Trying to understand booting
by elmehalawi from LinuxQuestions.org on (#56377)
I'm pretty lost here and would like some pointers. I have an SSD (let's call it /dev/sdc) with both Windows 10 and Fedora 32 installed. Windows was not bootable since I installed Fedora because I guess it overwrote the MBR or something idk. So I decided to get another SSD (let's call it /dev/sda) to move the Fedora partition to.
I used clonezilla to copy the partition to sda, but I was not able to boot from the Fedora partition on sda (the new drive). So, I used clonezilla to clone the entire drive. I thought that would give me two identical drives, but the actual results surprised me:
Also, it's worth noting that I don't think the Fedora partition uses UEFI to boot:
Code:$ efibootmgr -v
EFI variables are not supported on this system.Ideally the setup would be a UEFI partition on each drive, sda for Fedora, sdc for Windows. But I'm not sure how I can do that. I don't even what it looks like now since I don't know how to read the MBR or UEFI partitions and see what's inside them.
Thanks for your help!


I used clonezilla to copy the partition to sda, but I was not able to boot from the Fedora partition on sda (the new drive). So, I used clonezilla to clone the entire drive. I thought that would give me two identical drives, but the actual results surprised me:
- I could boot Windows 10 again. I guess clonezilla somehow fixed the Windows boot manager. It only seems to boot from sda, the new drive.
- Now when I boot Fedora, it seems to randomly choose one of the Fedora partitions to boot from. So for example when I run the command `mount | grep " / "`, it sometimes shows sda, and sometimes sdc.
Also, it's worth noting that I don't think the Fedora partition uses UEFI to boot:
Code:$ efibootmgr -v
EFI variables are not supported on this system.Ideally the setup would be a UEFI partition on each drive, sda for Fedora, sdc for Windows. But I'm not sure how I can do that. I don't even what it looks like now since I don't know how to read the MBR or UEFI partitions and see what's inside them.
Thanks for your help!