How to Use Clonezilla – Tutorial share49 117 8812. Mar 2011, 6:50 UhrPablo Garcia

In past I have written articles describing differences between Clonezilla SE and CLonezilla Live and  how to setup a Clonezilla server. However, many people kept asking me for instructions on how to use Clonezilla. That is why I decided to write this tutorial. For those of you not familiar with Clonezilla, it is a free disk cloning utility that will let you image hard drives via a USB or Ethernet connection. In this tutorial we are going to be using Clonezilla Live to clone a computer’s internal hard drive to a USB external drive. The instructions, however,0 should be pretty much the same for Clonezilla Server Edition. As opposite to other Clonezilla tutorials on the web, I have tried to make this tutorial as detailed as possible, including instructions for “saving” as well as “restoring” the image. Do not be scared by the length of the article; this is actually a walkthrough, so it should be very easy for everybody to understand.

Download Clonezilla Live, burn the iso image (you can use the free Imgburn for this) and boot the computer from the CD. As I previously stated, for those of you using Clonezilla Server the instructions should be pretty much the same, except that instead of booting from a LiveCD, you will be booting from the network connecting to a Clonezilla server which will store your image. The server will provide the Clonezilla wizard via the network connection.

Most of the items in this tutorial are self explanatory, but I will go through all of them in case of doubts in any particular step.

Saving the ImageInsert the liveCD in you CD-ROM and boot from it.

1) At the first screen just click enter.

2) Next, choose your language.

3) Choose the way your keyboard is laid out. If you are in North America just click enter. If you are not in North America your keyboard most likely has a different layout than the default chosen by Clonezilla. Choose the one that pertains to your country.

4) If your “destination” drive is already partitioned and formated in a filesystem Linux understands (e.g. Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, Fat32, etc.), choose “Start_Clonezilla“. If it is not, then click “Enter_shell” and format it. Make sure you identify the drive properly before formatting it, otherwise you can format the wrong one and lose your data. When done, type “ocs-live” to return to the Clonezilla wizard.

5) For this tutorial we are going to make an “image“. Images are compressed files not designed to be accessible, they are meant to be stored away for later use. So, we are going to choose “device-image“. The next option “device-device” as its name indicates, is used when you want to clone two hard drives in one step without creating an image.

6) Select the destination location. This is where you are going to save your image to. For this tutorial, we are going to be choosing the first option “local_dev“. However, if you do not have a USB drive available, notice that you can also save the image to a wide variety of shared drives on your network.

7) Next, Clonezilla will try to detect your USB drive. Connect the USB drive when Clonezilla asks you to do so, then wait a few seconds to give Linux time to recognize the drive and click enter to continue.

8) Select the destination drive. This is the drive you are going to be saving your image to. If your USB hard drive did not get detected on the previous step and it is not appearing on the list, appears intermittently or just won’t format at all, read the section “Problematic Drives” in my article: How to Format a USB External Hard Drive for Linux.

9) Next, Clonezilla will ask you for a directory in your destination drive, where you would like to save your image to. If your destination drive is empty (like the one in the picture below), just choose “Top_directory_in_the_local_device“.

10) To shorten the steps needed to finish, choose  “Beginner“. If you have limited space on your destination drive and want to choose a more suitable compression method, other than the default chosen by Clonezilla, choose “Expert”. Expert mode also lets you modify other settings which are useful whenever you have trouble during the cloning process.

11) For this tutorial choose “savedisk“. This will make an image of the entire “source” hard drive. If you wish to make an image of only one partition, choose “saveparts“.

12) Type the name you wish to have for your image; I usually make it the model of the computer and the date, for example: toshiba-satellite-02-27-11, but this is entirely up to you.

13) Choose the “source” drive. This is the hard drive you wish to clone. Move up and down the list using the arrows on your keyboard to the desired drive and then click on the space bar to select it.

14) Make sure everything looks good and click “enter” to continue.

15) Again make sure everything looks good, type “y” and click “enter” to start the imaging process.

 

Restoring the ImageTo restore the image, follow steps 1 through 10 on the previous section of this tutorial.

11) Choose “restore_disk“. If you previously backed up a partition instead of an entire drive, choose “restoreparts”.

12) Choose the image you would like to restore.

13) Choose the “destination“. This is the drive where you will be extracting the image to. Make sure it is empty, since all its contents will be erased.

14) Finally, Clonezilla will ask you twice if you would like to start the process. If you are sure the destination drive is empty, choose yes to start the process.

 

Final thoughtsClonezilla is a proven imaging solution; a solution which is powerful, reliable, versatile and free. It is certainly my favorite disk cloning utility. I hope this Clonezilla Live tutorial has been useful to you. If you have any questions about Clonezilla Live or Clonezilla Server, feel free to ask.

Setup a Clonezilla Server on Ubuntu share1844 88 2466. Dec 2010, 11:46 UhrPablo Garcia

At work I am solely in charge of approximately 200 computers, this has led me to become sort of an expert in cloning. I have tested many commercial packages and none come close to Clonezilla. Clonezilla has two versions: Clonezilla live, which as its name states, runs from a live CD and Clonezilla SE (Server Edition).  In this article I will describe how to install the SE version on the latest Ubuntu release (10.04 Lucid Lynx).  Please note that this is a walkthrough so do not let the length of the article scare you. The set-up is actually very easy with this article. I have also written a tutorial on how to use Clonezilla.

One key advantage of the server version is that it allows for multicasting, which the live version does not. Multicasting basically allows many computers to be cloned simultaneously and in the same amount of time it would take cloning a single computer. Multicasting allows the user to restore a large groups of computers across the network in a matter of minutes. As an example, let say that you have 40 new computers that just arrived and you need to have them all up and running by tomorrow. Clonezilla can get the job done in 10 minutes! and I am not talking about 10 minutes per computer, I am talking about 10 minutes for the whole batch! Restoring a 5 GB compressed image on 40 computers at once in 10 minutes; Sounds incredible? I could not believe it myself until I tried it. On the other hand, the Clonezilla live CD communicates with each computer individually, making the restoration time dependent on the amount of computers being restored. Another advantage of the server edition is the fact that you can have your own cloning station ready to save or restore any computer at any given time and to provide a storage location for all your images. If you are wondering what Clonezilla version is right for you, read my article: Clonezilla Live Vs. Clonezilla Server (DRBL).

