Creating a System Image for backup - Using CloneZilla

OK guys here goes another one.

Backup's are absolute must have's. Anyone running a business without backup's is insane, and I do meet many business owners without them. Windows Backup is also good, but it requires you to reinstall Windows and then restore your system from there, which can take a couple of hours. I suggest people do both Windows Backup's and have an image on stand by. With this method you can do a restore in about 15 minutes. This method could also be used when upgrading to a bigger hard drive.

CloneZilla
CloneZilla is a great free tool to make a one time image backup of your hard disk. An image is simply a file that all your files will be dumped to. I'm going to explain how you can backup your whole hard disk to a file, so that you can recover it back to the original state you had your system running good. CloneZilla can also act as a server and image several PC's at once.

First get a copy of CloneZilla here
Then burn it to a CD.
Do a quick google search on your specific PC model to get into the boot menu/bios. IE "Dell Dimension XPS 100 boot menu key"
The usual keys depending on which manufacturer you have are ESC, DEL, F1, F2, F10 or F12. Sometimes when you computer first turns on it will tell you which key is the boot menu. It may be easier to just go into the BIOS and place the DVD/CD-ROM as the first boot device. Usually this is in the Startup or Boot section.

Put the burned CD in the drive and reboot while pressing your boot menu button every 1 and a half seconds. A menu should display asking what device you would like to boot off of. It will probably display model numbers of hard disks and dvd/cd-rom drives. Select the DVD/CD-ROM.

If you did everything properly you will be presented with the CloneZilla boot menu. Choose the first menu option Clonezilla. It may take a while to load so wait for it.
Then a menu for language comes up, choose your language. Then choose "Don't touch keymap".
Then select "Start CloneZilla". Your going to create a device image(whole hard disk), so select the first option.
Then we are going to save it to local hard disk, such as USB or internal separate hard disk, so select the first option again "local_dev".
It will ask you to insert a USB drive if you have one, if not just press enter.
OK pay attention this next screen is where you'll choose what device we want to save the backup to, so to identify which hard disk to save it to, use model numbers.
The next screen is just asking where on that hard disk, just leave it the default and press enter. The next screen is just FYI info that a tech needs to decipher for you(size's of disks), so just press enter again.
Choose Beginner. This screen allows you to select whether to restore or backup. So to restore you would do everything you just did except choose restore instead of "savedisk".
We are creating a backup so choose "savedisk". Give your backup a name and press enter.
You are going to select the drive you want to backup. Next choose "Skip checking/repairing source file system".
Next select Yes to check the saved image and make sure it has no errors. If you want encryption you can select that also. I chose no.
The next screen is FYI info, after this screen it will start making the backup image. This is your last chance to cancel if you've made any mistakes. You can accidentally choose to copy a blank disk to your data disk so be careful! Sit back and wait for it to finish!

Restoring from this image usually takes me 15-20 minutes at most. The backup takes a little longer.

That's all there is to it!

Thank you. Nice clean and simple.

I backup my computer all the time. However, I do not need ANOTHER FREE PROGRAM to do this. Windows 7 provides a way to backup your computer. I just backup to a separate hard drive. When I backup the older image is removed and a new one is in its place.

Why go to all the hassle of using another free program?

a reply to: Ceeker63

For one if you use different OS next to eachother.

a reply to: Ceeker63

If you back up your primary partition with Clonezilla you don't need to reinstall Windows first to restore your backup (following a catastrophic HD crash).

a reply to: Ceeker63

I'm fairly certain I answered your question in the first few sentences...