The best method to move/clone LibreElec to a new (larger) drive

televisi · July 25, 2017 at 3:31 PM

Hi,

What's the best method to move/clone LibreElec to a new/different (potentially bigger) hard drive?

I tried to copy/clone the main partition using Paragon hard disk manager Mac, it seems I need to re-create the syslinux on the new drive, but not sure how to this.

I really appreciate if someone can supply a step-by-step method to do this clone to retain LibreElec main partition

Thanks

bubblegum57 · July 25, 2017 at 3:53 PM

Use Clonezilla live cd to clone the new drive, then use gparted to expand the main partition.

gwilly7 · July 25, 2017 at 8:23 PM

I am curious, what would be the advantage in cloning vs. just doing a backup, then a fresh install on the new drive and then restoring backup?

bubblegum57 · July 25, 2017 at 8:47 PM

Personally, I have never got the backup & restore to work. Clonezilla is quick

televisi · July 25, 2017 at 11:40 PM

Quote from bubblegum57

Use Clonezilla live cd to clone the new drive, then use gparted to expand the main partition.

Thank you, will give this a try

Quote from gwilly7

I am curious, what would be the advantage in cloning vs. just doing a backup, then a fresh install on the new drive and then restoring backup?

I was under impression that backup will copy the settings but not the add on? (note: I currently have couple of Dockers applications (e.g. sabnzbd, sonarr), it would be nice if these app can be carried over to the new drive too)

Another question, if I need to move the movies folder around, should I just:

1) move the files manually (using ssh or similar method) & re-attach the new folder on kodi gui & run the kodi update process

OR

2) there is a simple setting file that I can manually edit the movies location?

televisi · July 25, 2017 at 11:51 PM

Quote from televisi

Another question, if I need to move the movies folder around, should I just:

1) move the files manually (using ssh or similar method) & re-attach the new folder on kodi gui & run the kodi update process

OR

2) there is a simple setting file that I can manually edit the movies location?

Found the answer myself from Userdata - Official Kodi Wiki , it's located inside ~/.kodi/userdata/sources.xml

**Klojum** · July 26, 2017 at 6:23 AM Official Post

FYI, editing the sources.xml file will not automatically update the path values in the video and/or music databases.

televisi · July 26, 2017 at 8:42 AM

Quote from Klojum

FYI, editing the sources.xml file will not automatically update the path values in the video and/or music databases.

Thanks Klojum, in this case, which file should I update to accommodate the changes then (if there is any)?

**Klojum** · July 26, 2017 at 10:20 AM Official Post

Like I said, it's about the database. Which is not a file in the strict sense of a text file.

You will need to re-add the source(s) via the Kodi GUI, which adds them to the database(s).

As far as I see it, the sources.xml file is only a backup file.

**chewitt** · July 26, 2017 at 10:55 AM Official Post

Remove old drive. Clean install LE to the new drive. Connect old drive to USB cable and plug into HTPC, wait for the drives to mount. Stop Kodi, copy over all the stuff you want from the old drive, restart Kodi and all your old config is there. Disconnect old drive, then in a few weeks when nothing went wrong with the new drive you can reformat the old one and use it for backups or something.

It's usually faster to copy data in a filesystem than make a block-by-block copy of the entire filesystem.