partition backup

lumo · April 15th, 2008, 11:48 AM

hi,
does anyone know freeware, which enables me to put a whole partition (50gb ~25gb free) onto a usb-disk and creates a bootcd/bootdisk which would enable me the transfer of the partition back to the harddisk if needed (has to support vista64 - partition -> bootmanager has to be copied too)

thanks in advance

PS: i have a tool to copy the whole partition to another disk, but with this tool i have to copy from windows... which i do not want to install... as i want to restore this working copy, not reinstall windows and restore the copy to another partition... i want to save time

xiaomhome · April 15th, 2008, 05:14 PM

Use partimage. It can clone the whole partition to a file or files (by splitting) or you can even compress the file or the pieces. You can either do this with a working linux installation or with the SystemRescue CD.

SystemRescue
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?dis...n=systemrescue

PartImage
http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page

When I was a gamer at XP I used to clone the whole XP partition to my linux partition (without compressing so it didnt take that long, it restored the windows partition in less than a few minutes when it wasnt compressed) with my games installed in a different partition of XP. (XP partition 5Gb, games partition 50Gb, linux partition 15Gb) that was awesome my main problem was when new hotfix was released, I had to restore the XP partition, update then make a new image of the XP partition.

And if you want to restore the windows boot loader select the DISK MBR instead of a partition in the partImage menu.

lumo · April 15th, 2008, 06:52 PM

does not work here.. freezes when creating the image...
probably it does not like my raid0

xiaomhome · April 15th, 2008, 08:16 PM

Are you using a software raid or a hardware raid?
If you're doing a software raid you'll need to put the partitions on the both disks in a single "device" so partimage could understand it, if you're on hardware raid you'll need to specify your device on /dev/mapper/your_device. Since SystemRescue cd is based on gentoo if you're going to do a hardware raid you'll need to boot it with the dodmraid parameter.

IModAmd · April 16th, 2008, 01:04 AM

Personaly i always use Maxtor MaxBlast... it's an really good utility... you can completly clone an hdd on another... and make partitions and alot more

Hope will help you ... i tryed with my raid system and it worked

lumo · April 16th, 2008, 07:22 AM

i have the raid on my nvidia controller on the mainboard, so its hardware i guess

the program can see the raid! i can select the drive, but when i say start it does not even ask me where to save... and i doubt that it can store 50gb in ram

keeps saying 0% for ages then.

i found a cd of norton ghost, which is able to do a backup, but it does not say if it backs up the bootloader/mbr too...
will try Maxtor MaxBlast today

- h ope it works on samsung too
thanks