Prepare UbuntuClonezilla SE works by providing a boo-table environment for clients though the network.  For this purpose a DHCP server will have to be installed. You will have to make sure that none of the computers in your organization are set to boot from network as first boot device, otherwise they might boot to Clonezilla instead of their own operating system. There is a way around this:  A file can be created with all MAC addresses of the computers to be cloned. This will prevent the server from booting unwanted machines. However, from experience I have found that it is easier to just boot the desired machines from network manually and once booted into Clonezilla the cloning process can be started from the server with the click of a button.

1) Enable “Universe” and “Multiverse” repositories under:  System -> Administration -> Software Sources.

2) Open your sources list file to add the Clonezilla repository issuing the following command at your shell prompt:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

3) Add the following line at the bottom of the file and save it.

deb http://drbl.sourceforge.net/drbl-core drbl stable

4) Download the GPG Key for the new clonezilla source repository by issuing the following command at your shell prompt:

wget http://drbl.sourceforge.net/GPG-KEY-DRBL

5) Add the key with the following command:

sudo apt-key add GPG-KEY-DRBL

6) Make sure operating system is fully updated by issuing the following command at your shell prompt:

sudo apt-get update

Setup Ubuntu’s Network Configuration1) Uninstall Network Manager by issuing the following command at the shell prompt (This is optional, it is done because network manager sometimes does not like the virtual interface created for Clonezilla. I had no problems with network manager in Ubuntu 10.04)

sudo apt-get remove network-manager

2) Type the following command at a terminal screen to open your network interfaces configuration file:

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

Edit the file to look as the one displayed below; you can copy – paste this information to your interfaces file. As you can see on the configuration below we have two interfaces, eth0 and eth0:0. Eth0 is your main network card’s IP configuration; we are going to use this to connect to the web, etc.  eth0:0 is a “virtual” interface which we will use for Clonezilla. Just remember  to match eth0′s IP configuration with that of your local network and to make eth0:0 IP a totally different subnet from that of eth0, look at the example down below. etho is 192.168.1.200 and eth0:0 is 192.168.99.200 is eth0:0, so they don’t conflict.  Also, Clonezilla’s virtual interface, eth0:0 must use a “class C” IP address (e.g. 192.168.x.x) otherwise muticasting effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

#Loopbackauto loiface lo inet loopback

#Network Interface, this should match your networkauto eth0iface eth0 inet staticaddress 192.168.1.200netmask 255.255.255.0gateway 192.168.1.1

#Virtual Interface for Conezilla, make sure you use a "class C" IP (192.168.x.x)auto eth0:0iface eth0:0 inet staticaddress 192.168.99.200netmask 255.255.255.0

Install DRBL1) To install DRBL (which comes with Clonezilla in one package) issue the following command:

sudo apt-get install drbl

This is all you have to do. You do not need to install any dependencies, since it all comes in one package.

Setup DRBLTo start the DRBL setup, issue the following command:

sudo /opt/drbl/sbin/drblsrv -i

Clonezilla (DRBL) setup will begin. Answer everything as you see it below. Do not worry if you make a mistake, you can always start the set-up again issuing the same previous command.

The first question basically asks you if you want to install other Linux images, answer “N”

Do you want to install the network installation boot images so that you can let the client computer install some GNU/Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat Linux, Fedora Core, Mandriva, CentOS and OpenSuSE…) via a network connection?  !!NOTE!! This will download a lot of files (Typically > 100 MB) so it might take a few minutes. If the client computer has a hard drive that you may install GNU/Linux onto, put a Y here. If you answer “no” here, you can

run “drbl-netinstall” to install them later.[y/N] N

Next question asks if you would like to use a serial console instead of a GUI, so choose “N”

Do you want to use the serial console output on the client computer(s)?If you do NOT know what to pick, say “N” here, otherwise the client computer(s) may show NOTHING on the screen![y/N] N

Next question asks about the type architecture used in your CPU.  Since practically all of today’s PCs are i586, choose  ”1“.

Which CPU architecture kernel do you want to assign for the DRBL client computer(s)?0 -> i386 CPU architecture1 -> i586 CPU architecture2 -> Use the same architecture as this DRBL serverNote! Note Note! Note! Note! Note! Note!NOTE!!! If the client computer(s) is not the same architecture as this server, please pick “0″ or “1″, otherwise your client computer(s) will NOT be able to boot.If you use wrong architecture type kernel, the glibc and openssl package might use i686 or i386 while the kernel might use i686, i586, or i386, which might be not suitable for all your computer(s).[2] 1

Select “N” in the next question. You do not want DRBL to upgrade your operating system. Next, DRBL will begin downloading and installing all its dependencies.

Do you want to upgrade the operating system?[y/N] N

After DRBL finishes downloading and installing all its dependencies, we are done installing DRBL. Next we will be configuring Clonezilla.

Configure ClonezillaEnter the following command at your shell prompt to start configuring Clonezilla:

sudo /opt/drbl/sbin/drblpush -i

Again, do not worry about making a mistake you can always issue the same command to start over.

At the first question just press “enter” to leave the default name.

Please enter DNS domain (such as drbl.sf.net):[DRBL.name]

At the second question again just press “enter” to leave the default nis/yp domain name.

Please enter NIS/YP domain name:[penguinzilla]

At the third question again just press “enter” to leave the default server name.

Please enter the client hostname prefix:This prefix is used to automatically create hostname for clients. If you want to overwrite some or all automatically created hostnames, press Ctrl-C to quit this program now, edit /opt/drbl/conf/client-ip-hostname, then run this program again.[servername]

The fourth question asks to choose which card to use to go to the internet, previously we chose eth0 as our connection to the web and eth0:0 as our virtual interface for Clonezilla, so enter “eth0”

eth0: IP address 192.168.1.200, netmask 255.255.255.0eth0:0: IP address 192.168.99.200, netmask 255.255.255.0Configured ethernet card(s) found in your system: eth0 eth0:0- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -The public IP address of this server is NOT found.

