Clonezilla troubles

Soldato
Joined
2 May 2011
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Hey guys,

I'm running Windows 7, but seeing as Clonezilla uses Debian I thought this would be the best place to ask a question.

Basically, I've got two hard drives, one is 120GB and the other is 60GB. I'm trying to clone what's on my 120GB SSD (about 40GB of Windows and programs) to the 60GB drive but I get an error while using Clonezilla that the destination HD is smaller than the source. Now, the actual amount of data being copied over is smaller. A brief Google looking at things I really don't understand is that this may be a limitation of Clonezilla and I may just be able to do nothing. However, any advice would be appreciated.

Otherwise, a Windows question, is there a way to produce a disk image of the data on my 120GB hd and then put that onto the 60GB one so that it'll just run, as opposed to reinstalling Windows.

Thanks in advance,
dirtychinchilla
 
I might be understanding this wrong, but from past experiences I believe Clonezilla clones the entire hard drive (not just the applications) so while you might only be using 40GB, it's still going to restore itself as a 120GB image. I've attempted to shrink an image in the past but it didn't go too well - we have a procedure for it kicking around somewhere so I'll have a look and see if I can find it in-case you have better luck than I.
 
Oh right, well what you're saying is what I expected to be honest. That's a shame though. Frankly, I am incredibly inexperienced with Linux and therefore anything remotely difficult is likely to be beyond me if there are variables involved! But I'd appreciate any help, thanks :)
 
Found it :) I'll include the procedure text in spoilers to prevent walls of text.


GParted-Clonezilla Resize
To Resize A Hard Disk Drive Prior To Image Creation

1. Download the current version of GParted Live from: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
and burn to CD

2. Boot the CD on the computer that you want to resize the HDD of

3. Select option ‘keep kernel keymap’

4. Select language option ‘02’

5. Select mode ‘0’

6. In the GUI highlight the partition that you want to resize and select ‘choose resize / move’

7. Enter the desired ‘new size’ and press the tab key. N.B. The whole of a target HDD will be used regardless of the chosen ‘new size’.

8. Select ‘resize / move’

9. Choose ‘Apply’ and then again at the warning message

10. When the operation has completed close the dialogue box, double click on the ‘Exit’ icon and choose ‘Shutdown’

11. Remove the bootable media and restart the PC, allowing it to go through CHKDSK

12. Sysprep the PC as normal

13. Use Clonezilla to create a new image, making sure that you select ‘Saveparts’ rather than ‘Savedisk’. All other instructions are as per the Clonezilla procedure.

14. To use the image follow the Clonezilla procedure, making sure that you choose ‘Restoreparts’ rather than ‘Restoredisk’. All other instructions are as per the Clonzilla procedure except that on reboot the PC will go through CHKDSK before restarting and running through sysprep as normal.


To Resize A Previously Created Image

1. Using Clonezilla cast the image onto a HDD that is big enough to accept the image. This maybe installed in any make or model of PC.

2. On restart the PC will run through CHKDSK. Insert your GParted bootable media, so that when the PC restarts again it will boot from it.

3. Go through steps 3 to 10 as above.

4. On restarting the PC boot into Clonezilla and create a new image, making sure that you select ‘Saveparts’ rather than ‘Savedisk’. All other instructions are as per the Clonezilla procedure.



5. To use the image follow the Clonezilla procedure, making sure that you choose ‘Restoreparts’ rather than ‘Restoredisk’. All other instructions are as per the Clonzilla procedure except that on reboot the PC will go through CHKDSK before restarting and running through sysprep as normal.

Included the following as it's referred to in the resize document:

Clonezilla Procedure
Clonezilla Procedure
1. Boot the CD on the computer you want to take an image of. Wait for the automatic boot countdown to complete

2. Select the language option EN_US.UTF-8 English

3. Select option 'keymap from full list', then select option PC/qwerty/British/Standard/Standard

4. Select 'Start_Clonezilla'

5. Select 'device_image' (works with disks or partitions using images)

6. Select 'local_dev use local device (E.g.: hard drive, USB drive). Press "Enter" to continue (your external USB drive will be detected)

7. Select your external USB hard drive from the list

8. Select '/ Top-Directory-in-the-local-device'. You can create a sub-directory, otherwise Clonezilla creates one for you to put the image files into. Press "Enter to continue

9. Select option 'Beginner' Beginner Mode', then accept the default options

10. Select option 'restoredisk' Restore_on_image_to_local_disk

11. Select the image to deploy from the external hard drive

12. Select the computers hard drive you want to deploy the image to. Press "Enter" to continue, and select 'Y' when prompted if you are sure you want to continue

13. Wait until the image is deployed. At 100% deployed, wait until you are prompted to 'Press "Enter" to continue'

Select either (0) Poweroff or (1) Reboot. Press "Enter" to continue if prompted

Hope this helps :) this was the method a colleague of mine used to successfully create a smaller image (it kept capturing the whole 320GB when only ~20GB was being used), took a little longer since it requires resizing the source hard disk, but it's worth trying out if all else fails anyways :p
 
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Well...I got fed up with it when I realised that I'd have to do more hd switching as my spare doesn't have enough space on it. i'll just do another reinstall of Windows I think.

Thanks for your help anyway! Hopefully other people will find this useful.
 
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