[SOLVED] Linux Mint 20 > NVMe + Timeshift > Most clean installation?

[SHUred]

Hello everyone,
i did experiment with some constellations regarding using partitions and disks in different combinations on my PC, running ONLY Linux Mint 20.

Now i bought myself a NVMe 1TB drive and wanted to restore my whole system to it, but it seems that i can not choose the NVME-Drive as target for timeshift.
Im not a professional, so there are for sure some mistakes i made.

My current Drives:

• 1TB NVME --> Here Linux Mint 20 including home and all files shall run
• 4TB HDD --> Here i only want to store my Timeshift backups
• 2TB USB-HDD --> My current location from where i want to restore my Timeshift backups --> Once this is done i want to disconnect this drive and only use internal storages (the two above)

Code: Select all

Dateisystem     1K-Blöcke   Benutzt  Verfügbar Verw% Eingehängt auf
udev             32858256         0   32858256    0% /dev
tmpfs             6580776      1612    6579164    1% /run
/dev/nvme0n1    960381672   8800000  902727160    1% /
tmpfs            32903864     46392   32857472    1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                5120         8       5112    1% /run/lock
tmpfs            32903864         0   32903864    0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda1           94759      7956      86804    9% /boot/efi
tmpfs             6580772        20    6580752    1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdb1      1921800384 574024176 1250084256   32% /run/timeshift/backup

What i did until now:

• Tried to directly restore Timeshift Backup to NVMe-Drive via running LM20 from USB-Stick --> NVMe was not choosable as target disk --> So i installed LM20 fresh to the NVMe drive
• Now (running the system already from NVMe) i wanted to restore the Timeshift backup again, but not while running LM from USB disk, but from NVMe --> Same situation --> Can not choose NVMe partition as target-root-path (Screenshot: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kcDQAshaThAC5GC17)
• Did run Linux only as terminal and restore via command --> sudo timeshift --restore --snapshot ... --target /dev/nvme0n1 --> Got a error saysing something like "error to access storage"

My questions:

1. Why isnt it possible to use my NVMe as Target for Timeshift
2. Do i need the efi-partition?

Thank you already in advance

[SMG]

Check this thread Can Time Shift (timeshift?) restore to bare metal? as it may contain the answers you need.

[Larry78723]

You need to create a partition table on the NVME drive before trying to restore a Timeshift snapshot.

[SHUred]

Hello,
thanks a lot for your replies!

I first clean-installed Linux Mint on my new NVMe-Drive with unplugged backup-drives (as you said)
Due to this kind of installation, all the partition tables are created correctly automatically (as you said)
After that a restore from my timeshift-backup did not fully work --> Problems during boot ect.

So i repeated everything to again re-install a clean linux mint
Then i copied the complete home folder from my newest TimeShift Backup
Reinstalled all Software
--> Works fine
--> All Settings are still there due to hidden files in my home folder

Im fine with that!

Thanks everybody for your help!