Windows 7: Clonezilla Open-Source Image Backup

I will be trying to image a group of computers soon and I am just nervous as to how smooth it will go. I am very comfortable using CloneZilla with Windows XP. My concern is that will using CloneZilla be the same for windows 7 Professional as it was with Windows XP? One of my other concern is the process of product keys?

Is this forum closed?

Hello kgrrtt2004, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

No this thread has not been closed, although it is quite old. Its original purpose was to show an alternative way to save a backup image of a single computer. Evidently what you have in mind is something totally different.

If you do not have a Volume License your "group of computers" will need individual Windows 7 Product Keys. Also, cloning computers to be part of a network requires each computer to have its own Windows identity. This thread does not address this situation at all, so you will need to research Clonezilla's tools for the correct way to do this.

Cheers!
Robert

Hello

Well I just want to ask to you which is the difference between use 'SaveDisk' or 'SaveParts' at the clone process, which is the best option to use?.

I like to know what happen when you need to repleace the HD, just as a prevention in this specific case, which option should I use?.

So If I have a disaster with the HD and I use a bigger HD, what's going to happen with the difference of the HD capacity, can I assign this space later? I mean like a repartition of the HD? It that possible?

I really appreciate all your information and support.

Thank you very much!

Have a nice day!

ROC@S
MEXICO

Hello idrocas, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

"SaveDisk" creates one image of the entire disk. "SaveParts" creates an image of an individual partition (sometimes called a volume also). So which should you use? That is up to you. You can choose to image the entire hard drive or just parts of it. Which is better for you?

Any leftover space after you have put an image on a larger hard drive can be used as you wish. You can create a new partition or you can "extend" the adjacent partition into the unused space even after you have successfully restored Windows and all is working again.

Cheers!
Robert

I know this is an old thread, but I just want to say I love this forum! Okay with that out of the way I want to share my experience with Clonezilla and the recent problem I ran into which was a newbie mistake. Hopefully this will help out others who are new to Clonezilla.

I have recently started using Clonezilla on XP machines and this weekend was the first time I used it to clone a Windows 7 machine. I cloned the two partitions as an image and that went without a hitch. When I tried to restore it I ran into the error that others have in this thread with Clonezilla unable to locate the images. The problem was I was selecting the option "Restoredisk" when I should have selected the option "Restoreparts". Once I selected that option both images were found and I was able to restore them and the computer rebooted just fine.

Hello l0vedim0, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums!

Thank you for your post. It is nice to hear you have been helped by Seven Forums. Hopefully others will now be helped by your contribution!

Cheers!
Robert

Hi, I have just been reading this thread and there is some great information here, so thanks guys.

I just have a couple of questions and any help would be much appreciated.

Some of my family and friends are coming to me in ever increasing numbers to help them with their computer/laptop problems. Often these problems result in a re-install of windows

To make my life a little bit easier, I have bought a 500gb "FreeAgent Go" external usb Hdd. I was looking at CloneZilla live and hoping that I could clone their system drive after a fresh install and store all of their cloned images seperatly on my new usb Hdd. Would this work or would saving a new image on the usb Hdd corrupt the previous image saved there?

Also, can I use a newer version of Clonezilla live to restore an image that was created with an older version of Clonezilla live? Or does the image have to be restored with the exact version that it was created with?

Sorry if my questions are really newbie, but I am a total Clonezilla newbie
Though this program looks like it could make my life a whole lot easier so im eager to learn.

Hello Ghost74, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

To both of your questions I have not done either, so I can not give you an answer from experience. Perhaps you would find the Clonezilla forum would offer more detailed and/or experienced help?

Clonezilla allows one to name the backup image file at creation, so it is possible to save a new image without over writing a previously saved image. The trick is knowing which image to restore. If I ever get to try an external hard drive as an image storage device, I believe I would save each image to the root of the drive (not in any file folder) and then create a file with adequate description and move the file there. Then when I needed to restore an image, I would select the image from the correct folder, move it (or just copy it) to the root of the drive which should make it easier to find and restore from within Clonezilla, especially if it were the only image file in the root.

I would recommend you practice creating and restoring images until you are comfortable with how the software works!

Cheers!
Robert

Hi Iseeuu

Thank you for your reply, I am going to play around with this software before I begin to use it to back up other peoples dirves.

Im hoping that it will be able to do tha tasks that I mentioned earlier and I cant really see why it wouldnt.

I have an old laptop available so there is nothing to lose by experimenting