How I used CloneZilla to fully back up my PC in case disaster strikes (and it’s free)

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• A system picture can prevent from catastrophe.
• System imaging backs up your whole PC — OS and all.
• Clonezilla is a free software to create system photos.

Have you ever ever had that sickening feeling in your intestine when your pc is simply days or even weeks away from dying an premature demise? I have been there a number of instances over the many years. 

When the eventuality involves go, except you have got a very good backup of your information, you possibly can be in for a protracted and irritating uphill battle.

Having your information backed up is one factor. Understanding that you just additionally may need to buy a brand new system, set up all the apps you want, discover the licenses that go together with these apps, and configure your working system as you had it may be a frightening process.

However what should you may do a backup of your pc that features every little thing? Working system, settings, apps, accounts… every little thing? Now, think about you have got such a backup, and you buy a brand new pc, solely to have to revive that backup to the brand new system, and also you’re again to the place you left off, not skipping a beat.

That is the form of backup that I am speaking about. 

It is known as a picture.

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You create a picture of the present state of your system, understanding that you need to use that picture to revive a brand new machine to precisely the place your outdated system was earlier than it conked out. 

That is really simpler than you suppose, due to a software known as Clonezilla.

Clonezilla is basically a stripped-down model of Linux that you just boot after which create a picture of your Linux, MacOS, or Home windows machine, saving it to an exterior drive. When it is advisable restore the picture to a distinct machine, you join the exterior drive housing the picture, boot up Clonezilla, and run the restore.

Now, there are some things it is advisable learn about this primary:

It’s important to create a bootable USB drive with Clonezilla for this to work.

The vacation spot (new) machine has to have the identical structure because the supply machine (in different phrases, you’ll be able to’t restore an Intel picture to an AMD pc)

The drive on the brand new machine must be the identical measurement or bigger than the unique.

In case your system makes use of UEFI safe boot, you could use the AMD64 (X86-64) model (both Debian-based or Ubuntu-based) of Clonezilla stay.

Additionally: My top 5 user-friendly GUI backup tools for the Linux desktop (and why you need one)

I will stroll you thru the method of making a picture of your present machine with Clonezilla. Needless to say Clonezilla is an ncurses-based (which is text-based), however it’s not difficult in any respect.

Making a backup picture with Clonezilla

End the wizard

At this level, I will describe the subsequent few steps for you (as they’re much like what you skilled above). The subsequent screens of the wizard are as follows:

1. Choose the person mode: Select Newbie.
2. Choose the picture sort: Select savedisk.
3. Title the picture: Now you can title the picture to be saved. I’d counsel including the date to the title, so when the picture was created.
4. Select the supply disk: You’ll be prompted to pick out which disk is to be imaged. This needs to be the drive that homes your OS and information.
5. Choose the compression degree: Select between z1p and z9p. In case you have a contemporary machine, I’d counsel going with z9p. Z1P affords the bottom compression degree, whereas Z9P is the best. Z9P leads to higher compression ratios, however requires extra processing energy and time in comparison with Z1P.
6. Examine or no test: Choose if you wish to first run a test/restore on the system earlier than saving it. This selection solely works on Linux, so should you’re imaging a Home windows machine, ensure to pick out sfsck (to skip the test/restore).
7. Examine the picture: Now you can instruct Clonezilla to test the saved picture to make sure that it is restorable. For that, choose Sure and hit Enter.
8. Encrypt or not: You may also select to encrypt your picture (for safety functions). Needless to say if you don’t keep in mind the passphrase used for the encryption, you will be unable to revive your picture.
9. Log recordsdata: You may also decide to repeat log recordsdata to a Clonezilla stay USB drive. Simply hit Enter right here.
10. What to do when completed: Instruct Clonezilla on what to do when the imaging is completed. You may both choose to enter the command immediate, reboot, or shut down.
11. Let ‘er rip: You will be prompted to hit Enter to start out the method. 

Relying on how a lot information is on the drive to be imaged, this will take a while. Step away out of your desk and do one thing else. When the imaging is completed, Clonezilla will both drop to the command immediate, reboot the system, or shut it down (relying on how you’ve got configured it).

When the cloning is completed, take away the exterior drive and place it someplace protected.

Remember information backups

The info in your system may even be imaged. Be mindful, nonetheless, that should you use your machine after the imaging is completed, the info may have modified. Due to that, I additionally counsel you do incremental backups of your information. By doing this, you may be sure that after restoring the picture to a brand new machine, you will have the most recent information to revive as properly.

Additionally: 5 command line backup tools every Linux user should use for desktops and servers