Which ethernet port in this server is for public Internet accsess, not for DRBL connection?Available ethernet ports in this server:eth0 (192.168.1.200), eth0:0 (192.168.99.200),[eth0] eth0

If you get a message telling you that your Clonezilla IP (eth0:0) is on a class A or B network, make sure you change it to a “Class C” (e.g. 192.168.x.x) and start Clonezilla’s configuration over, otherwise multicasting’s effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

Next question asks if you want to collect MAC addresses of computers to be cloned; this is done so that only computers that are going to be cloned get assigned an IP from DRBL.  I find this time consuming and unnecessary, since it is easier to turn DRBL off once you are done cloning so that it does not conflict with your network’s DHCP server. DRBL is very easy to turn on and off with a simple short-cut on your server’s desktop. So we are going to choose “N“.

(…summary…) Now we can collect the MAC address of clients!Do you want to collect them?[y/N] N

Since we chose not to collect mac addresses we will choose “N” in the next question.

Do you want to let the DHCP service in DRBL server offer same IP address to the client every time when client boots (If you want this function, you have to collect the MAC addresses of clients, and save them in file(s) (as in the previous procedure)). This is for the clients connected to DRBL server’s ethernet network interface eth0:0 ?[y/N] N

Next question asks what will be the starting IP number assigned to client computers; you can leave it at “1” since no other computers should be using the Clonezilla subnet.

What is the initial number do you want to use in the last set of digits in the IP (i.e. the initial value of d in the IP address a.b.c.d) for DRBL clients connected to this ethernet port eth0:0.[1] 1

Next question asks how many computers do you want to clone at a time; you can set this to whatever you want as long as it is not ridiculously high, for this example we are going to leave it at “12” computers.

How many DRBL clients (PC for students) connected to DRBL server’s ethernet network interface eth0:0 ?Please enter the number:[12] 12

Do you accept what we did in the previous question? Select “Y” (self explanatory).

The final number in the last set of digits in the client’s IP address is “12″. We will set the IP address for the clients connected to DRBL server’s ethernet network interface eth0:0 as: 192.168.99.1 – 192.168.99.12 Accept ?[Y/n] Y

Next, Clonezilla will show you how your network configuration will look like; this is just information so press “enter“.

The Layout for your DRBL environment:******************************************************NIC      NIC IP             Clients+———————————————————————————+|        DRBL SERVER        ||                           || +– [eth0]   10.0.2.100     +- to WAN|                           || +– [eth0:0] 192.168.99.200 +-  to clients group 0:0 [12 clients,   IPs 192.168.99.1 - 12]|                           |+———————————————————————————+******************************************************Total clients: 12******************************************************

Press Enter to continue…

Clonezilla will then ask you if you want to have the option of booting computer to Linux using the network, we are just setting the server for cloning so choose option “2“.

In the system, there are 3 modes for diskless linux services:[0] Full DRBL mode, every client has its own NFS based /etc and /var.[1] DRBL SSI (Single system image) mode, every client uses tmpfs based /etc and /var. In this mode, the loading and necessary disk space of server will be lighter. NOTE! (a) The client machine memory is recommended at least 256 MB. (b) The setting and config files of client will not be saved to the DRBL server! They are just used once and will vanish after the machine shutdowns! Besides, if you modify any file in the template client (located in

/tftpboot/nodes), you have to run /opt/drbl/sbin/drbl-gen-ssi-files to create the template tarball in /tftpboot/node_root/drbl_ssi/. (c) If you want to provide some file to overwrite the setting in the template tarball when client boots, check /tftpboot/node_root/drbl_ssi/clients/00_README for more details.[2] I do NOT want to provide diskless Linux service to client.Which mode do you prefer?[0] 2

Choose Clonezilla box mode, option “1“. This way the whole cloning operation will be lighter on the server.

In the system, there are 4 modes available for clonezilla:[0] Full Clonezilla mode, every client has its own NFS based /etc and /var.[1] Clonezilla box mode, every client uses tmpfs based /etc and /var. In this mode, the loading and necessary disk space of server will be lighter than that in Full Clonezilla mode. Note! In Clonezilla box mode, the setting and config files of client will not be saved to the DRBL server! They just use once and will vanish after the machine shutdowns![2] I do NOT want clonezilla.[3] Use Clonezilla live as the OS (Operating System) of clients (Testing).Which mode do you prefer?[0] 1

Next question asks what will be the default directory where you want to store your images. To me the default “/home/partimag” is not intuitive, so I change it to “/clonezilla” so it can be easily accessible in the file-system. But this is up to you; just remember that if you decide to change it make sure you create the new folder manually, since the setup will not do it for you.

The CPU arch for clients when running Clonezilla job: i486——————————————————When using clonezilla, which directory in this server you want to store the saved image (Please use absolute path, and do NOT assign it under /mnt/, /media/ or /tmp/)?

[/home/partimag] /clonezilla

Unless you want to be annoyed with a password prompt every time you want to clone a computer or you are a security freak, choose “N” in the next question.

Do you want to set the pxelinux password for clients so that when client boots, a password must be entered to startup (For better security)[y/N] N

Choose “N” at the next question as well, you do not need a boot prompt for clients

Do you want to set the boot prompt for clients?[y/N] N

I recommend you choose “Y” in the next question; graphic backgrounds look friendlier.

Do you want to use graphic background for PXE menu when client boots?Note! If you use graphical PXELinux menu, however client fails to boot, you can switch to text mode by running “/opt/drbl/sbin/switch-pxe-bg-mode -m text”.[y/N] Y

Choose “N” in the next question (self explanatory).

Do you want to use DRBL server as a NAT server? If not, your DRBL client will not be able the internet.[y/N] Y

Choose “Y” of course to finish.

We are now ready to deploy the files to the system!Warning! If you go on your firewall rules will be overwritten during setup…[Y/n] Y

Start Clonezilla ServerNow that we have finished configuring Clonezilla we need to start our server to get it ready for cloning. Type the following at the command prompt:

sudo /opt/drbl/sbin/dcs

At the first screen Choose “Select all the clients“.

At the second Screen Choose “clonezilla-start“.

At the third screen I recommend using “Beginner mode” for now. However, if the cloning process gets stuck when trying to clone your clients, you will have to restart the server later on and choose “Expert Mode”, since it gives you more options you can tweak to make it work.

