Posts tagged with “popos”

PopOS System Recovery and Partition Migration Notes

Background

Yesterday, my PopOS system broke unexpectedly. The refresh install option failed, and attempting to reinstall while preserving the old /var and /home partitions was unsuccessful.

Solution: Fresh Custom Installation

Performed a clean custom installation with:

  • /boot/efi - formatted
  • / - formatted
  • /recovery - formatted

This approach worked successfully, then migrated data from old partitions.

Partition Migration Process

Tools Used

parted --list    # Get partition information
blkid           # Get partition UUIDs

Note: Couldn't stop GDM or enter single-user mode (system would hang). Performed migration on running system instead.

1. Home Partition Migration (/dev/nvme0n1p8)

sudo mv /home /home.bak          # Backup current home
sudo mkdir /home
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p8 /home
ls /home                         # Confirm correct partition
sudo blkid /dev/nvme0n1p8       # Get UUID
sudo vi /etc/fstab

Added to /etc/fstab:

UUID=32e4ed56-6ed9-4f14-9585-ffff54f997b2 /home ext4 defaults 0 2

Rebooted to verify system stability.

2. Backup Partition Setup (/dev/nvme0n1p10)

sudo parted --list
sudo blkid /dev/nvme0n1p10
sudo vi /etc/fstab

Added to /etc/fstab:

UUID=8aba0dd5-7058-4036-8a08-fcd1e0e002bc /backup ext4 defaults 0 2

sudo mount -a                   # Test mount configuration

3. Var Partition Migration (/dev/nvme0n1p7)

# Mount old var partition and backup data
sudo mkdir /mnt/var
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p7 /mnt/var
sudo tar -czpvf /backup/old-var-backup.tar.gz -C /mnt var

# Prepare new var partition
sudo umount /mnt/var
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p7   # Format old var partition
sudo mkdir /mnt/new-var
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p7 /mnt/new-var

# Copy current var data to new partition
sudo cp -av /var/* /mnt/new-var/

# Update fstab and switch to new partition
sudo blkid /dev/nvme0n1p7
sudo vi /etc/fstab              # Add var partition entry
sudo mv /var /var.old && sudo mkdir /var && sudo mount -a

Key Lessons Learned

  • Fresh installation with custom partitioning was more reliable than trying to preserve old partitions during install
  • System migration on a running system worked fine when rescue mode wasn't accessible
  • Always backup critical data before formatting partitions
  • Test each partition mount configuration before proceeding to the next step

Status: Migration completed successfully. System running normally with all data preserved.