From: TJ@noneofyour.business   
      
   On 2024-12-14 21:52, bad sector wrote:   
   >   
   > Since Intel have decided to fianally kill legacy BIOS in 2025 I have no   
   > choice left. Knowing this day would come I've already created an EFI #1   
   > partition, formatted with   
   >   
   > # mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sda1   
   >   
   >   
   > The current OS partitions are 10-17   
   >   
   > Device          Start        End   Sectors  Size Type   
   > /dev/sda1        2048    2099199   2097152    1G EFI System   
   > /dev/sda2  1348483072 1350580223   2097152    1G BIOS boot   
   > /dev/sda3     4196352   16779263  12582912    6G Linux swap   
   > /dev/sda4    16779264   16781311      2048    1M Linux   
   filesystem   
   > /dev/sda5    16781312   16783359      2048    1M Linux   
   filesystem   
   > /dev/sda6    16783360   16785407      2048    1M Linux   
   filesystem   
   > /dev/sda7    16785408   16787455      2048    1M Linux   
   filesystem   
   > /dev/sda8    16787456   16789503      2048    1M Linux   
   filesystem   
   > /dev/sda9    16789504   16791551      2048    1M Linux   
   filesystem   
   > /dev/sda10   16791552  593508351 576716800  275G Linux filesystem   
   > /dev/sda11  593508352  761280511 167772160   80G Linux filesystem   
   > /dev/sda12  761280512  929052671 167772160   80G Linux filesystem   
   > /dev/sda13  929052672 1096824831 167772160   80G Linux filesystem   
   > /dev/sda14 1096824832 1264596991 167772160   80G Linux filesystem   
   > /dev/sda15 1350580224 1518352383 167772160   80G Linux filesystem   
   > /dev/sda16 1518352384 1686124543 167772160   80G Linux filesystem   
   > /dev/sda17 1686124544 1853896703 167772160   80G Linux filesystem   
   >   
   > My current motherboard supports Legacy BIOS only but I'm getting a new   
   > board that supports EFI (only I think). How do I get the new motherboard   
   > started up using my existing boot disk above?   
   >   
   > What happens when the disk fails? What's the BIOS and boot recovery   
   > after I restore all partitions form images? Can I also keep an image of   
   > the EFI partition and run again with that after a recovery?   
   >   
   > TIA   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   Being of limited financial resources, I usually buy used and/or   
   refurbished hardware. I find it fills my needs more than adequately, at   
   a much lower cost. It's not for everybody, but I also like the idea of   
   taking someone else's castoff and returning it to useful life. I suppose   
   my experience isn't really relevant to your questions about a new   
   motherboard, but I'm going to post them anyway.   
      
   My first EFI machine was an HP Pavilion laptop that I found at a yard   
   sale for $20 US. It was a Windows 8.1 machine, my first look at that   
   mess. (I'm sure it was never released - it escaped!)   
      
   The BIOS on that machine is the most limited I've ever seen, with "Boot   
   options" being about the only thing that can be set by the user. Since   
   my plan was to replace that horrible concoction with Mageia Linux, the   
   first thing I did was disable secure boot so I could boot a Mageia Live   
   usb stick, just to see if Mageia would even work on it. That enabled   
   "Legacy support," and I was able to boot into something non-Microsoft.   
      
   There was then more to do before it would be usable. I doubled the RAM   
   to the 16GB max, and replaced the rust hard drive with an SSD. Now, I   
   *could* have researched how to clone an existing legacy system and   
   convert it to EFI, but it took considerably less time and effort to just   
   install Mageia using our netinstall iso. The installer took care of any   
   partitioning needs for me. Transferring wanted data(documents, pictures,   
   music, videos, etc.) from backups was next. Easy.   
      
   My second EFI hardware was/is an Asus motherboard for a 7th-generation   
   Intel processor, an upgrade for my existing production motherboard. It   
   was used, pulled from a running system by a recycler and sold on eBay.   
   It has two M.2 slots, where my old board only had SATA ports, so I   
   bought two NVME drives on Amazon to populate them. The RAM is three   
   times that of the old one.   
      
   My old one had been set up with / and /home on an SSD, with data on a   
   second rust drive. All I had to do was install Mageia once more on one   
   of the NVME drives, and transfer the data from the old rust drive to the   
   other NVME drive. Again, easy, and while not exactly fast, was less   
   time-consuming than learning how to fully convert a legacy system to   
   EFI, catching all the potential gotchas waiting to trip me up.   
      
   I love it. Of course, YMMV.   
      
   TJ   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)