In the fourth screen choose “select-in-client“. This gives you to option to choose whether to restore or save the image during Clonezilla’s booting process in the client itself.

Leave the two last options as they are and click “ok” and we are done!

Create desktop shortcuts to start and stop Clonezilla (Optional)

I highly recommend you create shortcuts on your server’s desktop to “start”, “start using multicasting” and “stop” clonezilla server. This will make it a lot easier, since, sometimes you might want to clone a group of computers at the same time using multicasting. This way you can do it by the click of a button instead of having to reconfigure the server.  Also, multicasting is picky and it does not always work on all computers. In case multicasting does not work for you, you can always go back to regular Clonezilla operating  mode just by clicking on a shortcut, etc. Stopping the Clonezilla is also convenient when you need to restart, or to disable the DRBL so it does not interfere with other DHCP servers on the network.

“Start Clonezilla” Shortcut

Right click on your desktop and select “Create Document” -> “Empty File”. Paste the following information inside the file and save it with the name “Start-Clonezilla.sh”.

#!/bin/bashecho "Clonezilla Starting"'/etc/init.d/dhcp3-server' start/opt/drbl/sbin/drbl-ocs -b -l en_US -y1 -p choose select_in_client

Right-click on your newly created shortcut; select “Properties” and click on the “Permissions” tab and check “Enable executing file as a program“.

“Start Clonezilla Using Multicasting” Shortcut

Right click on you desktop and select “Create Document” -> “Empty File”. Paste the following information inside the file and save it with the name “Start-Clonezilla-Multicasting.sh”.

#!/bin/bashecho "Clonezilla Starting"'/etc/init.d/dhcp3-server' start/opt/drbl/sbin/drbl-ocs -b -g auto -e1 auto -e2 -x -j2 -p reboot --clients-to-wait 8--max-time-to-wait 250 -l en_US.UTF-8 startdisk multicast_restore CLIENT-NAME sda

Substitute “CLIENT NAME” with the name of the image you wish to use for cloning your clients. Right-click on your newly created shortcut, select “Properties” and click on the “Permissions” tab and check “Enable executing file as a program“.

“Stop Clonezilla” Shortcut

Right click on your desktop and select “Create Document” -> “Empty File”. Paste the following information inside the file and save it with the name “Stop-Clonezilla.sh”.

#!/bin/bash echo "Clonezilla Stopping"/opt/drbl/sbin/clean-dhcpd-lease'/etc/init.d/dhcp3-server' stop/opt/drbl/sbin/drbl-ocs stop

Right-click on your newly created shortcut, select “Properties” and click on the “Permissions” tab and check “Enable executing file as a program“.

 

Making and Restoring an ImageNow that you have your server up and running you need to learn how to use clonezilla, I have written a tutorial for this.

Clonezilla Live vs. Clonezilla Server (DRBL) share7 2 019. Feb 2011, 19:28 UhrPablo Garcia

In this article I will try to explain the differences between Clonezilla Live and Clonezilla Server (DRBL). There are two versions of Clonezilla: Clonezilla Live, which runs from a liveCD and Clonezilla Server version. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, it all depends on what you need it for. If some of you don’t already know, Clonezilla is a disaster recovery backup software designed to clone or backup entire drives. It is the Open Source equivalent of Norton Ghost. It can backup hard disks regardless of the data or operating system contained in them. It is one of the most useful tools for the IT professional, and it is free.

Clonezilla LiveClonezilla Live, as it name indicates, runs from a liveCD. It is ideal for home and small business in situations where you have very few computers to backup. It is great for a quick backup job. One advantage of Clonezilla live is that you do not have to dedicate a computer on your network to run it.  Portability is also an advantage, since images are usually stored on an external USB Hard Drive. Clonezilla Live however, not only backs up to USB external drives but also to shared network drives as well.

Important Note For Clonezilla Live:

What file system to choose for your destination drive?: The general answer will be EXT3 or Ext4 (Linux filesysem). However if all depends on what you need and what you have available at the moment. If you want Windows to be able to read the contents of the drive because you want to store other files in there as well, your best bet is to use fat32 as long as your images are small. Fat32, however, has a big limitation: you cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in

size using the FAT32 file system. If you decide to use Fat32, do not format as you usually do using Windows Explorer, you must use the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, otherwise Clonezilla won’t see the drive. However, if you can spare a dedicated drive just for Clonezilla or Linux in general, use EXT3 or Ext4.  If you have trouble formatting a USB external drive or if this drive is detected intermittently, read the section “Problematic Drives” on my article: How to Format a USB External Hard Drive for Linux

Clonezilla Server (DRBL)Clonezilla server is ideal when you have several computers of the same kind to be cloned. You can install Clonezilla on a computer running Linux and connect it to your network. Clonezilla server will run a DHCP server so that every time you boot a computer from network, using PXE, you boot to Clonezilla just as if you were booting from an operating system installed on your computer or from a liveCD. With it you can backup your computer to the server, and then have the image available there for all other computers you need to clone. It also saves you time since you have your images available to you all the time in a central location anywhere on your network. One computer on your network went down? just boot it from network, select your image, and it will be ready in a few minutes; you did not even have to move the computer.

Clonezilla, however, has a lengthy installation and you can get overwhelmed if you do not know what you are doing. I have written a tutorial which take you by the hand step by step. Read it, don’t get scared by its length, it is actually a walkthrough so it makes the Clonezilla Server installation process very easy.

How to Clone Hard Drive to Smaller Drive share1454 20 292. Oct 2010, 16:38 UhrPablo Garcia

Here is the situation: You want to clone (or copy) a hard drive to a new drive, however, you do not have a hard drive of equal or bigger size to restore the image to. This has happened to me many times, and many times I have wondered what to do. Norton Ghost does this seamlessly, but I had to purchase it and I was not going to make the same mistake most of us do, “just throw money at the problem”, specially in this era of open source software.  I knew there had to be a free solution out there to clone my hard disk and after a little bit of research and testing, this is what I came up with. Resize the partition using GParted and clone the partition using Clonezilla, which is in my opinion the best hard drive cloning software available.

