5 replies to this topic

[ichase]

The late Frank Golden who I learned a lot from previously put together a great tutorial on Clonezilla a while back and there has been a few changes that I felt required an updated tutorial.  Frank patiently taught me how to use Clonezilla and I use it all of the time.  This tutorial will be an augment of Frank's original tutorial which can be found HERE.

In this tutorial I am using Clonezilla's latest stable build 1.2.12-67 off of Parted Magic build 6-27.  You can run Clonezilla off of Parted Magic (download latest build here )or as a stand alone iso.  Clonezilla .iso can be downloaded from HERE.  This tutorial will only cover creating a clone of a partition and not the entire hard drive.  The partition numbers and locations used in this tutorial are unique to my laptop.  It's important that you substitue your partition location and desitination of the image location of your machine.  The example I will be using through this tutorial is the steps I take when performing a clone of my 40 GB ext3 Arch Linux partition but will work just fine if you are wanting to clone an NTFS partition with Windows on it.


My current Arch Linux partition is formatted to Ext3 and is 42.9 GB in size, 16.3 GB  which is used space on partition sda5  (Clonezilla only copies the "USED" space) This means I can restore my Arch linux image to another hard drive as long as the partition I restore it to is exactly 42.9 GB in size.

This tool is also great if you bork something up, just re-image the partition and you are back in business in a few moments.  Trust me...... I have had my fair share of borking up my Arch OS and this has saved me countless times.  

Now let’s get started.  Choose the default on the first screen.  Just hit "Enter"



On the second screen, you will use the default as well.  "Enter"



The next screen will be asking you if you want to create a mount point on a USB external hard drive or USB flash drive.  This will be the destination of the image.  If your external device is not already plugged in, plug it in, wait 5 seconds and hit enter.




The next screen will provide you a list of partitions recognized by Clonezilla.  Choose the partition you want Clonezilla to mount.  This is the destination where you want to save your image.




The next screen confirms the mount.  Click "Enter"




The next screen will ask you to choose a mode.  Choose "Expert" then hit enter

Edited by ichase, 01 August 2012 - 06:52 PM.
at Ian's request, the red banner was removed since he has finished the tutorial. ~ Bambi Also, he requested that I remove Frank's quote as it is no longer relevant to the Clonezilla process ---Securitybreach 7/30/12 @17:44

[ichase]

The next screen, choose "Saveparts" because we are saving a partition.  



The next screen you will name your image.  Clonezilla stamps the current date then allows you to add words so that you can identify that image later.  In this example I simply added Test and hit enter.



We are now going to select the partition we want to clone.  In my example, my Arch Linux OS is installed on sda5.  Remember, yours very well may be different.  Arrow down to the partition you want to clone and hit the space bar to put an (*) in the block as seen below.



The next screen will ask you what priority you prefer.  Choose the default q2 and hit enter



The next screen you will select your parameters.  Uncheck everything but the first selection ( -c) to deselect an item, arrow down to that item and hit the space key until the ( * ) goes away.  On this screen, both ( -c ) and ( j2 ) are checked by default.  Uncheck ( j2) leaving only an ( * ) next to ( -c)  This tells Clonezilla to wait for your confirmation before cloning.



The next screen asks what size in MB to split the clone into.  The default is 2000.  Leave it at that and select Enter



Unlike older versions of Clonezilla, the newer versions will actually check the clone to make sure that it is restorable.  Choose the default "Yes checked the saved image"

Edited by LilBambi, 17 July 2012 - 03:50 PM.
made an edit for Ian. ~Bambi

[ichase]

The next screen asks you what to do after cloning.  I normally select the default "Do Nothing" so that I can read the screen and makes sure everything went as planned.  It's totally up to you on this one.



Hitting Enter on the next screen starts the clone process



Clonezilla will ask you if you are sure.  I’m pretty sure you are sure you want to clone that partition by this time.  So type (y) then enter



You will now start seeing progress that your partition is being cloned



Once the cloning is complete and there are no errors, Clonezilla will start checking your clone to ensure that it is restorable if needed.



If the clone is in fact restorable, Clonezilla will provide you a message on the screen letting you know that the image was checked and that it is restorable.  Hit Enter and you are complete.

Edited by ichase, 17 July 2012 - 01:50 PM.

[ichase]

Now we are going through the steps to restore a partition with the image (clone) that you created.  Using the same image as created above, we will now re-image sda5 (THE EXAMPLE) with this image (clone)

Get back into Clonezilla.  The first 2 screens will be the same as when you were performing the clone of the image.  Each one you can select Enter and use the default.





As before, make sure the external hard drive, USB Drive etc is attached so that Clonezilla can read it.  If it’s not attached, plug it in, wait about 5 seconds and hit Enter.



Also as before, you will now highlight the external or USB drive that you currently have the clone saved too.



You will then be asked which directory the image (clone) is in.  If you saved it directly to the drive without saving it into a folder then select Top_Directory_in_the_local_device

[ichase]

On the next screen you are now going to select restoreparts because you are restoring a partition.



Now you will be prompted to select the image you created.  Remember in the example, I named the clone “Test” and you will see from the example below that is currently highlighted.

  

Now choose the target partition that you are re-imaging.  Remember, this must be the same size as the partition you wish to clone.  So if you cloned a 40gb partition for example, you must re-image to a 40gb partition.



On the next screen you will choose your parameters.  The only one you need to worry about is ( -c ) which ones again tells Clonezilla to wait for you to confirm the action before performing it.  Arrow down to each enter OTHER THAN ( -c ) and hit the space bar to remove the ( * ) then hit enter.



Select the default on the next page, just hit enter.



Just as when you performed the cloning of the partition, you are giving the options to do nothing, reboot or poweroff after the action is complete.  I normally choose the default of do nothing so that I can read all of the input from Clonezilla to make sure everything went well.



You will now be at the below screen to start the process of re-imaging your partition with the image (clone) you selected.  Hit Enter.

Edited by securitybreach, 30 July 2012 - 05:51 PM.
Ian asked me to change the required partition scheme -- Securitybreach 07/30/12@17:51

[ichase]

Clonezilla is going to ask you again, then AGAIN after that to make absolutely certain you are ready to commit to re-imaging that partition.  Type ( y ) then enter on the next 2 screens.





You will now see the progress of the re-imaging action.



Once complete and if all went well you will see the next screen.  Hit enter, reboot and boot into the partition you imaged.



More advanced users can utilize some of the other options, but these are basic steps to clone and restore partitions that has worked for me COUNTLESS times.


Good Luck, if you have any questions, drop me a line.

Edited by ichase, 17 July 2012 - 02:31 PM.