HA to external HD migration
- Make sure you have a lot of time to spare and a good supply of tea and Christmas cake!
- Refer to https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system/blob/dev/Documentation/partition.md
- These notes also provide a simple, non-expert guide to be followed at your own risk.
- Get your hands on an external USB3 drive and use tools to clear it to unformatted, unpartitioned.
- Take a snapshot of your existing HA setup and download it to your PC. Make a note of your Samba-share app config and save on your PC. Have you HA login details to hand.
- Create a new HA installation on an SD card (I got away with 8GB)
- Set up the RPi3 with mouse, keyboard, HDMI monitor, and external HDD.
- Fire it all up and wait. Keep waiting and eventually the installation will show the HA logo on the monitor. Login using the default ID of “root”.
- Wait and when it looks like it has settled down. Use command “login” to exit to Linux shell. Run “fdisk -l” to find your hard-disk which will probably be /dev/sda. If it isn’t sda it will be sdb or sdc etc. Note what it is. Now run command “datactl move /dev/sda” or whatever you noted.
- Wait again and eventually your RPi will reboot with HA running on the HD. Now you can login from your PC. More waiting.
- Eventually Switch to PC and log in to HA. Create a new user account using your old account details. Do not bother with any further set up.
- From the Supervisor Add-on store install Samba Share. Create a network drive map to the RPi and copy the downloaded snapshot back into the back-up sub-directory.
- From the Supervisor Snapshot menu restore the snapshot. Wait. Wait a bit more.
- Eventually HA will reappear running off the HD. And you’re finished.