Clonezilla Open-Source Image Backup

[iseeuu]

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]

Dell 980 Optilex not imaging

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]

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:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/51160-screenshot-upload-using-mwsnap.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9717-screenshot-paint.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-how-post-screenshot-seven-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]

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]

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]

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

 

[UMLAUTaxl]

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]

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]

Hello UMLAUTaxl, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums!

Thanks.

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.

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]

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.

 

[MonsterKiller]

This clones the entire operating system right? so i could just clone my current system and if something messes up i can restore my entire os and i wont need to re-activate or anything? it will just run straight away?

 

[sammer003]

Yes, you are right, there are a few possible limitations.

Before making an image, be sure to read the instructions, it will help. If you don't understand something, just ask!

I have done this, and it does work great.

 

[Frozenthunder]

i would not use this program, since it wrecked my system. Got a bunch of broken files now and windows doesnt boot anymore, chkdsk freezes after 10 mins. Please someone explain me why this program wrecks an hdd within seconds from which it is supposed to read only. All I wanted was a backup, ended up with destruction. it didnt even backup my drive it just gave me some error and stopped.

Windows repaired itself now, unluckyli I got 10 broken sectors now. GJ clonezilla. Right before the use of clonezille all sectors were fine.

 

[ulaaser]

Hi im also have trouble with Windows7 Pro 32bit... the backup (whole disk) and backup verification process is ok, but after restoring Windows is booting up trying to repair the boot area...but after 30 min nothing.... Im doing the backup and restore on one machine, so the disk remains the same.... but i also notice that during restore clonezille detects that the orginal boot partition starts on a "negative" cylinder, and setup the "new" partition table to start from "positive" cylinder... so i have some questions: why clonezille detects the original partition starting from a negative cylinder, and then selects a new start cylinder to restore the partition? Have somebody succesfully restored windows 7 profesional 32/64bit on the same disk? Should i give a try to only backup and restore the system partition? In the options is a option to use syslinux to take care of mbr(windows) must i take care of this option? Should i activate o deselect some other option to succesfully restore Windows?? Thanks for any useful suggestion

 

[iseeuu]

Hi im also have trouble with Windows7 Pro 32bit... the backup (whole disk) and backup verification process is ok, but after restoring Windows is booting up trying to repair the boot area...but after 30 min nothing.... Im doing the backup and restore on one machine, so the disk remains the same.... but i also notice that during restore clonezille detects that the orginal boot partition starts on a "negative" cylinder, and setup the "new" partition table to start from "positive" cylinder... so i have some questions: why clonezille detects the original partition starting from a negative cylinder, and then selects a new start cylinder to restore the partition? Have somebody succesfully restored windows 7 profesional 32/64bit on the same disk? Should i give a try to only backup and restore the system partition? In the options is a option to use syslinux to take care of mbr(windows) must i take care of this option? Should i activate o deselect some other option to succesfully restore Windows?? Thanks for any useful suggestion

Hello ulaaser, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums!

The version of Clonezilla I used in August of 09 to make this thread was 1.0.10-8. The current version is 1.2.6-59. Do you know which version of Clonezilla you are using? There have been many changes to Clonezilla since I used it successfully to save and restore an image of my Windows 7 OS.

When I was testing Clonezilla, I used a new (empty) hard drive so as to not endanger the original working OS. Also I used my Windows 7 DVD to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 on the empty hard drive so Windows could create the partitions (but did not activate it) before using Clonezilla to restore the saved image. Clonezilla worked fine for me as the step by step shows. It restored the two saved partitions in the image with no issues. Windows did a "check disk" at first boot, but there were no other issues. Any additional features / choices that are available with the most recent versions will effect how to use the software. I suggest going to the Clonezilla web site as they are the experts.

Cheers!
Robert

 

[IMAyNeed]

Old versions was imaging my HFS+ partition before, but not anymore. It gives an error while bitmaping at 95.61%.
I couldn't find a solution yet.

