can Grub boot XP without any Linux partition on the hard-disk?

Yes but where will you store conf files of GRUB? You will have to create a small partition for that.

Just fix MBR once for Windows OS using fixmbr command. It will point to boot sector of first partition and load whatever version of Windows OS you have installed in First Partition.
You will not have to change anything/re-install MBR unless you want to setup multiboot and use another Bootloader like GRUB.

[littlebigman]

Thanks, I'll boot up an XP CD to run "fixmbr" so I can salvage this test PC for now.

Ideally, I'd like to find a way to use Clonezilla so that it saves the MBR along with whatever OS lives in /sda2.

Are there Clonezilla afficionados in the audience that would explain how they do it?

Thank you.

[devils casper]

You can use dd command to save a copy of MBR and restore it anytime.

dd if=/dev/sda of=mbr1.img bs=446 count=1

Restore it :

dd if=<path_of_mbr1.img file> of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1

[littlebigman]

Thanks, I'll do this next time I install a new OS. It's too bad CloneZilla doesn't offer this option when saving a partition into an image file.

[littlebigman]

Does someone know how to install Grub from scratch by booting from a live CD, so that its Stage1 will install into the MBR, its Stage2 data will be put into /sda2, and configure it to load whatever OS is installed in /sda1 (so that I don't need to edit Grub every time I restore a new OS image into /sda1)?

Here's the diagram:

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/4...ezillagrub.jpg

Thank you.

[yancek]

If you are just going to have your clonezilla images in sda2 and use sda1 to test different Operating Systems, you will need a separate boot partition, preferably at the beginning of the drive, or you could create a separate Grub partition to do this. I've seen tutorials on this so I would suggest you google "create grub partition". I don't see how what you are suggesting (putting stage2 file on sda2 with images) would work but maybe I'm not understanding what you want.

Found this link, not the one I was looking for but it explains the concept:

Making a Dedicated Grub Partition

The above doesn't apply if you are using Grub2.