Timeshift on a clone

General Help
1

Hi All,
Can i use a current timeshift snapshot to bring an older clone up to date?

I have searched the web for answers, but they all mention using the live usb environment to accomplish this task.

I am using Zorin 18 core, direct install from live USB not an upgrade.
I have 2 X 1tb HDD drives, 1st is my working HDD, partitions 1 & 2 are operating system and partition 3 is a backup copy of my storage drive (I only mount partition 3 when I want to use FreeFileSync to backup from a separate storage HDD, then unmount it when finished), My 2nd HDD is an exact clone of my 1st HDD. I have already used FreeFileSync to back up partition 3 on this drive. (this provides me 2 backups of my storage)
My intention is that I could use the 2nd cloned HDD as a quick OS fall back ( I am aware of the issues of having both HDDs installed at the same time)
My Timeshift is set to create snapshot to my separate storage drive.

This brings me to my question, can I physically swap out my current drive, install and boot from my cloned drive and simply use Timeshift to restore to a current snapshot, virtually moving the older cloned HDD forward in time?

Hope this isn't to long winded and looking forward to any comments.
Cheers Tony

2

I've not really tried exactly what you're describing, but my gut reaction is probably not (although I could be 100% wrong). The only reason I think that is because if your 2nd drive is an exact clone of your 1st drive, and your first drive has timeshifts going to the second drive, then when you boot from your 2nd drive, it's going to be trying to point to another imaginary drive that your timeshift snapshots exist in.

It might be possible to locate your snapshots on your second drive once booted to the cloned drive, but then you'd just be in the same situation (presumably) that your first drive was in (but likely minus some necessary config changes, maybe). I forsee many issues with these attempts.

I don't know if Timeshift is exactly what you're looking for in this scenario. It was made to function as a rollback in case updates went wrong, not to update an older version of a system to a newer version.

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Thanks applecheeks.

I may have missled regarding hdd, I actually have a 3rd HDD designatied to storage, that is where the Timeshift snapshot is located.

Due to the amount of space on my 2 system drives, I back up my dedicated storage HDD to the 3rd partitions, (you can never have enough backups)

I supose I could give it a go just for the sake ($h1ts and giggles) of it and if it fails, just re-clone my working HDD again.

I'm not in any hurry so I will wait for any other info.

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Doing a little more searching, it apears that I can rewind to an earlier time but then can move forward to another time, this is basically ( in my head) what I am intending to do.

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This has always been my motto. Besides, even if you knew for 100% that something SHOULD work, if you never go through and verify it, then the time where you need and it doesn't work is gonna drive you mental. That, and fiddling with stuff is great :wink:

It also sounds like you are very clearly aware and making sure you have backups and copies of your data, which already is leauges ahead of a lot of people. So kudos to you for that. I would be interested to know how your trials with this end up.

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6

The answer is "Yes" though it is kind of a misuse of TimeShift. RescueZilla would be the better approach for what you are asking.

Timeshift assumes the same UUID, same hardware.
So if this is two Zorin OS installs, on separate disks, same hardware, one has been neglected in updates since you use the other disk primarily, it would work.
I assume, you mean more than system updates - you want your work and personal files that are cloned updated.

If it is a drive used on an entirely different machine and you overlay your timeshift clone over it - it is possible that when you plug the drive into a different motherboard, different GPU , different monitors - you could have some problems.

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@Aravisian
Thank you for your input.

Both HDDs are identical make, model and size, one is a clone of the other using CloneZilla, and I haven't altered the UUIDs. As mentioned the cloned drive is for a quick swap out if I my working drive has an issue.
Edit after posting ( if my working drive fails, I would be able to install my clone drive, use TimeShift and be back up and running in no time)

You are correct that the cloned drive requires "system update" but to also cover any tweaks that I have performed.
Personal files are saved direct to my separate storage drive, so! not necessary to update them.

You mention using RescueZilla being a better approach, are you suggesting that I simply re-clone partitions 1 & 2 of 3, my reason for not cloning the 3rd partition is size, between 500 and 600 GB

Once again thank you for you advice, it is appreciated.

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Given that this is a direct 1:1 transfer, you should have no trouble using Timeshift the way you are.
If you prefer to switch to using RescueZilla - @Frog knows RescuaZilla better than I do, but yes, the method you ask about is perfectly reasonable.

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Thank you to all who contributed.

I have researched further and this appears to be a bit of a grey area.

I will follow up with what I have accomplished in the hope that it may assist others.

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Okay, using my phone browser, I asked Google yet again for information; this is the exact question.

“If Zorin 18 crashed and I needed to install it again can I then use my timeshift snapshot to restore my system to before the crash?”

Google’s reply stated that “yes, you absolutely can use a Timeshift snapshot yada yada yada” and continued to state that “Timeshift is designed specifically for this scenario.”

The response in Brave on my PC is similar but different.

I can now confirm that it appears to work (please note I am a novice and do not have the knowledge to detect if there are any faults with the drive I have restored) (I didn’t completely follow Google’s directives) and (I did run into issues).

Here is what I did and the results.

Shut down, disconnected my working drive; this is connected via SATA port 0.

My storage drive is connected via SATA port 1. This is where I have or had my timeshift snapshot.

I installed my cloned drive via a drawer, and re-powered my system, and all appeared okay.

Now this is a little bit of a grey area; when I loaded timeshift, something shut down and restarted my system??? After it rebooted and I started timeshift again, there were no snapshots available (something had deleted them, and I am not sure if it was possibly because I used the drive draw via SATA port 3) I checked my totally separate backup disc, and there are files there (thank goodness for backups), so I shut down and reconfigured my working and storage drives as per the original, removed the drawer, and rebooted. This confirmed that the storage drive was missing the snapshots that I knew had been there, and timeshift wouldn't create a new snapshot on my storage drive.

Long story! Turns out I had some drive error and ran a check disc to fix it.

Created a new snapshot after the fix, shutdown; this time I disconnected my working drive and installed my clone via SATA port 0 and restarted, and this time I had success; however, changes that I had done to my desktop were not set into place. (Note: I do not use my home folder for storage; there are a few links to my storage drive, and everything else is stored there.)

A quick Google search had me using Timeshift via live USB; this then set my desktop changes that I had made to my working drive, and now my clone drive is up to date with my working drive.

This gives me confidence that if for some reason my working drive fails, I can quickly insert my clone and be running promptly, giving me time to repair or replace the defective drive

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