 

[RJL24]

Though I'm a bit late in the game, I just today downloaded Clonezilla. Is it possible to use Clonezilla (clonezilla-live-1.2.8-42-i486) on a 1.5tb external drive where only a portion (partition) of the drive holds the Clonezilla image? Or, must the image be the sole item on the drive or DVD?

I keep, on my C drive (250gb), only the Windows 7 operating system and all my added programs and a few desktop files.

My documents, pictures, music and videos and all that other stuff is in my non powered usb 120gb F drive, which is regularly backed up to my usb non powered 1.5tb drive via Genie Timeline.

I also back up the F drive periodically to my self powered K drive, a 250GB drive, and that drive is turned on but about once a month. To that I use Sync Toy (going from F2K), a Windows utility.

So, again, will it be possible to put the Clonezilla onto a folder or partition of the 1.5tb drive, or would it be best to have CLonezilla go onto a separate DVD+/-RW (if possible)?

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks in advance.

 

[desmoflex]

clonzilla cannot detect partition size w7ultimatex64

hi,
i successfully cloned my w7ultimatex64 to a new 2TB disk.
but when i now want to save a partition from this new disk with clonezilla, clonezilla cannot detect the partition-size for any partition on my w7ultimatex64 disk.
any feedback much appreciated!
cheers
desmo

edit: acronis true image 11 home works with no problems. W7Ultimate partitions are visible to acronis and backup including verify pass works well.

 

[MPREv]

Hi,

Clonezilla does only save the content of a partition I select.
To be able to restore the System I have to recreate the exactly partitions for putting back the data.

1) Is there a Way to save the meta data of the partitioning schema of the hard drive,
so that I can restore all partition sizes. Than restoring some selected partitions?
The steps I'm thinking about:

a) System is installed with (W 7 boot 100MB) (W 7 System 60Gb) ( Data 1 80GB) (Data2 80GB)
b) Use Clonezilla to save (W 7 boot) and (W 7 System). and also the partitioning schema.
c) install a new system or have some crash so that there are no partitions on the HD.
d) restore partition schema: (100MB) (60GB) (80GB) (100GB), all without data (and file system?)
e) restore boot and system partition with clonezilla.
f) put back data to the data partitions.

Is there a way doing that?

2) how clonezilla saves the partitions?
As i know clonezilla uses "dd if=/dev/sda of=/sdb/part.img" to save the data.
But what would hapen if I copy the windows data It self using normal file copy?
Mounting the Windows System and the boot partition and copy the files to a other external Hd for backUp.
Would this work? or are there some file information get lost?

 

[iseeuu]

Hi,

Clonezilla does only save the content of a partition I select.
To be able to restore the System I have to recreate the exactly partitions for putting back the data.

1) Is there a Way to save the meta data of the partitioning schema of the hard drive,
so that I can restore all partition sizes. Than restoring some selected partitions?
The steps I'm thinking about:

a) System is installed with (W 7 boot 100MB) (W 7 System 60Gb) ( Data 1 80GB) (Data2 80GB)
b) Use Clonezilla to save (W 7 boot) and (W 7 System). and also the partitioning schema.
c) install a new system or have some crash so that there are no partitions on the HD.
d) restore partition schema: (100MB) (60GB) (80GB) (100GB), all without data (and file system?)
e) restore boot and system partition with clonezilla.
f) put back data to the data partitions.

Is there a way doing that?

2) how clonezilla saves the partitions?
As i know clonezilla uses "dd if=/dev/sda of=/sdb/part.img" to save the data.
But what would hapen if I copy the windows data It self using normal file copy?
Mounting the Windows System and the boot partition and copy the files to a other external Hd for backUp.
Would this work? or are there some file information get lost?

Hello MPREv;

The first selection on the screen shot of step 14 saves the entire hard drive as an image. It then restores all of the partitions contained in the image created.

There is a lot involved in setting up an OS that normal copy cannot do. Normal file copy cannot access system files (in the same way some defraggers cannot move system files) in order to move, or save, or restore them. It cannot set up the system registry. That is why backup and image software is necessary.

Cheers!
Robert