Windows 11 | 65x HP Z2 Tower G1i | UPDATE -

[kratkale]

@kratkale
Okay—I have another theory about the problem: after analyzing the NVMe serial numbers, I found the following number ranges: 0525476001xxx and BMEAN00061090Axxx—where x can be a hexadecimal number and varies. The PC’s with NVMe drives from the 05… range have trouble recognizing the first NVMe drive. Those with BM… did not have this problem. The serial numbers of the data disks are all 260227800xxx and are all one digit shorter than the numbers of the system disks.

When cloning with Clonzilla, I didn’t have a problem with any system (65 PCs); all hard drives were correctly recognized in the order they are installed in the PC.

Could it be that cloning with FOG always clones to the smaller serial number? … and when cloning, it also says that it’s cloning to nvme1, which is correct.

[Tom Elliott]

@kratkale I didn’t know you were updating the serial of a group of devices, you should not do that. Groups are just mass updating hosts with the information you provide for the Host base settings (snapins, primary drive, kernel, etc…).

[Tom Elliott]

@kratkale I don’t know what you are asking.

what’s nvme1n1 this boot cycle, might very well be nvme0n1 next cycle.

While you may see some level on consistency, SERIAL based devices (PCI, SATA, USB, etc…)

All load their identifiers (/dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1, etc…) on a first come first serve basis.

What’s /dev/sda1 this boot may be /dev/sdb1 next boot and so on. There’s 0 method to guarantee they will always get the same label which is why many Linux machines use a UUID for the fstab file now instead of their path names (which was used for a long period of time).

FOG just returns the list of devices lsblk sees in the order lsblk sees it.

[kratkale]

@kratkale OK—I’ll try to explain it more clearly:
FOG

FOG clones (as you can see in the image) to nvme1. No host device was specified here. So FOG correctly identified the NVMe order and didn’t clone to nvme0, but to the wrong nvme1.
I noticed that this happens with all devices where the NVMe serial number starts with a number. For those where the NVMe serial number starts with a letter, it clones correctly to nvme0. The NVMe on the data drive is a different brand and only has numbers as serial numbers.

Clonzilla

Clonzilla always gave me a choice between nvme0 and nvme1 when cloning. Here, the NVMe installed in the first slot in the PC was always nvme0, and the one installed in the second slot was always nvme1—so Clonzilla always correctly identifies which is the data drive and which is the system drive. The system drive is always installed in the first slot, and the data drive is always in the second.

[kratkale]

@Tom-Elliott
Of course, if I change the image, for example, I have to use groups as well. Otherwise, I’d have to change the image on every PC by hand.
In that case, I think it would be helpful if you could protect the “Host Primary Disk” entry on the host so that this information isn’t lost.

[Tom Elliott]

@kratkale I’m unsure I understand?

If the Group Primary Disk is empty, nothing should be changing on the hosts within the groups.

Just update the group’s Image, and save.

[kratkale]

@kratkale
as a feature request I would suggest to have the possibility to fix the host primary disk like the “protected” in Image General - just to be fail safe.

[kratkale]

@Tom-Elliott
I can confirm, that it works to insert the serial number in Host Management | Host gernal | Host Primary Disk. You can take the value you get from booting with a clonzilla stick (Switch to the second console) and use lsblk -pdno SERIAL,SIZE


I did a test and used the wrong number in Host Primary Disk and start to clone:

So it seems to work.

[kratkale]

@Tom-Elliott
Tom Thank you for your great support.

[Tom Elliott]

@kratkale You don’t need the clonezilla to see this information though admittedly it’s not exactly straight forward.

You can load FOG into debug mode and it will drop you to a shell where you can then run the lsblk command as well.

That said, if booting to clonezilla isn’t that difficult a thing, then it’s all good either way.

[kratkale]

@Tom-Elliott
Here’s something else funny—the serial numbers aren’t unique! I have a duplicate…
Two differnt PC’s CAD009 and CAD023