Clonezilla - Linux Imaging Distro

[Ziek88]

This is a fantastic distro of linux specifically made to create 100% replicas of your computer. I mean everything, not just files. It'll backup user accounts, everything you've installed. You load an image this thing created and all you have to do is run updates from the date you made the image and reactive windows (provided you are using windows)

I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds themselves frequently reformatting their computer for one reason or another. Tonight I will be due to hard drive failure. Sadly the one limitation of this OS is the hard drive you install the image on must be >= the original source drive so I'll be doing a scratch install. That said, would you folks like a guide on how to use this? It's not real hard to do but can be intimidating if you aren't at least semi tech savvy. It would be easy for me to make a guide while actually doing the process myself.

[LiNuX]

We use Norton Ghost at work which is awesome, we can push images over the network. I remember a conversation about Clonezilla Server a while ago but my IT department is set on using Ghost. I've never used Clonezilla although I wouldn't mind trying it.

Windows also has a good backup/restore system. When my hard drive failed a few months ago (I had warnings), I was able to save an image of my drive using the windows backup tool and restore using the same tool, first time using that and it worked better than I expected. I almost took my drive to work to clone it using Norton Ghost.

P.S. I wouldn't mind a guide on using Clonezilla, I think it would be useful to everyone

[Ziek88]

I'll do one up then. Just gotta finish all my installs before I start. Hopefully still works with windows 8.1. I'm surprised they're still using ghost. Microsoft Deployment Server is so much easier to work with.

I don't see clonezilla taking much of a place at a place of business but it's pretty awesome for home users who just want a replica image. Although we did integrate with with WDS at work so we can deploy a kiosk OS I made from ubuntu. Basically Chromebook but free and works a bit better.