In a nutshell, this method will involve resizing the partition of the original hard drive using GParted, then running a filesystem check on the resized partition and using Clonezilla to copy the reduced image to the external hard drive. Finally we are going to transfer the reduced image to the computer with the smaller hard drive.

Method Summary:

- Reduce partition of big hard drive using GParted.- Let operating system boot so it can do a file system check.- Save reduced partition using clonezilla's "saveparts" option.- Restore partition using Clonezilla's "restoreparts" option.

What’s Needed for This Project:

- Clonezilla live CD (free, open source)- Gparted live CD (free, open source)- External Hard Drive or Slave Drive (just to copy the compressed image to)

GPartedStep 1: Donwload the GParted live CD

Step 2: Once GParted has finished booting, follow the steps in the picture down below.

1 – Click on “Resize/Move” and a new window will appear.2 – Drag the right side of the partition bar to the left until the desired size is reached.3 – Click on “Resize/Move” (the one on your current window)4 – Click on “Apply” when done.

 

Operating SystemNow that we have finished resizing our partition, let the computer boot so it can check the filesystem and fix any possible errors before we start to clone hard drive.

Clonezilla Backup I am displaying detailed Clonezilla instructions because some people tend to panic when they  see text based menus.

Step 1: Download the Clonezilla Live CD and boot your computer with it, click on “Start_Cloenzilla” at the first screen of the wizard and click “Ok” to continue.

Step 2: Choose “Device-Image” and click “Ok“

Step 3: Choose “local-dev” and click “Ok“, make sure you have your USB external hard drive plugged in. If it was not, then plug it in now.

Step 4: Select you external hard drive from the list of available ones and click “Ok”

Step 5: Choose “top_directory_in_the_local_device“, this just means that you do not want to save your image inside any of the directories already created in the hard drive. Clonezilla will create a directory and store all image files there. Click “Ok“

 

Step 6: Select “saveparts” to save only the desired partition and not the entire drive. Click “Ok“

Step 7: Give the image a name and start cloning.

Clonezilla Restore

To restore the image, follow the same steps as in the “Clonezilla Backup” section in this tutorial and when you get to “step 6” select “restoreparts“, choose the hard drive image containing the partition you would like to restore and start the process.

Final ThoughtsSo far this is the easiest method I have found to clone a hard drive into a smaller one. It only involves one extra step over Norton Ghost, but everything is done with open source software. Not only Clonezilla is one of the best hard drive cloning software, but also it is free, same goes for GParted. This Means you have the programs at your disposal 24/hr and day 7 days a week no matter where you are. You can backup your hard drive without having to worry about licensing fees or carrying CDs around with me. They are always there at the click of a button.

How to Recover Data Even When Hard Drive is Damaged share19.7K 324 9023. Dec 2010, 21:45 UhrPablo Garcia  

Here at GeekyProjects we have been receiving hard drives for a while from all over the world and recovering their data in exchange for donations to the site. (We even received one from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan once).   However, lately our focus has shifted towards the website itself and we no longer have the time to continue with the service. Nevertheless, we have decided to share our knowledge with the public in a series of articles, and this one is probably one of the most important. How to recover data even when the hard drive is damaged.

Many data recovery services charge big dollars for this, and it is a procedure you can do at home, without having to open the hard drive. This procedure however, does not work for all cases, but it does work for a big percentage of them even when the hard drive has the famous “click noise of death”.

Note: Before attempting this procedure, make sure the damaged hard drive is being detected by the computer’s BIOS. If the computer cannot detect the hard drive then no software will detect it. To do this the drive must be connected directly a computer’s IDE or SATA cable, not by USB. Then you must go into the computer’s BIOS to see if it is being detected.

Ubuntu Rescue Remix and DdrescueUbuntu Rescue Remix is a Linux Live CD. It already comes with a whole array of data recovery tools. One of them is Ddrescue. Ddrescue, is one of the best data recovery programs available and it is free. Ddrescue works by extracting a raw image of your hard drive and transferring it to another drive.  It extracts data bit by bit, regardless of the file system on the drive. The reason it works even when hard drives are dying is because Ddrescue retries several times and even tries to read data backwards. The procedure sometimes can take days, but it is very effective.

 

The SetupThe procedure involves 3 drives:

1) Your source drive (your damaged hard drive),

2) Your destination drive, this hard drive has to be slightly bigger than the source because it contains the raw image which will occupy the exact same size as your “source” drive, you then need a little extra space for the log files created by DDrescue. This drive must be totally empty or data in it will be overwritten!!!.

3) A drive to extract the raw image to. This drive can be the exact same size or bigger than your original “source” drive, but never smaller. This drive must also be totally empty or the data in it will be overwritten!!!.

 

TipsAs you can see by the picture down below I have two hard drives connected to the computer’s controller card. One is the source and the other the destination drive. I usually flip them upside down so that gravity helps a little if the arms are too close to the plates. However, some hard drives have the arms upside down, so see what works best for you. Be sure to place the drives on a flat surface to prevent vibration. Both hard drives in the picture are SATA, nevertheless, you can have IDEs restoring to SATAs and vice versa (or even to USB drives, but they can be harder for Ubuntu Rescue Remix to detect).

Keep Hard Drive Cool During Recovery

Place a 125mm case fan on top of the broken hard drive, making sure the air flows downwards in the direction of the hard drive. If you have a smaller 2.5 inch laptop hard drive you can use a smaller fan. Just make sure the fan is a little bigger than the hard drive,

otherwise, the air won’t be able to escape and therefore won’t cool the sides of the hard drive. This is done to ensure optimal performance during recovery. This is optional but highly recommended. Sometimes the drive starts functioning properly just by cooling it off!.

 

Extracting the Raw ImageDownload the ISO CD image of Ubuntu Rescue Remix (It’s linux, so it’s free), burn the CD and boot the computer with it.

