Hey all, I had a frozen screen during the latest update and am left with a kernel panic on boot, so I want to restore my system from an external hdd using a live usb system. I tried that using timeshift and following this guide https://ostechnix.com/how-to-backup-and-restore-linux-system-with-timeshift/#restore-snapshots and now it seems I only have an empty /boot folder on the original drive. Luckily I have a separate backup of /home, but still, I would like to restore my system, and, perhaps more importantly, I would like timeshift not to wipe all my data. Any help is highly appreciated, any necessary additional info gladly given.

  • slimsalm@programming.dev
    1·
    1 year ago

    I normally use timeshift only to snapshot the system on a daily basis, and if I am not certain what my “fiddling” will do with my operating system, I make a manual snapshot on timeshift before I proceed with what I will do.

    In your case I’ll copy anything that is important you have, and restore to a earlier version you know it works and call it a truce, after that, I’ll suggest just to snapshot your system and not home folder

    • BraveSentry@feddit.deOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks. I did not snapshot the home folder. I tried to restore a snapshot of a working system but got a wiped ssd instead.

      • abrasiveteapot@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        1 year ago

        Something is very wrong here, I’ve literally restored dozens of times with timeshift and never had it go wrong like this.

        Restart the timeshift restore sequence checking very carefully the parameters (you dont have to complete, just go back into it). It should show you a list of what it wants to restore (on the second screen iirc) have a look at that for anything strange (like there not being any files listed to restore for example)

        • BraveSentry@feddit.deOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          It seems I looked too coarsly. It showed all the files to restore. Then it show the same files…but to delete. So I ran it again but cancelled as soon as it began deleting. Now I have a system that boots at leasr into tty and can try to restore /home with duplicacy from there.

          Still the question remains why everything was set to be deleted after restoring.

      • slimsalm@programming.dev
        1·
        1 year ago

        A wiped ssd, damn… what os were you running? Maybe you have to go to the linux mint forum. They are maintaining the timeshift app, maybe you can get advice from them. Good luck