Hi, whatever merits the various address methods for partitions may have, the GRUB message "invalid arch-independent ELF magic" is about a program file and not about a partition.
Pick any source file of this list in a current git://git.savannah.gnu.org/grub.git clone: ./grub-core/loader/i386/bsdXX.c: return grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_OS, N_("invalid arch-independent ELF magic")); ./grub-core/loader/ia64/efi/linux.c: N_("invalid arch-independent ELF magic")); ./grub-core/loader/multiboot_elfxx.c: return grub_error(GRUB_ERR_UNKNOWN_OS, N_("invalid arch-independent ELF magic")); ./grub-core/kern/dl.c: return grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_OS, N_("invalid arch-independent ELF magic")); ./grub-core/kern/elf.c: return grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_OS, N_("invalid arch-independent ELF magic")); ./grub-core/kern/elf.c: return grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_OS, N_("invalid arch-independent ELF magic")); ./util/grub-module-verifierXX.c: grub_util_error ("invalid arch-independent ELF magic"); It's always the same gesture when looking for the data described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format#File_header So why does the reigning GRUB not like the file in the perfect disk copy ? Maybe because it is not accessing the copied disk at all but rather reads garbage from somewhere else ? (The internet has rumors that re-installing GRUB would help. Shrug.) Have a nice day :) Thomas