Windows 10: Windows Backup -- Clonezilla -- any takers ??

Hi there.

I've been using Clonezilla to backup Linux systems successfully for a while (including UEFI). I've seen it also supports Windows (NTFS) partitions too.

Anybody tried Clonezilla for backing up / restoring Windows. I usually use Acronis for Windows but really don't like the NEW interface. Seems all programs become overbloated and full of "Feature itus" once they've passed a "sweet point". I don't like all this exhortation to sign up to Cloud backup etc so I'm looking for alternatives.

In extreme I can always mount the Windows partitions and use the DD command - but it's very easy to make a mistake and destroy the system !!!.

Note to Linux users - Clonezilla isn't intended for LVM systems. I avoid LVM like the plague anyway. Nothing wrong with the good old EXT4 system.

Free Macrium works too but windows. I'd like a tool that works on ALL systems. Then I can set up a VM running the Clonezilla stand alone system and get it to do backups.

Incidentally you can set up a VM to run free macrium too but attaching external HDD's to the VM seems to give problems. The idea of using a VM is to save booting the stand alone media. !! It's much easier to fire up a VM.
Tip here when using one of these stand alone programs as a VM.

If you can't ADD an external drive to the VM simply define the VM as having a second HDD and backup / restore to the 2nd Virtual drive and copy to external HDD later. You need the ist Virtual HDD for the program to boot and run from.

Cheers
jimbo

:)

 

booting an external drive

For years I’ve used Clonezilla on external drives to create and manipulate drive image backups like this: First, using Gparted I make two partitions on an external drive, first partition 300MB fat32 for Clonezilla live boot, and the balance ntsf partition
to store the images. Next I use Tuxboot to install Clonezilla onto the fat32 partition. Then I restart the pc and boot to the Clonezilla partition and make a drive image of whatever other drive and store it on the ntsf partition; or I restore an image from
the ntsf partition to whatever drive. I regularly do this on various Windows pcs - XP, Vista, Win7, Win8, win8.1 Win10. I bought a WD My Passport 2 TB drive and everything goes OK but it will not boot to Clonezilla connected to any usb on any pc as my
other external drives faithfully do. The only response is that no os was found. I’ve reformatted and reinstalled various Clonezilla versions. I ran WD diagnostics. I’ve used different cables.

So how do I solve this?

 

booting to an external harddrive.

For years I’ve used Clonezilla on external drives to create and manipulate drive image backups like this: First, using Gparted I make two partitions on an external drive, first partition 300MB fat32 for Clonezilla live boot, and the balance ntsf partition
to store the images. Next I use Tuxboot to install Clonezilla onto the fat32 partition. Then I restart the pc and boot to the Clonezilla partition and make a drive image of whatever other drive and store it on the ntsf partition; or I restore an image from
the ntsf partition to whatever drive. I regularly do this on various Windows pcs - XP, Vista, Win7, Win8, win8.1 Win10. I bought a WD My Passport 2 TB drive and everything goes OK but it will not boot to Clonezilla connected to any usb on any pc as my
other external drives faithfully do. The only response is that no os was found. I’ve reformatted and reinstalled various Clonezilla versions. I ran WD diagnostics. I’ve used different cables.

So how do I solve this?

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Hi Jimbo
I also use Clonezilla but mainly for cloning HDD to SDD that way I have a HDD as a back up.

 

Hi there

I find also DD works (even for backing up Windows partitions)

However ensure you have pv installed so you can monitor the progress - otherwise DD doesn't show anything until it's finished which could be a couple of hours.

So YUM install pv (or apt get or whatever package manager you use). pv is the Linux / Unix Pipe viewer.

Then to clone or copy

as root : pv -tpreb /dev/sda | dd of=/dev/sdb bs=128M conv=notrunc,noerror

Will copy ANY file system (apart from LVM type disks - well it will copy but system won't boot so I'd avoid LVM where possible)

input HDD = /dev/sda, output HDD = /dev/sdb -

Now you will see DD with progress indicator.

cheers
jimbo

 

You like Storage Spaces though - that is essentially the same thing isn't it?