Plugging in Windows backup (cloned) causes Linux to not find XFS superblock/Enters emergency modek

I made a backup of my Windows storage device, and when it is connected to my pc, Linux (xfs partition) cannot find its superblock. It boots into emergency mode where lots of programs are inaccessible and mounting to /mnt doesn’t work

Also, this disk (only visible in emergency mode, unplugging it, rebboting and pluggin in again, it doesn’t show up at all) is taking /dev/sda whereas that is normally for my main Linux disk.

So, in emergency mode, my Linux disk is sdb, could this be part of the issue?

mount /dev/sda
mount: can't find in fstab

mount /dev/sda /mnt
mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, missing codepage or helper progeam,or other error

dmesg(1) may have more information

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount /dev/sda2
same error as for sda

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
The disk contains an unclean filesystem (0, 0).
Metadata kept in Windows cache, refused to mount.
Falling back to read-only mount because the NTFS partition is in an unsafe state.  Please resume and shutdown Windows fully.

I have checked the UUID with blkid, and it seems to check out. When I try to boot from the backup disk, funnily enough, wouldn’t ypu know it, it just happens that it boots.

Ir boots into recovery immediately, saying it can’t find the device. Should I format the disk again and perform another backup?

I don’t have a functioning USB disk at the moment, nor a cd bay, so could I clone a disk to another disk using virtualbox?

Instead of /dev/sda1 in the fstab, try PARTUUID= And then the UUID from the /dev/disk/by-partuuid or wherever?

Then it does not matter which drive is called which when it boots?

The system may be thinking the Windows drive is /dev/sda and calling xfs something else like /dev/sdb or some such?

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That’s exactly what it was. For some reason, when I changed the mount poimt of a partition in kde partion manager, it set it as /dev/sda3 instead of its uuid. Changed it back, it all works.

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Sometimes and outside set of eyes and all that…