clone - Is imaging independent of partition size?

07
2014-07
  • yzT

    Let's assume this scenario. A partition of 100GB, 50GB are used and 50GB are free. If I do the image of the system, could I then resize the partition to 75GB and be able to restore the image? Or is it like cloning where the partition needs to have the same size?

    • Answers
  • Zoredache

    Partitions don't really have free/used space, filesystems do. If your imaging tool recognizes and has support for a given filesystem, then it can resize.

    I am pretty sure clonezilla has at least ext*, fat, and ntfs resize support.

    See the expert resize option.

    http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone/advanced/05-advanced-param.php


    • Related Question

    windows 7 - Is there a way to clone an NTFS hard drive but leave some files out?
  • Pridkett

    I'm trying to find a nice way to do backups of my Windows 7 Media Center machine. Ideally I'd like to take periodic snapshots of the entire hard disk, but leave some files out of the selection. For example, take an image of the whole hard disk, but leave out all of the TV recordings (not the end of the world if I lose those).

    I've been using Clonezilla to successfully clone machines for a long time. It's smart enough to use ntfsclone to smartly clone hard disk without resorting to dd. However, it only images the entire hard disk or partition, and does not let me leave some files out.

    I know this is possible because we've got a little USB->SATA drive dongle at work that came with some software that allows you to skip files (works great for migrating down to an SSD), but it requires the dongle and only works with laptop drives.

    Any suggestions on software I should use? Open Source is preferred, but not necessary.


    • Related Answers
  • wetware.hacking

    Cloning is not backup'ing in my book. The advantage of a backup is that it does not copy everyting everytime but only whats different from the last save.

    There's already a utility that does this on Windows 7. It is called ROBOCOPY. By default it is a program you need to start by the command prompt (windows_key+R, type 'cmd', press enter).

    To use: robocopy SOURCE_FOLDER DESTINATION_FOLDER -parameters

    You can use parameters to exclude some file type, directories, etc. Robocopy can copy over the network, on usb, etc. it doesnt make a difference. With the /MIR parameter, it 'MIRrors' your source in your destination folders and backup only what is newer.

  • Mark Sowul

    One way to do it is to use the Windows Image-based backup utility, and add the directories you wish to exclude to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToSnapshot

    Note that this will exclude it from "Restore previous versions" and other shadow-copy-based functionality

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa819132.aspx

    I myself have set up a scheduled task that runs wbadmin for this purpose.