Plug in the source and destination drives and run the following command that will tell you how many drives Ubuntu is seeing:

sudo lshw -C disk -short

The “lshw” command can sometimes be unreliable. If not all of your hard drives are being displayed, try the following command:

cat /proc/partitions

The “cat” command might not give you many details about the drives, but it will display all of them reliably.  For example, if  “lshw” only shows you one out of two drives, just by running the “cat” command and using simple deduction you can determine what the logical name of the missing drive is. (“Cat” will display drives and its partitions; drives are the ones without numbers at the end. Example: a drive will show as /dev/sda and a partition as /dev/sda1)

Identify the logical name of your destination drive (the drive where you will dump the contents of the damaged hard drive to). Create a Linux partition on that drive so that you can dump the image from your bad hard drive in there. Lets say, for this example, you have identified your

destination drive as: /dev/sda. (yours could be sdb, sdc, sdd, etc. So change the following command according to what you have). *** Make sure not to confuse your source and destination drives, or you might end-up overwriting all your data***. Issue the following command at your shell prompt to format the destination drive:

sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda

After formating, mount the destination drive, create a “recovery” directory, and get inside it.  To do this execute the following commands one by one (some of these commands may require sudo in front):

sudo mkdir mntsudo mount /dev/sda mntcd mntsudo mkdir recoverycd recovery

After issuing the last command “cd recovery” you are inside the newly created recovery directory in your destination drive. Now, assuming you have identified your source hard drive as /dev/sdb (the broken hard drive you will be extracting the data from), run Ddrescue to extract the raw data, creating a file on the destination drive called “image” and a log file called “log”:

sudo ddrescue -r 3 /dev/sdb image log

This command will begin extracting the raw image from the bad hard drive, placing it inside the “recovery” directory on your destination drive. Take a look at the last two words in your command line; “image” is the name you are giving your your raw data image file, so, all your data will be stored in one single file named “image”. The las word “log”, is the name of your log file. You can change the name of these two file names to whatever you wish. The log file is extremely useful since it tells Ddrescue at what point it is during the data extraction process, therefore, it will know at what point to begin again if the process gets interrupted. In case of such an event all that needs to be done is to issue the same previous command, using the same file and log names inside the same directory containing the partial raw image file.

 

Restoring the Raw Image

When finished getting the image, unmount your destination drive by issuing the following command:

sudo umount /dev/sda

and turn the computer off. If you don’t unmount the drive before turning the computer off, the “lshw” command will have a hard time finding this same drive next time your run the command (notice the command is spelled umount not unmount).

Now we have acquired the image, however, since it is in raw format it is unreadable. We need to extract this image to a third hard drive. With the computer turned off unplug the damaged hard drive. We do not need it anymore. Plug in a good hard drive of equal or higher capacity, boot the computer with Ubuntu Rescue Remix and run the command to identify the drives again. Go inside the directory where the images are stored (in the source drive). Now the hard drive containing the raw image will be your source and your new empty hard drive will be your destination. Assuming your source drive is /dev/sda (the one containing the raw image), enter the following commands one by one to mount and enter your source drive:sudo mkdir mntsudo mount /dev/sda mntcd mntcd recovery

Then and assuming your destination is /dev/sdb (your new empty drive where the raw image will be restored to), make sure your drive it empty otherwise you will overwrite your data) issue the following command to restore the image to your new drive:

sudo ddrescue image /dev/sdb

 

Make partition Active

Connect your hard drive to another computer (as a slave or by USB) and see if you can access the files. If you cannot, and the partition inside the hard drive is a Windows partition (NTFS, Fat, etc.), you might need to make the partition “active” using another Windows computer. If that is the case, connect the hard drive (as a slave or by USB) to a computer that has Windows and do the following:

Click on Start (The start orb in Vista and Windows 7) >> Click Run (“Search for programs” field in Vista and 7) >> type diskmgmt.msc and press enter.

This will bring up Disk Management. Right click on your newly connected drive and click on “Mark Partition as Active”

 

Fix Corrupt Partition (If Needed)Go to “my computer” on the current computer and see if you can browse the files inside the hard drive, if you cannot, you have a bad MBR or partition table. Use TestDisk to fix it (comes with Ubuntu Rescue Remix). I have written an article just for this, click here to read it.

How to Recover Data From a Broken Hard Drive share18.7K 3422 123518. May 2007, 3:09 UhrPablo Garcia

If you are reading this article you are probably desperate, but before you panic let me tell you that there is hope, and there is probably more hope than you think…. Even if your hard drive has an internal mechanical malfunction, data can be recovered without having to send the hard drive to a data recovery service. Yes! you heard right, I’m sure you have come across articles that will tell you how to recover data from a damaged partition, you will find a ton of those on the web, but when your hard drive starts malfunctioning none of those articles are going to help you solve your problem, This article will.

Corrupted file systemIf the hard drive gets detected by Windows and can be accessed but you do not see any data inside, or you get a message saying that the drive needs to be formatted. You probably have a corrupted file system in you hands. The solution for this is a good file recovery software. I’ve tried many, and my choice is “Recover My Files” from GetData. Many of the recovery suites out there claim that they can recover data and they probably can, but can they find everything that you want to recover? Most likely not! This software can. But don’t take my word for it, download the free version from their website and give it a try, you will see what I’m talking about. The free version is a demo so it will not allow full functionality but, it will let you see what it can recover and will even let you recover some small files. This software is included in my article: Best Data Recovery Software.

The software does have its drawbacks. If your file type is not on their list it basically can’t be recovered. If you want to recover a file with an uncommon extension that is not on their list you are out of luck. Their list is extensive though. Make sure you run the “complete File Search” and not the Fast, as the later is basically worthless. The complete will give you more than you need, even stuff that you erased from your hard drive years ago. It will take a long time depending on the size of the hard drive. The program will not allow you to install it on the same hard drive where the data needs to be recovered from for obvious reasons. So be prepared to install the software on a secondary drive like a USB Flash Drive or External Hard Drive. There are also a free alternatives which work as well or even better than “Recover My Files”. If your disk read my article: How To Repair A Damaged Partition or MBR. If you are unable to recover the damaged partition but still want to recover your files, read my article: How to Recover Erased Data Using Free Software.

