Help accessing files on ssd from dead machine

H

Hnam2k

New Member
Mar 28, 2025
11
0
1
Hello everyone!

This may be a silly question but I need to access the partitions and in a best case scenario the disks of the VMs of a proxmox install form a 3rd party computer (macOS)

Basically my proxmox machine died (mini pc won’t power on anymore) and I am sending it back for refund with the nvme disk that has the proxmox install and VMs.
I am waiting to get an nvme to usb adapter delivered, so I was not yet even able to have a look at the proxmox disk.
Once I get my adapter what is the best way to safeguard or access the files from one or all VMs on the disk ?
Very sorry I didn’t do much homework on this before posting as I need to do this quickly (to not miss my return window) once I get the adapter probably tomorrow….

Thank you all in advance,
H
 
Bad news

That's not going to work out for you - LVM from macOS. Paragon (commercial Linux drivers for Mac) has ext4 support, but not LVM, AFAIK.

And you always get LVM backing EXT4 unless you used Debian as the base and installed Proxmox from the repos - which is not hard, but not a "very straightforward installation", so I'm pretty sure you didn't go out of your way to do that :)

Good news

But you could use UTM (or VirtualBox if it's Intel) to run an Ubuntu VM on macOS and use USB passthru to rescue it that way.

If you can get the disk image transfered to another system, you can actually use the Proxmox Rescue option from the install CD and it will find it, remount it, add the UEFI entries, and boot right up on into it.
 
Last edited:
Yes I had LVM, you are correct :)

Hm so I could clone this nvme to an image on my Mac for safekeeping till I build my next Proxmox server and I should be able to boot from it (after etching it to a new nvme of course) ? Even tho it will be diffrent specs / cpu / motherboard etc ? That is a very good news as I do plan on building a new machine for Proxmox...

Any idea of a good tool to use to clone the disk (on macOS :) ) ?
 
I guess clonezilla would be perfect for this… hopefully I get my adapter tomorrow and can try it out
 
Any idea of a good tool to use to clone the disk
Click to expand...

The two tools I use for cloning are:
1. `dd` https://github.com/vitalz/how-to-dd-on-mac
2. The Raspberry Pi imager: https://youtube.com/live/EQHe-qb6vI4

The macOS disk imager also works, but it's not as straightforward to use for this use case.

Even tho it will be diffrent specs / cpu / motherboard etc ?
Click to expand...

I misunderstood. I assumed you were getting a direct replacement.

It could work. I wouldn't go that route personally, I'd reinstall to avoid any quirks.

However, I'd think that if you use the Rescue Boot option from the install disk, it's likely to be able to find, mount and restore the boot UEFI options for the image.

One thing that's a little bit annoying is Proxmox doesn't give any option for setting the the root volume name - it's always `pve-root` - and I've run into situations where in order to recover I've had to drop into initrd and rename the old volume from `pve-root` to `pve-root-old` in order to be able to boot correctly on the new `pve-root` and then mount and recover files from the previous disk.
 
coolaj86 said:
The two tools I use for cloning are:
1. `dd` https://github.com/vitalz/how-to-dd-on-mac
2. The Raspberry Pi imager: https://youtube.com/live/EQHe-qb6vI4

The macOS disk imager also works, but it's not as straightforward to use for this use case.



I misunderstood. I assumed you were getting a direct replacement.

It could work. I wouldn't go that route personally, I'd reinstall to avoid any quirks.

However, I'd think that if you use the Rescue Boot option from the install disk, it's likely to be able to find, mount and restore the boot UEFI options for the image.

One thing that's a little bit annoying is Proxmox doesn't give any option for setting the the root volume name - it's always `pve-root` - and I've run into situations where in order to recover I've had to drop into initrd and rename the old volume from `pve-root` to `pve-root-old` in order to be able to boot correctly on the new `pve-root` and then mount and recover files from the previous disk.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for your help, dd is taking the image of the disk as I write this :)

Yes, I will be laking a different machine that I will be sourcing locally so I have a door to knock on when things go south lol, Aliexpress is good when you don't have issues haha

Maybe a tad more info, I actually am very ok to rebuild my 3 VMs from scratch, I only care about some files from one of the VMs nothing else... maybe this would give you an idea for an easier approach ? Anyway I do plan to play around with the rescue option as you mentioned above...

Thanks again !
 
Quick update, iso file is done but not sure how can I check it if its good or not, will see once I have a running Proxmox...

I have in the meantime installed virtualbox and built an ubuntu 12 VM but I have had 0 success of seeing the disk...
I am pretty sure the usb passthrough worked, VB even asks me macOS asks me permission for VB to access "external" (the nvme in the usb adapter) but I can't make it show up with fsdisk or lshw....

also I tried passing the iso as the optical drive to the VM, same I can't see it anywhere in ubuntu
 
Last edited:
Hnam2k said:
also I tried passing the iso as the optical drive to the VM, same I can't see it anywhere in ubuntu
Click to expand...

So, this scenario is reverse of the typical scenario for burning an .iso or .img.

What you created from the image of the drive would be a .img.

You would not pass it through as a CD drive. You might be able to pass it through as a SATA or SCSI drive.

Otherwise you would pass the drive image via a shared local folder or shared network drive.

And you would mount the file with a loopback device - because it represents an entire drive, not a partition.

If you had created the image in Ubuntu then you would pass the entire drive-through as a USB device as a partition.
 
Last edited:
Yes I see your point... anyway I think I will stop with virtual box experimenting for now...
I want to re deploy the disk image on the new nvme (as the old one is going back to seller) but I am getting permission denied.... any idea what am missing ?

Code: 
% diskutil list                                                       

...

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                                                   *1.0 TB     disk3

% diskutil unmountDisk /dev/rdisk3                                   
Unmount of all volumes on disk3 was successful

% dd if=/Users/hnam/dev/noTM/ddstore/pmox.img of=/dev/rdisk3 bs=1m
dd: /dev/rdisk3: Permission denied
 
Have the same permission denied even if I format the disk first... (above the disk was out of box)
Raspi imager is up to 1% writing so it should work, but would like to understand what I missed with dd ?
 
Very small update, I think the copy worked, at least diskutil shows the same information as it did for the original disk
Code: 
/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk3
   1:        Bios Boot Partition                         1.0 MB     disk3s1
   2:                        EFI NO NAME                 1.1 GB     disk3s2
   3:                  Linux LVM                         511.0 GB   disk3s3
Except this is 1T and the original one was 500G

Once I have the new PC do you think it is better to
1 pop in only this new disk and try to run Proxmox from the original install
2 pop in another ssd, get Proxmox up and running and add the copied disk as a secondary and try to access the files that way ?
 
I'd say just copy what you need off of there onto an SD card or other removable drive and reinstall fresh.

You could also boot that and then go through the steps of expanding the LVM and ext4. It's not too bad.

If you try any other method, make sure that you rename the lvm from pve-root to pve-root-old, otherwise the installer will get confused.
 
Yes I will be doing a fresh install for sure, was just wondering if it would be easier to try to boot from this disk (via rescue) to copy my files out of it (and then reinstall).
Or make a new install first on a temp SSD and then access from there as a second drive... and then do a fresh install onto the nvme (ssd will go back to the NAS)

Haha if I would have the new machine I would be trying these options, but since I don't have it and have to sit on my hands, I'm bugging you instead :p
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom