Disk Cloning Software

zappaDPJ · Apr 11, 2011, 17:33:56

I have a PC facing an impending hard drive failure, one of mine! I do fair bit of data recovery work but I've never been in the situation where I can simply clone a drive before it fails. Can anyone recommend software that will allow me to clone the drive and swap it out without the need to mess around with boot disks etc? The drive is bootable (C:) with no partitions other than what Windows 7 creates at install.

Thanks.

pctech · Apr 11, 2011, 17:36:55

Don't think so Zap as remember that the swapfile is usually on that drive as well and the contents are constantly changing.

MisterW · Apr 11, 2011, 18:37:09

Have a look at Clonezilla http://www.clonezilla.org/ , that should do it fine. You boot from the Clonezilla live cd to do the cloning so the swapfile is not active.

Niall · Apr 11, 2011, 22:29:30

I thought you could just use a ghost program for this. I know I did it years and years ago when my seagate drive started to die at a lan event. I had to ghost it to the backup drive and then use that as the main, after creating a boot partition, and throw out the knackered drive.

D-Dan · Apr 12, 2011, 10:55:57

Another vote for clonezilla here. Not only is it free, but it will work on multiple filesystems and is remarkably quick (I did a full system backup in about 20 minutes, with restore taking about the same). It will even backup across the network if you need to.

Steve

JB · Apr 12, 2011, 11:41:28

Quote from: D-Dan on Apr 12, 2011, 10:55:57
Another vote for clonezilla here. Not only is it free, but it will work on multiple filesystems and is remarkably quick

Just a quick question for our Clonezilla users please. Does it remove the blank disk space from a disk backup. IOW if the partition size is 25Gb but it contains just 10Gb of actual data, will the backup be 25Gb or closer to the actual data size?

Having had a bad experience with the new Acronis True Image program I'm looking for an alternative.

Many thanks.

MisterW · Apr 12, 2011, 11:48:17

Yep, Clonezilla only backs up allocated space. It also uses gzip to compress the backup files.

D-Dan · Apr 12, 2011, 14:07:20

By way of example, my most recent clonezilla backup (yesterday) was a backup of a 250Gb HD, containing about 95Gb of data, and the actual backup size is 45.4 Gb.

zappaDPJ · Apr 12, 2011, 17:05:47

I did take a look at Clonezilla before posting but I wasn't sure exactly what it would allow me to do. Do I need to create a backup first or does it allow me to copy the contents directly to a second drive?

Thanks for the replies so far

Technical Ben · Apr 12, 2011, 17:31:30

If your in a pinch, you can use windows 7 "backup" utility. It will at least give you a drive image straight away, then you can look about for another program to your liking.

JB · Apr 12, 2011, 17:35:33

Quote from: MisterW on Apr 12, 2011, 11:48:17
Yep, Clonezilla only backs up allocated space. It also uses gzip to compress the backup files.

Thanks MisterW and other posters.

That's really useful info. I'll get it downloaded and give it a go.

MisterW · Apr 13, 2011, 12:47:55

QuoteI did take a look at Clonezilla before posting but I wasn't sure exactly what it would allow me to do. Do I need to create a backup first or does it allow me to copy the contents directly to a second drive?

Yep, you can use Clonezilla in a device to device or device to/from image mode. You can specify either whole drives or individual partions for backup/restore. IIRC the only thing it can't do is resize partitions on the fly when restoring to, say, a larger drive. You probably would need to use something like gparted to do the resize after the restore.

armadillo · Apr 14, 2011, 14:12:35

Quote from: 6jb on Apr 12, 2011, 11:41:28
Having had a bad experience with the new Acronis True Image program I'm looking for an alternative.

What was the bad experience and on what OS? I am interested because I use Acronis TI Home 11 with Windows XP and have cloned a disk with it too. But software developers often ruin their software with later versions.

JB · Apr 14, 2011, 17:10:48

Quote from: armadillo on Apr 14, 2011, 14:12:35
What was the bad experience and on what OS? I am interested because I use Acronis TI Home 11 with Windows XP and have cloned a disk with it too. But software developers often ruin their software with later versions.

