Backup/Cloning hard drives for restore dvd's/blu-rays

[Batmeat]

Anyone use Clonezilla? Essentially I'm wondering if it can do what I want to do. That being create a restore dvd/blu-ray of my computers much like manufacturers such as Dell use. I simply put in my restore disk, boot to it and auto restores my computer to a stable state with what ever programs I had installed when I created the disk.

Windows restore function in Win 7 is crap. I'm not interested in restore points, cause there are instances where they totally fail and sometimes don't even show up as an option to use. I've used Acronis in the past, but it couldn't do what I want to do now.

Thoughts?

 

[Revolution 11]

Not sure about Clonezilla but I am sure Norton Ghost could do what you are describing back in 2003/2004.

If anyone has Acronis and knows how to make it do what the OP wants, I also would appreciate the information.

 

[Batmeat]

Not sure about Clonezilla but I am sure Norton Ghost could do what you are describing back in 2003/2004.

If anyone has Acronis and knows how to make it do what the OP wants, I also would appreciate the information.

Ghost was awesome back inthe day. You could do it via command line very easily. Now days though I can't find anything that works.

 

[Diogenes2]

I use the free edition of Macrium Reflect for cloning - essentially a full back-up..

It prompts me to create a bootable rescue CD, but I have never used that feature; I know the clones work flawlessly..

I'm pretty sure it will do compressed back-ups to optical media ..

 

[Bubbaleone]

Ghost was awesome back inthe day. You could do it via command line very easily. Now days though I can't find anything that works.

All you're talking about is creating a cloned image. Ghost was just an imaging utility and there are many freeware utilities just as capable: Comparison of disk cloning software. Clonezilla, Gparted, EaseUs, etc., are just a few.

Window 7 native imaging utility is one of several free solutions: Go to Start>Control Panel>Backup and Restore. Select "Create System Image". Keep in mind that unless you regularly create images your programs and settings will be restored to the state they were in on the date the image was created.

Also, unless you like having to burn a bunch of DVDs in sequence, you'd be much better off just using an external HDD, or seperate internal HDD. And any decent third-party cloning utility will work just fine. Just be sure to regularly create new images so your programs and settings are up-to-date.

If you go with the Windows 7 Backup and Restore utility, before you need to restore anything, and if you don't have an install DVD, create a "System Repair Disk" which will give you access to restore the cloned image. See this little tut from TechRepublic by Greg Schultz: Use Windows 7 System Image Recovery to restore a hard disk

 

[cppguru]

Yep Clonezilla will do that. I would NOT recommend keeping your backups on dvds/cds/bluerays. They simply go bad very quickly and are not reliable form of storage. They are fine for transportation though.

Your best bet is to buy a hard drive and an external enclosure to go with it (or you can just put it inside your computer) and use it for both data backup and toolchest. Just reserve a boot partition on it, install grub and keep Clonezilla there. And keep your data/images on the data partition. This way when you boot from external drive, you will have all your tools ready for you when you need em (including Clonezilla).

 

[Batmeat]

I appreciate the responses. I don't plan on using the built in backup for Win 7. System restore and selecting the restore point isn't that great imo. I've had back ups fail. I have been keeping a backup on a separate hard drive, the problem is if the main hard drive gets trashed some how...you have to re-install windows, then re-install your backup program to then re-image the disk. Although not a hassle, it's time consuming.

Rescue discs aren't that great either. I want to be able to create a bootable disk that all I have to do is stick the computer, boot to it and it will re-image the hard disk. That is the ideal. I'll have to experiment with the solultions you guys provided to me. If at very least even stick in a bootable disk that will then allow me to select the image to restore from a usb based enclosure. I know you can do this already with Win 7 rescue disk, but it isn't that reliable imo. I've created 8 backup images and tried to use it on brand new builds. It failed 5 times and worked 3 times. Hence why i don't want that route.

 

[Diogenes2]

I have been keeping a backup on a separate hard drive.....

If you use Macrium to create a clone on a spare HDD, all you have to do is plug it in and go..

As soon as it's up and running, you just create another clone, and you have a spare ready to go..

This is essentially the back up method I use..

 

[WilliamM2]

I know you can do this already with Win 7 rescue disk, but it isn't that reliable imo. I've created 8 backup images and tried to use it on brand new builds. It failed 5 times and worked 3 times. Hence why i don't want that route.

I've created hundreds of images with Win7's built in utility, restored dozens of them, and have never had one fail yet. If you put the image on an attached hard drive, you don't even need the rescue disk. You can start the process from within windows. Unless the OS hard drive does fail, then you will need the disk.

Restoring from the hard drive takes about 5-10 minutes. Restoring from DVD's or Blu ray can take a couple hours. Also takes forever to create the image.

 

[nk215]

I think the OP confuses between Win7 restore point and Win7 disk image.

Anyway, the restore point function never works well for me. I turned it off on all of my computers. The disk image works fine and correctly.

Having said that, I’ve never tried Win7 disk image to clone the entire partition to a different HD yet. I’ve used it to restore a badly corrupted win7 installation before with the boot CD option. It worked fine.
To move the entire image from one HD to the other I use Paragon Backup (free). In my specific case, I upgraded from 60Gig SSD to 120 SSD for 2 computers using Paragon software – again using the paragon created boot CD. I used diskpar to align the new disk so I do not know if the software can align the clone partition or not.

I’ve used ghost and Acronis in the past w/o any issue. I moved away from ghost at the start of Win7 (need to buy a new version to be completely compartible). I have no idea why I left Acronis for Paragon since Acronis never failed me and I have WD version.

I create a disk image of my server almost weekly so using an optical drive is just impractical. The main boot SSD only contains the OS and a few applications including XP-mode vhd files. Major softwares such as Office are stored on another SSD, linked to the boot drive/program files folder via junctions.

 

[Batmeat]

I think the OP confuses between Win7 restore point and Win7 disk image

Nope, I've used both. Never had good luck with either. I'm experimenting with Clonezilla and Macrium now.