Clicking noise of deathIf your hard drive is making the common “clung… clung… clung…” sound your head are having trouble reading the contents of the drive. This is one of the worst problems you can have since the arm of the drive is not functioning properly and therefore cannot read the disks inside. As some of you might know this is not repairable, at least not at home, Hard drives need to be opened in dust free environments, and by specialized personnel, so do not even attempt to open it if you want your data back!!!. Many people will just give up at this point and send hard drive to a data recovery service. However, before you do that and spend an arm and a leg, there is something you can do.  I have written an article just for this: How To Recover Data Even When Hard Drive is Damaged

Hard drive does not get detectedIf the computer does not detect the hard drive, or the computer just does not want to turn on when the hard drive is connected to it, you might have a bad hard drive board. This is the big circuit board located at the bottom of your drive. These easily replaceable boards tend to get damaged over time due to the heat generated by the hard drive itself. I will tell you how to replace this board with the following solution:

There are a number of places on the web that will sell you these boards. If you can’t find it or you are a cheap bastard you can always resort to eBay and buy a used hard drive with the same model number as yours, remove the board from the used drive, and use it on broken one. This will probably cost you less than purchasing the board alone. If your hard drive is old it makes more sense to buy another hard drive, on the other hand if the hard drive is new you are better off buying the board. These boards run around $50 each. If you decide to purchase another hard drive or the board alone, make sure you are getting the exact same board! I cannot stress this enough. You can have drives with the same brands and specifications with slight variations on their board and consequently on their firmware, if this is the case the board will not work, so make sure you are getting exactly what you need before pressing that “buy now” button!

Hard drive gets detected but still does not workIf Windows detects the hard drive but it can’t be accessed, won’t give you the option to format it, or its properties. You probably have dirty contacts on your board. Usually when this happens you do not hear the famous “clicking noise of death” noise, but rather a repetitive “rrrrrr rrrrrr” sound, as if the hard drive is reading the same data over and over, or you do not hear any sound at all. It is important to mention that this behavior does involve the computer detecting the drive but DOES NOT involve the “clicking noise of death”. To solve this problem try the following: Remove the main board from the bottom of the hard drive and clean the bottom

contacts. That board that you see underneath the drive is actually sitting on top of un-soldered contacts. Many Hard Drives operate at high temperatures, and this tends to melt the circuit board’s coating. When this happens this coating will spill over these contacts, and since they are not soldered their dirty metal surfaces will no longer touch. To solve this, remove the screws from the board and flip it. You will see a row of contacts usually in more than one location. Rub the surface of the contacts with a pencil eraser, just as if you were erasing something you wrote. This will actually clean those contacts better than any other method. Screw the board back in place and try it. (If your hard drive happens to have pin connectors rather than flat ones, disregard this tip and buy a new board.)

Clicking noise of death (Last Resort Solution)

This trick will actually work 60% of the cases, so you do have a good probability of getting your data back. I have to warn you that after freezing your hard drive there is also a good

chance that the hard drive won’t work ever again, therefore this procedure should only be attempted as a very last resort.

1 – Place the Hard Drive inside a Zip Lock bag and put it in the freezer for about 2 hours.

2 – After that take it out and connect it to the computer as fast as you can so that it does not have time to warm up. Make sure that you do not remove the hard drive out of the bag and that you open it as little as possible when connecting it to the power and data cables, so that outside air doesn’t come in and create condensation on the drive.

3 - Turn your computer on, look for your data and take it out as fast as you possibly can. Time is key here because you do not know if that drive is going to ever work again. Make sure you do this on a fast computer that does not take to long to boot up, if possible connect the hard drive to an external USB enclosure so that you do not waste time with the computer booting up. Also make sure you know the exact location of your data; is better if you go to straight to the folder rather than using Windows search utility, as searching the drive will heat it up faster due to the amount of work the arm will have to make. Drives usually work for a few minutes and stop working once they heat up. So hurry!!!

4 – If after freezing the hard drive and connecting it to the computer you are still not able to access it and you still hear the noise, hold the drive in your hand and, without taking it out of the bag, tap it with your knuckles on one side to see if this releases the heads, you obviously have to do this while the hard drive is powered on and connected to the computer.

Final ThoughtsIf none of these tips work for you and you still want your data back is time to send your drive to a data recovery service, there are number of those on the web, I have never actually tried one, but some of them will charge you a flat fee regardless of the problem. However, these services will not guarantee your back all of the time, in fact most of them regardless of what they claim, will just have a 75% to 80% success rate. There are some things you just can’t recover from, like an arm scratching the whole surface of a plate. Best thing is to back up your data regularly. I suggest you read my article on building your own NAS server

How to Recover Erased Data Using Free Software share9 1 525. Apr 2011, 10:53 UhrPablo Garcia

There are many programs in the web that will help you recover erased data. Some great ones and some mediocre ones; some very costly and some free. In the following tutorial I will describe what I believe to be the best solution for recovering erased files from your computer. A method which works on virtually any operating system; Windows, Mac or Linux. A method which is safe, reliable and free. Do not be scared of the size of this article, it is actually a walkthough and it is very easy to follow.

Something I must mention before starting this tutorial is that once you have deleted the file, you need to recover it as soon as you possibly can. Every minute that your computer is on, is a minute counting against you. Why? Let me explain. In order to save time your operating system does not really delete the file; it just marks the space the file occupies as available. As soon as the space becomes available, it can be overwritten at any time. Your operating system is constantly running tasks in the background, therefore, even if you do not save anything to the hard drive, your data can be overwritten just by having your computer on, specially if you do not have much free space available in your hard drive.

Something else worth mentioning is that, you cannot install the data recovery software in the same hard drive your data was deleted from, otherwise your data might get overwritten by the installation of the recovery software. So what do you do now? You could take the hard drive out of the computer and connect it to another computer as a slave, or make make it an external USB hard drive. However, these solutions could be time consuming, complicated,  and even dangerous for computer illiterates. There is a smarter solution which the majority of commercial data recovery programs do not offer: booting from a CD instead of from your local hard drive; this CD will run its own operating system and will have the data recovery software installed as well.

In this tutorial we will learn how to use two free, open source and extremely useful programs. One, a Linux live CD called “Parted Magic” and the other a data recovery program named “Photorec“.

 

InstructionsConnect an external hard drive or USB flash drive to your computer; this is the drive we are going to use to extract the data to. If the drive is not empty it is wise to create a folder to dump the recovered data in. For our example I have created a folder named “Recovered Data”.