Hi Dillo.

It was with Windows XP. I have my hard disk set up with 5 drives. C,D & E are primary partitions and drives F & G are logical drives in an extended partition.

I did what I have done on several other occasions with Acronis 10. As I had been playing with some new bits of software, I decided to replace my Drive C image, with one that I had taken for the purpose earlier that day. That image had been verified and backed up in two different places.

After replacing the image, the computer booted perfectly but drives D, E, F & G had vanished. XP showed the space on the HD as being unallocated. With help from Rik and some other forum members I managed to restore D, E & F using Paragon software. However, Drive G, the second logical in the extended partition could not be recovered by that method. I finally got all my files from the defunct Drive G by using a piece of software by Easeus and recovering them directly from the unallocated space.

Being a glutton for punishment I then replaced the latest Acronis TI with my old V10 and made a new Drive C back up which reinstalled perfectly and all other drives remained in place.

Long story I know, but all back-ups verified perfect and still do.

zappaDPJ · Apr 14, 2011, 17:25:50

I'm still looking at all the options for cloning and if I actually need to do it.

It's a bit of an odd one. My drive light is/was permanently on and this went hand in hand with the BIOS halting for around a minute when it went to look for an OS. MS chkdsk wouldn't run due to the 'disk being in use' and my iPhone can't sync/save to the drive.

It all points to a dying drive in my view but today, the day I decided to stop living with the loaded gun, everything of course is working as intended

I do backup the drive once a week to a second physical drive using Windows backup but like most most backup routines, I highly doubt it'll be of much use if I lose my primary drive and need to do a full restore. At the very least I'm sure I'd have to reinstall Windows from scratch and then pray that the restore facility is capable of pulling back all the data. There's an amazing lack of detail to be found on what is actually required to use Windows restore from backup and how comprehensive it is.

Steve · Apr 14, 2011, 17:31:55

Might seem a bit over the top but which ever backup/clone system I use I always check it will restore to a blank drive and give a working OS.

zappaDPJ · Apr 14, 2011, 17:54:46

Quote from: Steve on Apr 14, 2011, 17:31:55
Might seem a bit over the top but which ever backup/clone system I use I always check it will restore to a blank drive and give a working OS.

I don't think that's over the top at all Steve. The majority of backups I've tried to restore from have been a complete failure often because they are compacted into one file and the restore facility simply refuses to recognise it. We are all told relentlessly to take regular backups but you are rarely told how to recover in the event of a failure. I don't even know if Windows backup includes the operating system.

Steve · Apr 14, 2011, 18:07:17

At least with the Mac cloning is easy,as it will boot from a cloned external Drive and then all you need to do is clone it back. I gave up with Windows and Acronis backups and used the WHS which has never failed me either.

armadillo · Apr 14, 2011, 19:55:16

Quote from: 6jb on Apr 14, 2011, 17:10:48
Hi Dillo.

It was with Windows XP. I have my hard disk set up with 5 drives. C,D & E are primary partitions and drives F & G are logical drives in an extended partition.

I did what I have done on several other occasions with Acronis 10. As I had been playing with some new bits of software, I decided to replace my Drive C image, with one that I had taken for the purpose earlier that day. That image had been verified and backed up in two different places.

After replacing the image, the computer booted perfectly but drives D, E, F & G had vanished.

Hi 6jb

Thanks for the explanation of the horror story. Interesting that Version 10 worked perfectly. Looks like the newer version did not back up sector zero of the physical disk when it backed up the C partition. Version 11 (and AFAIK, 10 too) includes sector zero by default. I think there is a method of stopping it doing so, if you really want to, but it is very hard to find anything in the Acronis manual, as you know. I wonder if the newer version defaults to not backing up or restoring sector zero and there is a well buried method of making it do so.

I believe that all the partition definition is stored in the disk's sector zero so any problem with restoring that sector would cause the problem. Versions 8 and earlier did not include sector zero in partition backups but did include it in disk backups. Version 11 definitely includes it in partition backups and disk backups.

Bucky Balls · Apr 23, 2011, 15:45:20

Don't know if this is a bad bump - if so apologies & please delete this post.

