Raspi5 - Cloning from PCI NVMe to SD card slot. Raspi do not boot (B1) from SD card.

[Manu-65]

Hello,
i have a raspi5 with nvme pci hat.
At the current the raspi5 is booting from nvme (no SD card inserted in raspi slot)

I would like to clone the nvme to SD card, then i inserted a SD card.
I launched rpi-clone but after that raspi5 is not booting from the SD card (boot order is B1, Boot from SD Card before trying NVMe...)

I am not familiar with rpi-clone command (i'm beginner...)

I tried the next commands:
~# rpi-clone -f2 mmcblk0
and
~# rpi-clone -f2 -l mmcblk0

i'm not sure what i'm doing...
which command options should i use?

Any idea?
Thanks
Manuel

~# lsblk

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
mmcblk0 179:0 0 59.2G 0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 512M 0 part
└─mmcblk0p2 179:2 0 58.7G 0 part
nvme0n1 259:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 512M 0 part /boot/firmware
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 58.7G 0 part /
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 58.7G 0 part /mnt/pve/backup
└─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 347.8G 0 part /mnt/pve/datastore

~# cat /etc/os-release

PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="12"
VERSION="12 (bookworm)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

[framps]

Please see #44 and try the workaround.

[Manu-65]

Thanks, i saw #44, today i repeated the process (commands) four times, there is no change/improvement.

~# uname -a

Linux 6.6.62+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.6.62-1+rpt1 (2024-11-25) aarch64 GNU/Linux

[framps]

I'm just working on this nasty issue and I was able to fix the issue when I ran rpi-clone a second time. Unfortunately I can't reproduce the issue reliable which is quite disappointing 😞

Please try again but don't use -f or -f2. Just call sudo rpi-clone <device>

[Manu-65]

Without -f2, it is not able to clone.

~# rpi-clone -v mmcblk0

Booted disk: nvme0n1 500.1GB Destination disk: mmcblk0 63.6GB

Part Size FS Label Part Size FS Label
1 /boot/firmware 512.0M fat32 -- 1 512.0M fat32 --
2 root 58.7G ext4 rootfs 2 58.7G ext4 --
3 /mnt/pve/backup 58.7G ext4 --
4 /mnt/pve/datastore 347.8G ext4 --

** FATAL ** : Initialize needed - partition number mismatch: 4 -> 2
: But destination is too small to clone 4 partitions.
: Minimum destination size required is 117.9G.
: Possible options:
: Use -f2 to force a two partition initialize clone.
: Use -m to limit partitions to clone.
: Manually create custom partitions that can work.

: Larger destination disk..

[framps]

Good catch 👍 Looks like I should also try a clone to a smaller device to reproduce the issue. I'm unfortunately no longer able to reproduce this issue. It's a really ugly issue ...

[Manu-65]

=> rsync // /mnt/clone with-root-excludes... is it good?

in other hand, should i edit some file? fstab, etc...

i read that in previous versions some files (cmdline.txt, config.txt) were saved in /boot folder and at the current version these files are saved in /boot/firmware.

could be it the root of this issue?

[Manu-65]

Ta-chan!!

no idea why it is booting now from SD card... i will remove it and check if booting from NVMe

And YES!!

i have cloned it but it seems not reliable.

Thanks framps for follow this thread.

[framps]

i read that in previous versions some files (cmdline.txt, config.txt) were saved in /boot folder and at the current version these files are saved in /boot/firmware.

could be it the root of this issue?

No.

i have cloned it but it seems not reliable.

Yes unfortunately 😢 It seems to be an issue with the target device speed and/or other Kernel used and the fact RPi5 is faster than a RPi4.

[framps]

@Manu-65 Do you remember what you did in order to get it to succeed? Just tried multiple times or what else?

[Manu-65]

@framps just tried multiple times, in the last try the only difference was introducing -v in the command...

rpi-clone -v -f2 mmcblk0

and two reboots.

[framps]

@Manu-65 That's OK with root-exclude.

should i edit some file? fstab, etc...

No. But if you test my fix I mentioned in #44 that would be great.

[Manu-65]

@framps Thanks for your feedback