Image backup

Joined
Apr 22, 2015
Messages
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I'm running Linux Mint 18.1 on a Lenovo T510 laptop on a SSD. I'm still getting use to the OS, but I'd like to make an image of the drive like I do in Windows with Acronis. Is there a free utility that can image a Linux OS?
 
There's also fsarchiver if you're running one of the supported filesystems. It can be run from a running system but that's in the very much so not recommended department. (files changing underneath the thing running and all that)

That one's more partition imaging than drive imaging though.
 
Also simple dd works if there's not much activity. I once cloned an entire running physical server into a multi-gigabyte kvm image by dd over ssh. Surely not the recommended way to do it but I just couldn't physically access the machine at the time.
 
do you want to clone the drive or the OS?

dd will clone the drive, unused areas as well

rsync will clone the content

rsync -aAXv --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found"} / /path/to/backup/folder

You can the compress (or pipe into tar and gzip ( rsync ... | tar -jvf myfile.tar.bz2 )

I did this when I migrated my old setup to SSD without an issue
 
OK I got Clonezilla installed. Weird that you have to run it via the terminal. I never saw it in the menu for applications. I even rebooted to make sure LOL. Do I need to make a boot CD? If so, how do I create the boot CD from Clonezilla? Oh, after running it for the first time, there are 2 options. Not sure which one to select for my image of the drive.
 
Thanks for the link. Funny that they are using windows 8.1 to show the steps. Is there one for Linux OS?
 
Thanks for the link. Funny that they are using windows 8.1 to show the steps. Is there one for Linux OS?

It's done in windows because most of its target users are windows drones. They would get confused and start to cry if they saw it done outside windows.
 
It's done in windows because most of its target users are windows drones. They would get confused and start to cry if they saw it done outside windows.

Que heatle... who is about to come in and tell us how most people use windows so its only proper that any program with a windows build should have all its documentation aimed at MS crap. ;)

I found this doing a quick look. The creator is using ubuntu and an ubuntu VM to demo it. Works the same for mint or any other distro really. Main thing is burn it or make a live usb. Much like you would with any Linux distro. If your not sure how to make a bootable USB in Linux if you used windows the first time. I believe Suse studio image writer should be in the mint repos. You should be able to make a bootable USB with the ISO file with that super easy.

 
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I use Clonezilla myself but am always on the hunt for other options. I prefer programs that use an image format that won't lock me into using their software to restore the image just in case.
 
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