Anyway, if you're still looking for a solution, I use systemrescuecd - essentially a lightweight linux 'recovery' cd toolkit which you can run from the command line or from x(graphical; xfce, I think). If the latter, type startx and enter; you can still use the command line via a terminal.

Partimage is the imaging tool and is quick and easy to use. You can backup the partition table if you want to with sfdisk. Start with a terminal:

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fdisk -l

to see the partitions, then:

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sfdisk -df /dev/sda > 23-04-2011.sda

replacing sda with the required boot drive (i.e. the physical drive containing the boot sector/mbr) to create a text file containing the partition table information. You can backup the mbr with:

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dd if=/dev/sda of=23-04-2011.mbr bs=512 count=1

Restoration is done in reverse so to restore partition table:

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sfdisk -f /dev/sda < 23-04-2011.sda

replacing sda with the required boot drive (i.e. the physical drive containing the boot sector/mbr). Restore mbr with:

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dd if=23-04-2011.mbr of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

If you want to wipe the partitions you can just write random data(or zeros with if=/dev/zero) to the mbr with:

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dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

If you want to securely wipe the whole drive, particularly important if you're intending on disposing of it, then fill the hdd with random data with:

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dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda

This will take a long time depending on size of hdd and speed of system; it can be repeated(US DoD recommends, I think, 7 passes).

Partimage has various compression levels and will only back-up actual data with the same caveats as the previously suggested clonezilla. It's launched from the command line with various flags or 'partimage' alone will launch a very simple interface for saving/restoring partitions.

As an aside, if you prefer to retain the windows bootloader on multiboot systems then install your linux/non-windows to a separate partition but don't install a bootloader. You then copy the linux boot sector information as described with dd above for backing up the mbr but replace the drive with the linux partition and the output file(of=...) to the windows boot partition(probably 'c:\' - although it'll be labelled as /dev/something). Use whatever windows tool to load the non-windows os boot info file required(edit boot.ini with winxp; use BCDEdit with vista/win7 - or easybcd if you prefer a gui).

Steve · Apr 23, 2011, 15:54:51

As an aside as well, having used 'easybcd' it's a very useful tool for dual boot.

zappaDPJ · May 21, 2011, 20:04:54

Well, this turned out to be one of the most perplexing PC problems I've ever encountered. Having tried and tested various cloning solutions, I created a new boot drive but the original problem remained; a ridiculously long boot through the BIOS and endless drive churning when the O.S. finally got a look in.

I ended up removing/swapping out every component in the PC with no luck until I removed the DVD ROM drive. Sorted! I replaced the drive with a spare and it was back to square one. To cut to the chase the original DVD ROM drive and SATA lead have fallen out. Neither are faulty but they just refuse to talk to each other although they obviously did until the problem arose.

I've never come across anything like it before. I've wasted literally days sorting it out and I simply don't understand why there problem occurred. Anyway I've replaced the lead and I'll be calling in a psychiatrist to deal with the old one. If that doesn't produce results perhaps an exorcist might be able to shine a little light on the problem

Rik · May 22, 2011, 10:24:30

Sounds like routers and Huawei MSANs, Zap.

Niall · May 22, 2011, 19:42:15

I've had a LOT of problems with DVD drives and cables. It always seems to occur after a new O/S install. My sisters other half had it happen too. The drives work before hand, and suddenly they won't read anything or cause the system to BSOD on start, or not start at all!

For example, my mums XP system is using the DVD drive and CD drive that my last system wouldn't recognise, or read game DVDs with. There are even some people on forums reporting the same happens with new drives too. I've no idea what happens or why, but I'm assuming it's hardware incompatibility issues that have been somehow missed by manufacturers.

Technical Ben · May 22, 2011, 20:32:00

The worst of all is LG drives. Great tech, but horrid applications for the DVD drives. It has a special firmware in built to the drive! So it installs on any platform, without a CD/DVD in the machine. So windows 7 gets a nasty little Logo popping up and welcoming you to the "better way" to do things.
No thanks, I do it my way! If I want nero, I want to be able to use that instead.