Windows 7: Clonezilla Open-Source Image Backup

iseeuu · 15 Jan 2011

Quote: Originally Posted by Ghost74

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

Exactly ... please let us know how it goes?

Cheers!
Robert

emtownsend · 01 Feb 2011

Hello!
I have lots of Dell 980's that run Windows 7 Pro 64-bit (for my work). I have used Clonezilla to image XP machines just fine, but when I follow the above steps to clone a Windows 7 machine, it always fails on the first partition. There are three partitions that the Dell Windwos 7 restore disc creates: 1 small vFat, the main partition in NTFS, then another small vFat. It seems to be the first one that fails.
I have tried both disk image and part image. Disk image appears to work but will not restore. Can I use a disk image and restore it as a part image? Is that key? Also, does CZ have trouble with vFat?
I have noticed this when using FOG to attempt to clone a Windows 7 system as well. Just FYI.
Thanks!
Eric

iseeuu · 01 Feb 2011

Quote: Originally Posted by emtownsend

Hello!
I have lots of Dell 980's that run Windows 7 Pro 64-bit (for my work). I have used Clonezilla to image XP machines just fine, but when I follow the above steps to clone a Windows 7 machine, it always fails on the first partition. There are three partitions that the Dell Windwos 7 restore disc creates: 1 small vFat, the main partition in NTFS, then another small vFat. It seems to be the first one that fails.
I have tried both disk image and part image. Disk image appears to work but will not restore. Can I use a disk image and restore it as a part image? Is that key? Also, does CZ have trouble with vFat?
I have noticed this when using FOG to attempt to clone a Windows 7 system as well. Just FYI.
Thanks!
Eric

Hello Eric, and welcome to windows Seven Forums.

It would be helpful if you would post a screen shot of your Windows Seven Drive Management. Here are some quick instructions if you need them:
Screenshot and Upload using MWSnap

Screenshot with Paint

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...en-forums.html

I guess nothing Dell does should be surprising ... but you are the first I have heard say Dell is using vFat. The Windows Seven computer I restored with CZ did indeed have the 100MB System Reserved partition, however it was NTFS and CZ had no trouble cloning and restoring it.

I have not had an opportunity to use vFat and so can not comment on how CZ handles it from my own experience. I would suggest the Clonezilla forum might be a better source of help there.

Cheers!
Robert

OldMX · 02 Feb 2011

I was a diehard fan of clonezilla till last week when a restore failed (never did in 2 years), turning my display into an artifact fest, lucky me i also had a macrium backup which restored flawless, so no more clonezilla for me.

emtownsend · 11 Feb 2011

Quote: Originally Posted by OldMX

I was a diehard fan of clonezilla till last week when a restore failed (never did in 2 years), turning my display into an artifact fest, lucky me i also had a macrium backup which restored flawless, so no more clonezilla for me.

Can Macrium work in a multicast environment?

emtownsend · 11 Feb 2011

Here is a snapshot of my Clonezilla screen showing two vFat partitions.

UMLAUTaxl · 09 Mar 2011

Quote: Originally Posted by iseeuu

Quote: Originally Posted by park220

Robert,

Thanks for the quick reply. At this point I'm just trying to successfully copy an image from one PC to another. I'm sure I'll have a whole new batch of problems getting the image to boot and function properly after the re image. Right now I'm just playing around with my personal PC and my gf PC. I have made an backup image of both PCs so if anything goes haywire I have a restore point for both. Each PC is setup with a C and D partition. I'm trying to restore the C partition from one PC to the other but the re image fails when using Clonezilla. I get the error listed below.

"Target partition size(52428 MB) is smaller than source (62916 MB). Use option -C to disable size checking(Dangerous).

I understand the source partition is larger than the target partition but the source partition only contains about 7GB of data. I'm not sure how to use option -C within Clonezilla. I went through the advance setup and saw the option -c listed but i tried checking and unchecking it and the above error still occurred. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

L

To make it easier for an "Image" to fit on 'unknown' computers, I would suggest you temporarily shrink the partition to a much smaller size before saving the "Image". The partition mentioned, 7 GB, could be shrunk to say 15 or 20 GB and then it would fit in more situations. You can return the original partition to its original size after creating the "Image". And you can extend the smaller "Image" into what ever size is available after it has been restored. Then you have less to worry about the "target partition size being smaller than source."

Cheers!
Robert

For me it is too late. I already deleted the old partition. It was 90GB, but the image is only 9GB. That was kind of misleading. But oh well ...

Why is there even an information to use -C if that is not even possible?
I will restore the image to a larger partition, shrink that, create an image again, restore the image to the partition it was meant to be and hope that there will be anything left.

edit:
The original partition was a logical one so I could not even shrink it. Same with the now restored partition. There are 90GB used but the data is only 9GB ...

iseeuu · 09 Mar 2011

Quote: Originally Posted by UMLAUTaxl

For me it is too late. I already deleted the old partition. It was 90GB, but the image is only 9GB. That was kind of misleading. But oh well ...

Why is there even an information to use -C if that is not even possible?
I will restore the image to a larger partition, shrink that, create an image again, restore the image to the partition it was meant to be and hope that there will be anything left.

edit:
The original partition was a logical one so I could not even shrink it. Same with the now restored partition. There are 90GB used but the data is only 9GB ...

Hello UMLAUTaxl, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums!

Clonezilla does not include the unused empty space in the saved image it creates, however it does restore the image to the original size. That is why it makes sense to shrink the target partition before creating an image.

I have never had a problem resizing a logical partition. But all logical partitions (even a single partition) reside inside an extended partition. An extended partition cannot shrink to any size less than the logical partition(s) it contains. It would be easy to select what would appear to be the logical partition that you want to shrink, but in reality is the extended partition. The logical partition must be made smaller first, before the extended partition can be shrunk, if needed.

I suggest you try the free Partition Wizard utility to resize the partition before creating the Clonezilla image.

Cheers!
Robert

UMLAUTaxl · 18 Mar 2011

Quote: Originally Posted by iseeuu

Hello UMLAUTaxl, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums!

Thanks.

Quote:

Clonezilla does not include the unused empty space in the saved image it creates, however it does restore the image to the original size. That is why it makes sense to shrink the target partition before creating an image.

These informations would have been more helpful before I deleted the original partition.

Quote:

I have never had a problem resizing a logical partition. But all logical partitions (even a single partition) reside inside an extended partition. An extended partition cannot shrink to any size less than the logical partition(s) it contains. It would be easy to select what would appear to be the logical partition that you want to shrink, but in reality is the extended partition. The logical partition must be made smaller first, before the extended partition can be shrunk, if needed.

No. It was a boot partition and my partition manager said that I shouldn't resize it.

When I look at the newly created partition now it says that 90GB are used even though my filesystem is only about 9GB ... So even if I wanted to resize the partition there's not a chance now ...

sammer003 · 20 Mar 2011

To all Clonezilla users, there is a new version, which lets you verify your Clonezilla image, even previous ones made.
Version 1.2.8-15 (Testing), now has an option to test your Clonezilla image to see if it is restorable.

I went through, and found a couple of my images were not restorable. I think it is my HDD that I'm using to store the Clonezilla images. This is a great great new feature - be sure to test it on yours.

Windows 7: Clonezilla Open-Source Image Backup

Clonezilla Open-Source Image Backup problems?