Migrating old legacy boot installation to new UEFI only hardware?

csh · February 20, 2020 at 8:01 PM

Old AMD based HTPC, single 1TB drive, I think it is legacy only boot, made with LE USB stick installer, running LE 8.2.5 generic x64.

Need to switch the old AMD with new intel gemini lake board which is supposedly UEFI only.

I would like to migrate existing LE installation, preferably without any data loss

Can I just swap the board or is it not going to boot?

Partition info on old hardware:

Code

Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
1      4194kB  541MB   537MB   primary  ext4         boot
2      541MB   1000GB  1000GB  primary  ext4

For hardware testing I installed LE on USB stick, works OK, but i see completely different partitioning scheme.

first a FAT EFI partition with different flags and GPT instead of MBR.

Partition info on new test install:

Code

(parted) print                                                            
Model: SanDisk Extreme (scsi)
Disk /dev/sde: 15,7GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
 1      4194kB  541MB   537MB   fat32        primary  boot, legacy_boot, esp
 2      541MB   15,7GB  15,2GB  ext4         primary

Installer made EFI boot partition with the following contents:

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├── EFI
│   └── BOOT
│       ├── bootia32.efi
│       ├── bootx64.efi
│       ├── grub.cfg
│       └── ldlinux.e64
├── KERNEL
├── ldlinux.c32
├── ldlinux.sys
├── syslinux.cfg
└── SYSTEM

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Any ideas how to transfer that to old drive and make it bootable for new hardware?

**Klojum** · February 20, 2020 at 8:07 PM Official Post

Do a full backup with LibreELEC's Back/Restore tool, just in case.

Swapping out the HDD/SSD from the AMD to the Intel is an option. The Intel UEFI should (still) have a 'legacy' boot option AFAIK.

Otherwise, do a fresh install (v9.2.0) on the Intel and restore the previously made backup.

csh · February 21, 2020 at 5:13 AM

There is no legacy boot in newer intel gemini lake MBOs.

I was hoping someone tried fiddling with the bootloader and EFI, but didn't find any good guide.

It is the long way then - backup, nuke everything and reinstall. Reminds me of the times when I used windows

Thx for the reply.