32-bit Wheezy on 64-bit computer?
 

My computer passed away last night, after six years of good, daily service. I will have to buy a new one.

It was a 32-bit machine running Debian Wheezy. The new computer is going to be 64-bit. Can I just transplant my old hard disk into the new machine, boot up and use it, or is that asking for trouble? I have lots of work to do, the new machine has to hit the ground running.

Won't hurt to try. I've done it. You may have to change network connections like wlan0 to wlan1. Whatever "ifconfig" shows. Newer gear and Wheezys kernel may not play well together as far as getting newer things working.

I am on the 4 kernel on Testing myself in AntiX 15.

I too would suggest to just try. Doubt it would be the best solution but the fastest. More than a few problems could show up however. From boot issues, to disk naming/mounts, as above nic naming, and video issues.

Might be worth it to save this image off to a vm and keep it while you are building up a new system on 64 bit.

I once replaced my motherboard and used the same HDD where I had Debian installed. It surprised me that I had no problems at all -- after assembling the computer with the new motherboard I pressed the power button and it booted straight to Debian.

Something that might have helped is that I was using Debian Sid, which has a more up-to-date kernel than Debian Stable. In addition, I used the same graphics card I was using before, so I didn't have to install new graphics drivers or anything.

Is it OK to put a notebook hard disk in a desktop? Is there any difference in voltage, wattage or anything like that?

First you need to check data interface is supported. PATA IDE and SATA IDE can be used with desktops. Then desktop power supplies usually give 5 and 12 Volt molex connecters or may be some other type of connector. You laptop HDD drive would have a label specifying it's power requirements.

Using a 32-bit install on a 64-bit system no problem. You may need to delete the old udev rules for your NIC if you wish to keep eth0 as interface name. Mount points shouldn't be an issue if you're using UUIDs in /etc/fstab. If you're using proprietary drivers, you'll need to make the necessary changes for those too. My install is on its 3rd cpu/mb hardware change with no issues.

As long as your notebook HDD has the standard SATA data and power connectors, you should be fine.

I've actually done it before. With SATA there are no problems at all. However, I think the physical connectors on IDE hard drives are different for laptop drives, which could become problamatic. However, you said your computer was about 6 years old, which (I think) is new enough to use SATA, so you shouldn't have any issues.

Hope this helps!

I can't boot because I can't get past Grub.

It's version 1.99. It goes quiet for a while then it gives up saying:

ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/d3910etc... does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

But the shell is useless. It's not even responsive.

Grub currently looks like this:

load_video
insmod gzio
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 6ef1.long.number.etc.
linux /vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-686-pae root=UUID=d3910.long.number.etc. ro quiet
initrd /initrd.img-3.2.0-4-686-pae

I have tried replacing the 'root=UUID=string' part with 'root=/dev/sda2' and 'root=(hd0,msdos2)' but neither works. In all cases, grub gives up saying that the root path does not exist.

Any idea on what grub should look like to make the system boot up? I have /boot on sda1 and / on sda2.

Best would be to run a Livecd and then check whether your hard drive gets detected and mount it to check further.

I've done that, because I thought I might have to change fstab. The hard disk is detected. Grub is installed on it anyway. I wouldn't be even looking at grub if the HD hadn't been detected.

Did you try booting the kernel with grub command line. This way it can be fastly tested and when it works out, you make a appropriate cfg file.

I think you're talking about grub 2. I said I have grub 1.99.

So grub 1.99 doesn't have command line. 1.99 is beta and 2.00 is stable. Just some bug fixes. I used to run, load kernels from command line in grub-1.99.

Boot to live media and fix naming usually to get past. May have to fix grub.

From live media peek at the hard drive to see the grub lines and mount point.