[SOLVED] Image backup failing due to strange partitioning

[mossi2000]

Hi,

I'm still inquiring why a default installation from USB stick fails on the APU2.
Some say it's due  to USB 3.0 port / stick problem, I think it's only due to a AHCI problem.
I have the APU2 running with 2 additional entries in /boot/devices.hints (that disappeared while upgrading to 17.7.8 and - oh wonder - the AHCI problem practically immediately returned).

So I had the idea to to have an image backup of the MSATA SSD before trying any other installation experiment.

I got myself a second SSD (same type SANDISK), an inateck USB3 to MSATA adapter and an adapter cable  for the internal USB 2.0 ports.

First I tried a dd clone on the APU2 itself, booted from a TinyCore USB stick to the second SSD attached to the inateck. Worked in principle, but the second SSD was NOT booting completely and missing some startup.sh.
No 1:1 copy. Why? No idea.

Then I tried to create an image of the already installed SSD on my Windows system. No chance using any Windows tool.
I then prepared a Clonezilla Live stick and booted it. I tried to create the image to a second USB stick, but Clonezilla failed immediately telling something about "recursive partition" or so.

When I started investigating the partitioning i got puzzled: All I see is a 24 MB partition and unallocated free space for the rest of the SSD.

Booting the SSD and letting opnSense (FreeBSD) tell me how the disk is partitioned only leads to:

Code: [Select]

root@OPNsense:~ # fdisk /dev/ada0
******* Working on device /dev/ada0 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=31029 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=31029 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 2 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 4 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 0, size 50000 (24 Meg), flag 80 (active)
        beg: cyl 0/ head 0/ sector 1;
        end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63
root@OPNsense:~ #


Can somebody explain me that nonsense??
Why does the existing ufs partition NOT show up??

Standard way on FreeBSD is similar to Linux...

With that it's clear that Clonezilla can't do anything useful...

Axel

[franco]

Hi Axel,

Between this and the other thread, is this a different issue or a follow-up or a side-question?

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=6366.0


Thanks,
Franco

[mossi2000]

Hi Axel,

Between this and the other thread, is this a different issue or a follow-up or a side-question?

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=6366.0


Thanks,
Franco

Side question that got answered later. The bunzip2 | tar method of the first successful installation just replicates the partitioning of the USB stick. The real installation puts a good partitioning on the SSD, that I could image using clonezilla on the Desktop machine using the USB3 to MSATA adapter.

[franco]

Hi Axel,

Ok, alright. So I'm marking this solved.


Cheers,
Franco