Boot your computer from the CD-Rom drive. Newer computers have a boot menu which will let you select which device you want to boot from. It is usually one of the F keys on top of the keyboard (Usually F10 or F12). You must press this key quickly, right after turning your computer on (you have a very brief amount of time for this). If yours does not have a “boot menu” you are going to have to change the boot order in your computer’s BIOS, and set the CD-ROM as your first boot device. To access the BIOS you also need to press a key on your keyboard immediately after turning your computer on. Right when you turn the computer on, it will tell you which key to press (it’s usually F1, F2 or DEL).

When Parted Magic is up and running, the first thing you are going to do is mount your external hard drive. To do this, click on “Mount Devices” on Parted Magic’s desktop.

Look for your external drive and click on the “Mount” button to mount it (if it’s marked green it is unmounted, if it’s marked red it is mounted). Parted Magic is a Linux liveCD and Linux does not use drive letters like Windows does, it uses paths.  Write down the path assigned to your external drive.

Click on the Parted Magic start menu, then click on “System Tools” and finally click on “Photorec“.

Photorec will then open in a terminal window; select the drive you wish to recover data from using the UP and DOWN arrow keys on your keyboard. Then, on the bottom of the screen, using the RIGHT and LEFT keys, make sure “Proceed” is selected and click “Enter” to continue.

Select the partition table type and click “Enter” to continue. If it is a Windows or Linux partition, leave it on “Intel”. For Macs choose “Mac” or “EFI GPT”.

Select your partition. Be sure to select the right one; you can usually tell by the “Size in sectors“. As you can see in the picture down below, our hard drive has two partitions; the one with the highest size in sectors is the one we are looking for. The other tiny partition was created for the use of the operating system and is irrelevant to us.

Then, if you want to search for specific types of files, rather than for every single deleted file on the hard drive, select “File Opt“.

Contrary to what its name leads to believe, Photorec not only recovers photos, but a vast list of files as well. All files are selected by default; if you want to remove some of them and leave only the ones you wish to recover, go through the list using the UP and DOWN arrow keys and uncheck any files you do not want by pressing the space bar on your keyboard. Press the “b” key on your keyboard to save your preferences and select “Quit” to go back to the previous menu. Once on the previous menu, select “Search” and click enter.

Next, select the filesystem type. Photorec usually detects this automatically. Press “Enter” to continue.

If you just want to recover files that have been deleted select “Free“. However, if you want to recover files from a hard drive that has a bad or unreadable partition, select “Whole“. For example, a hard drive which displays the error “missing operating system” when you try to boot from it, or an external hard drive which displays the error “This hard drive needs to be formated” when connected in Windows.

Now, remember the path I told you to write down at the beginning of the article? the path assigned to your destination drive? We are going to need it now. The path our drive has in this example is “\media\sdd2” (yours will probably be different), so first select “media” and click “Enter” to continue.

Then, select “sdd2” (yours will probably be different) and click on “Enter” to continue.

Next, select the directory you created for data recovery. For this example ours was named “Recovered Data“. Select it and click “Enter” to continue.

Now that you are finally inside the destination directory, click “Y” on your keyboard to begin recovering your data.

Photorec will take a few minutes to scan the drive and recover the files.

You can see files even as they are being recovered by clicking on the “My Documents” icon and selecting the destination drive and path. Go into the folder you created for data recovery; you will see that Photorec has created a bunch of directories, inside you will find your recovered files.

How to Recover Your Files When Windows Won’t Boot share24 19 1016. Mar 2011, 10:49 UhrPablo Garcia

This is the scenario: You turn your computer on one day, Windows starts booting and after a while you get a blue screen of death, or you get a message telling you that Windows won’t boot because a certain file is missing. What do you do now? The logical solution will be to take the hard drive out of the computer, make it an external drive and connect it to another computer via USB. Well, providing that your computer’s hardware is in good condition (e.g. your memory is good, your motherboard is functioning properly, etc.) and your partition table is fine, there is a better solution. You can extract all your data to a USB flash drive or to an external hard drive using a LiveCD without ever having to touch the computer’s hard drive.

What’s Needed For This ProjectTo do this we are going to download Parted Magic, which is Linux-based so its free. Parted Magic comes in an ISO image; burn this image to a CD using your favorite CD burning software. If you do not have any, I recommend ImgBurn (Freeware). You can probably use any Linux LiveCD, but I recommend Parted Magic because it has good hardware compatibility and includes other tools you can use for data recovery in case you need them in the future.

InstructionsConnect your external hard drive to your computer; this is the drive we are going to use for extracting the data to.

Insert your Parted Magic CD on your computer, turn the computer off and turn it back on to boot from the CD. If your computer boots from the hard drive like it normally does instead of booting from the CD, you have to either enter the boot menu right when you turn the computer on (if your computer has a boot menu), or enter the computer’s BIOS and change the CD-ROM so it can be above the hard drive in the boot order process. If you do not know how to enter the BIOS,

turn the computer on and watch closely at the screen; you will see a message at the bottom telling you something like “press F1 to enter setup” or “Press DEL to enter BIOS”.

Once you are able to boot from the Parted Magic CD, you will see a menu like the one below. Leave the first option selected “Default Settings” and click “Enter” to continue. If the CD gets stuck during the booting process, turn the computer off, boot from the CD again, but this time choose “Live with Low RAM Settings“.

 

Once the CD finishes booting you will find yourself in Parted Magic, which is just a customized Linux LiveCD operating system. Click on “My Documents” which is similar to “My Computer” in Windows.

There you will find both, your computer’s internal hard drive and your USB external hard drive. Click on your computer’s internal drive and look for the files you wish to back up. If your computer’s hard drive was running Windows, your files should be under C:\Documents and Settings\”your profile name”\My Documents, for Windows XP and below and C:\Users\”your profile name”\My Documents, for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Files can also be on your “Desktop” folder. Make sure your do not miss any.

When you finish locating your files, use “Copy” and “Paste” to transfer them from the computer’s hard drive to your USB hard drive.

Final ThoughtsThis technique will only work if your partition table is in good condition. If the error you are receiving on the screen when the computer stops booting comes from Windows (example: “Windows could not start because the following file is missing” or your get a blue screen of death) you can most likely use this technique successfully. If the error message appears before Windows starts booting, (Example, “NTLR is missing”) then you probably won’t be able to use this technique. Good luck, and feel free to ask if you have any questions.