TImeshift question

[jtaxel1977]

I have a dual boot laptop,
windows 10 435GB | Linux Mint 30GB

I am going to be deleting the linux mint partition, and shrinking my windows 10 and then splitting the partition,, i will then have an unallocated partition, that i am gonna use for a new linux mint.

Can i do a timeshift backup on my now mint 30gb, and restore it on the new mint which will be larger, about 150gb partition.

[deepakdeshp]

Better to take backup of all you data before attempting anything with partitions. Back up on a n external HDD,including the TS snapshot.

[jtaxel1977]

yep back up and put on external drive,
but just want to make sure than when i install the new mint on the bigger partition , it will recover without any issues, being a larger partition.

Thanks!!

[deepakdeshp]

Linux and Windows partitions should be adjacent for them to be combined, Are they?

[AndyMH]

Can i do a timeshift backup on my now mint 30gb, and restore it on the new mint which will be larger, about 150gb partition.

No, don't think so. I believe timeshift uses the UUID of the root partition when determining where to restore. I you want to do this with timeshift then you will need to find out the existing UUID of the / partition (blkid) and then before you install the new mint, set the UUID of your new / partition to the same as the old one with tune2fs.

Note - new and old cannot co-exist, you can't have two partitions on the same drive with the same UUID.

Note - unless you have changed the defaults, this takes care of /, but does nothing for /home.

[deepakdeshp]

I uses Clonezilla to clone partitions effective ly.

[pbear]

Can i do a timeshift backup on my now mint 30gb, and restore it on the new mint which will be larger, about 150gb partition.

Yes, I've done it. In theory, Andy's concern about UUIDs is valid. As it happens, the Timeshift developer recognized the problem and has the restore function edit fstab to reflect the new UUIDs. For more details, see this demo.

By the way, this isn't the only solution. Foxclone and Clonezilla also would be suitable.

[rarsa]

Either I'm confused or you are confused.

Why do you need to delete the current Mint partition?

If I Understood correctly you want to have Windows + OldMint + NewMint. Did I understood correctly?

Yes, by all means before moving/resizing partitions ensure you have a backup.

Other than that, booting from CD or USB you can just run gparted, resize the windows partition, resize/move the existing mint partition, create the new mint partition(s) and install mint.

If what you wanted is to backup your data (home directory) with timeshift, reinstall and restore just your home directory, yes you can do that.

But in that case, I think a better option is to from now on, keep the home partition separate from the main partition, that way, when you install a new version, you do t need to move things around. What I do is for a little while I keep my new and old mint pointing to the home partition until I. Happy with the new Installation.

[AndyMH]

By the way, this isn't the only solution. Foxclone and Clonezilla also would be suitable.

Don't know about clonezilla, but foxclone won't do it for you. It will allow you to clone to a new drive, but it won't let you clone one partition to another partition on the same drive.

[pbear]

... won't let you clone one partition to another partition on the same drive.

Can it clone out to a USB drive, then back in? That's what I had in mind.

[pbear]

Why do you need to delete the current Mint partition?

Good question. For the Timeshift strategy to work, the new Mint system has to be the same version and desktop as the old one. In which event, yeah, would be much simpler to forget about reinstall and simply rearrange/resize the current partitions with GParted run from a live session.

FYI, jtaxel1977, when you do this, GParted will throw a warning about potentially making the Mint system not bootable. The warning is a holdover from the good ol' days, when Linux used LILO. This isn't a problem with Grub2. The warning may be safely ignored.

That said, as with all complex maneuvers, make sure you have current data file backups before you start. That's a standard precaution.

[AndyMH]

Can it clone out to a USB drive, then back in? That's what I had in mind.

Yes it can, will take a long time with a usb stick, faster with a HDD, but not sure what this achieves other than a backup.

[pbear]

Can it clone out to a USB drive, then back in? That's what I had in mind.

Yes it can, will take a long time with a usb stick, faster with a HDD, but not sure what this achieves other than a backup.

Recall that the original question was:

Can i do a timeshift backup on my now mint 30gb, and restore it on the new mint which will be larger, about 150gb partition.

So, Foxclone also can do that. Whether it or TS would be faster depends on how much unused space there is. In my experience, file copy seems to take roughly twice as long for the files, but zero time for unused blocks, where block copy is twice as fast block-for-block but copies all them. Neither method is going to take very long for system files only, less than 30 GB. Probably something like ten minutes, maybe less.

That said, I still think rarsa is right. The best solution is neither, instead resizing and rearranging the partitions with GParted.

[AndyMH]

So, Foxclone also can do that.

No, or at least not against the question posed by the OP

I am going to be deleting the linux mint partition, and shrinking my windows 10 and then splitting the partition,, i will then have an unallocated partition, that i am gonna use for a new linux mint.

Say mint is sda5 (about where it would be dual boot UEFI with win10). You take a image backup of sda5, then delete it and shrink your win10 C: partition (sda4) to create unallocated space. Now restore the sda5 image. First thing foxclone will spot is that the partition table has changed and insist on restoring it. End result is sda5 is okay - partition table points to it correctly, but it is no different to what it was originally and in exactly the same place. Worse, sda4 has changed on the drive but the partition table reflects the old sda4 so you have screwed the drive up and win probably won't boot.

Agree completely, the right answer is use gparted to modify what is currently there after taking a backup.

[pbear]

Turns out, apparently, that I've always misunderstood what partition clone does. At least that's my takeaway from what you just wrote, plus this post in the Foxclone thread. If one can't clone the partition to another drive without taking the partition table with it, I'll be darned if I see any value to the function. I'll stick to file-copy solutions, which I'm able to wrap my mind around more easily.

[AndyMH]

Which is why I do both, file and image backup. Horses for courses

You could write a program that just worked on an individual partition and the the partition table entry for it. Think you could have a lot of head scratching try to fit a single partition into a foreign drive so it could co-exist with what was there. I'm not aware of anything that does that, but then I've not looked specifically for that. Maybe the next project, but suspect the demand would be low and at the moment the garden beckons...