Move HDD to another server, are there issues in doing this?

Support and Help
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1

I’m seen a lot of kernel error showing up on my Dell 360 PC that I’m running ubuntu 22.04.3 lts

it started when the old SATA HDD started to fail and I did a clean install to a new SATA HDD.

so I’m thinking that the PC is failing also ( it been running as a Ubuntu server since 2008 or there about, and have been something else even longer)

system info:
Dell 360 with two HDD sda - boot of course and sdb - data .

The Question is.

can I pull the boot HDD from the DELL and put it in another PC without reinstalling Ubuntu, will it recognize the chipsets in the new PC and load the needed components.
or is a reinstall the only safe option?

I’m sure moving SDB to the new server is not an issue. but not sure if SDA might have issues.
TIA

Tim

2

In general, yes.

One exception is if there’s greater (or fewer) disks in the target system, and your /etc/fstab (or other disk config) mentions device names explicitly (such as /dev/sdb1) as opposed to UUIDs.

Another exception to this is if you have installed 3rd party drivers such as nvidia, and manually configured your xorg.conf or similar. It may fail to load the graphical login screen, and leave you with a scary black screen.

But if you haven’t done that, chances are it will work. You could always put it in the other machine to test, and put it back if it all falls apart, or kicks your cat or something. So you can debug it.

3

thanks, I was thinking that I could do this but was not sure.

I’ve not manually install any third party drivers. unless , when doing the clean install of 22.04 the ubuntu install process did install drivers that were for the DELL.

as to the Disk I’ll be moving both from the DELL to the new server.

Thanks
Tim

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4

Update,

test1:
using only one drive in the new system, it boots into emergency mode. listing bios errors.

so next test : use both drives from the old system in the new.

5

Update #2 – successful ( after a second system was used)

add both drives to new server.

Test 1 – add drives to lenovo PC - failed – system did not recognize the boot drive – this was not unexpected.

Test 2 - added drive to another Dell pc that was lying around and system boot without any bios errors but I did need to edit the Yaml file In /etc/netplan and change the nic to enp0s25
( ip -a to get name)

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