Windows 7 A new and improved Clonezilla imaging tool

As some of you may know I've been using Clonezilla for a few months as my primary backup (imaging program).
Clonezilla replaced the Partimage I had been using for years.
It is much more flexible.
The version I originally began using was Clonezilla-live1.2.3-27.
Because most live programs work much quicker when installed and run from a USB flash drive that
is what I've been using.

The old version worked great and I never thought to check for updates.
Recently while offering my 2 cents on a question posted at another forum about what imager to use I
checked the Clonezilla website.

I was surprised to see that there had been several updates since I installed that older version.

They developer folks have been busy indeed.
The latest stable release's are

Clonezilla-live-1.2-5-17-i686.iso

Clonezilla-live 1.2.5-17-i486.iso

Clonezilla-live 1.2.5-17-amd64.iso

.zip versions of the above are available as well as Ubuntu based versions.

The version that got my attention was the i686 version, optimized for multi-core processors.

The standard versions are based on Debian Sid and utilize the 2.6.32-12 kernel.

I quickly D\L the i686 .iso and installed it on my 2 GB Micro flash drive.

I used the Windows version of Unetbootin 442 (unetbootin is another very useful tool that appears to be under furious development) to
install the .iso on my Flash drive.

UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads (now at version 471).

Another tool (for Windows only) from sourceforge to create live USB's of a whole bunch of Linx distros is "Universal-USB-installer" now at v1.6.5.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb...-easy-as-1-2-3/

Since the latest version of clonezilla in the Unetbootin distribution is a very old one I just ignored the dropdown entirely and selected the diskimage radio button and browsed to my D\L'd .iso and clicked OK.

A couple of minutes the Flash drive was ready.

Booting to the drive and to the GUI was very quick, much quicker than the earlier version.

There is a point in the boot process when Clonezilla searches your drive for all the partitions.

With the old version this took a couple of minutes to locate 9 partitions, with the new version it was more like 15 seconds.

Creating an image was also much faster.
The old program would create the image at no faster than 800 MB\min
the new version managed 2000 MB\min.

The developers also added some interesting compression options.
Still being tested (marked testing) are dual core options of the old compression schemes.
Apparently choosing these options makes best use of dual core processors.
The default produces an image about half the size of the used space of your partition(s).
Example: my 24 GB Win 7 partition (11 GB used space) ends up being 5.4 GB.

I'd be willing to bet these improvements are responsible for the quicker times.

Restoring images is quicker as well especially if the media that the image is stored on is a Flash drive as well.

Average restore time from an image stored on another partition of the same HDD is around 1600 MB\min.
Restore from a Flash device boosts that to about 2000 MB\min.

The UI is much the same as older versions but the program beneath it is much improved.

A great tool made much better.

A slight learning curve but intuitive and once learned a must have backup tool.

Clonezilla

Hooray for open source.

P.S. Parted Magic is now at v4.11

Link Removed due to 404 Error

This tool can be installed on a Flash drive as well.

If you use the above mentioned Universal-USB-Installer (in Windows) and D\L the pmagic-usb-4.11.zip
it is incredibly easy to create a Parted Magic-Live USB flash.
Everything is automated.

Besides being a full Live OS Parted Magic includes gparted as the partition manager and comes with Chrome as a browser.
Establishing an internet connection is a snap with the desktop shortcut for that purpose.
Lots of other apps are included as well.
 
Frank, can you explain how to clone a Windows disk image to a networked drive? (Using CloneZilla?) I have made a CloneZilla CD, booted from it, and then got lost trying to "Mount a networks Drive" on SMB? at a certain place it says: "No supported network controllers". What's that? My pc has a built-in Intel Ethernet controller.

Thanks in advance

Gail
 
Frank, can you explain how to clone a Windows disk image to a networked drive? (Using CloneZilla?) I have made a CloneZilla CD, booted from it, and then got lost trying to "Mount a networks Drive" on SMB? at a certain place it says: "No supported network controllers". What's that? My pc has a built-in Intel Ethernet controller.

Thanks in advance

Gail
I don't have experience with network use of Clonezilla.
The Clonezilla site has detailed instructions.

Clonezilla - Live Doc
 
I can't find instructions for a networked setup (Re: A new and improved Clonezilla imaging tool)

I can't find instructions for a networked setup, at the CloneZilla site
 
Re: I can't find instructions for a networked setup (Re: A new and improved Clonezilla imaging tool)

Gail what exactly are you trying to do?
 
Re: I can't find instructions for a networked setup (Re: A new and improved Clonezilla imaging tool)

I just want to clone a partition, to a networked drive (DNS-323) which usually works fine on an MS Windows network (I understand it's SMB).

Booting with CloneZilla Live, at the menu where you select the destination, when I select "networked (SMB) drive", then CloneZilla says "no known network cards found".
 
Re: I can't find instructions for a networked setup (Re: A new and improved Clonezilla imaging tool)

I just want to clone a partition, to a networked drive (DNS-323) which usually works fine on an MS Windows network (I understand it's SMB).

Booting with CloneZilla Live, at the menu where you select the destination, when I select "networked (SMB) drive", then CloneZilla says "no known network cards found".
Ok I understand.
I don't have a network drive so I can't address this directly but maybe this will help.

Guide for Making Full Windows Backup to Network Share Using Clonezilla | Raymond.CC Blog

I personally find it easy to clone and save to an external USB drive.
You can also save the image to another partition on the machine you want to clone.
 
Re: I can't find instructions for a networked setup (Re: A new and improved Clonezilla imaging tool)

Thank you, Frank. After reading that blog + others, it seems to me that CloneZilla doesn't have yet drivers for my motherboard on-board NIC.

What would you recommend?
 
Re: I can't find instructions for a networked setup (Re: A new and improved Clonezilla imaging tool)

Thank you, Frank. After reading that blog + others, it seems to me that CloneZilla doesn't have yet drivers for my motherboard on-board NIC.

What would you recommend?
I would save the image to a suitable USB external drive.
You can also save the image to another partition on your HDD.
You can also restore from either location although it is quicker to restore from an external drive.
 
Hi,

gaily with your dns-323 you should have had a cd. what you can clone your windows then send it to your dns-323
 
Last edited:
Promised report: I cloned the C: partition using CloneZilla. Then I have installed the WinXP SP3 upgrade. Then I right-clicked the missing driver for the Dynamode Silicon Image IDE storage controller, using the manufacturer supplied CD. This time the system accepted the file and loaded the driver.

I then found and downloaded an installation file for both the HD video and audio bus of the H67 chipset, and installed it - it went fine.

So, to summarize, how this issue was solved: 1. Apparently installing SP3 was the first necessary step; 2. Next step: finding the right Win XP installation file for vendor 8086 (Intel), products 2805 and 0102 (H67 chipset HD video and audio). Interestingly, Google didn't find it, I found it on Bing.

Next problem: HDD activity LED is contantly on. I read somewhere on the Net that the pick-up may have been installed the wrong way on the mobo header. I'll try to locate it and insert it the other way.
Hi, gaily with your dns-323 you should have had a cd. what you can clone your windows then send it to your dns-323
markdedifrag: what's that software name?
 
Hi...
I've following this post and since I'm new to this "imaging tools" my question may sound silly but here it is: Clonezilla helps you create a boot media (USB / CD / DVD) with a version of Linux (that's my understanding so far). This bootable media can be used to get an image of a Windows 7 hard drive and restore that image on another pc with the same configuration.. Am I right...
 
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