Clonezilla usefulness?

[Big Al]

Has anyone used this? Any drawbacks?

I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and I've restored Linux and the
boot/efi several times with no side effects. Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single
partitions or even single files.

[Monsieur]

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and
I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side
effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions
or even single files.

I've used it, and will never use it again.

I know Godzilla has some cult-like status and lots of people will say
it's the best and most professional etc... but in reality I'm not
trusting it with my data again. One small mistake and you can say
goodbye to your partition(s).

Plus it has the most prehistoric interface you've ever seen.

If you're happy with Acronis True Image, my advice is to keep using that.

[Killadebug]

Post by Big Al
Has anyone used this? Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and
I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side effects.
Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions or even
single files.

I been using Clonezilla since 2013. Never lost any data, never had an
issue. Yes, the interface is older, but if you just use the defaults it
will create and image of your disk or partions, whichever you choose. I do
make on exception, in the screen where it asks what to use to image you
dick, it defaults to the 1st one which is partimage. I skip down to the
bottom one which is particlone using dd, which is a byte for byte copy of
your disk. I has never failed me yet in either a backup or a restore. I've
restored disk image from my original HDD to a 500GB Samsung SATA SSD to my
current Samsung 1TB NVME ssd. I backup every Friday, then everyother
Friday I do a NVME Sanitize of my NVME and then do a full restore. As the
old Timex watch commercial used to say " Takes a licking and keeps on
ticking". I running Clonezilla-live-3.1.2-22-amd64.iso using Ventoy on an
old 250 MB Seagate spinner.

[stepore]

Post by Big Al
Has anyone used this?

Of course.

Post by Big Al
Any drawbacks?

Dunno what you consider drawbacks.

It's been the gold standard open source cloning tool for what, 15 years, so!

Post by Big Al
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and I've restored Linux and the
boot/efi several times with no side effects. Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single
partitions or even single files.

Use what you like. I like clonezilla; have used it for years. As long as
you don't make PEBKAC errors it works flawlessly.

[Edmund]

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and
I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side
effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions
or even single files.

Well if you have something that works for you, why change it?
The - in Windows- part is a bit weird, making images should be stand
alone and OS independent.

BTW clonzilla used to be pretty useless but now -last time I used it -it
is fine.

[Paul]

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions or even single files.

It's like scripting.

It relies on time-tested executables for services.
It uses "partclone" or "ntfsclone", that sort of thing.
You would check its dependencies, to see "what company it keeps".

But like a number of disk management or backup/restore
softwares, it doesn't do boot repair necessarily. If
does not do disambiguation, so a 128GB SSD boots independent
of a 256GB SSD. This is "left as an exercise for the administrator".
if it's GUIDs, UUIDs, BLKID, PartType, PartIDentifier, these
are left to the administrator.

To some extent, a Boot Repair CD could be used to tidy up something
done with other tools. While you are fixing the boot, you want only
a single drive to be inside the PC, and then only the OSes on that
disk, will be detected by OSProber. Occasionally, Boot Repair screws up,
so don't feed it any "complicated" cases.

Ultimately, it is the Administrators job to "make sure all the numbers
line up". There is no free lunch where disks are involved.

Could developers make this better ? Yes. "Needs the right skill set".
There would be plenty of people to screw it up. Ask the developer of
Boot Repair, if they would have worked on that a second time.

When it comes to "adding GUIs to stuff", there have been lots of cases
where the GUI design added no value at all to the exercise. It needs
thoughtful work, and it needs that "right skill set" person for the
logic bits that Clonezilla doesn't have.

If you'd asked me to do it (as an example of the wrong person),
I would have used Athena widgets, because I couldn't be arsed to find
anything better at the time. Yes, it looked dreadful.

Paul

[Big Al]

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and I've restored Linux and the
boot/efi several times with no side effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single
partitions or even single files.

I was just curious for some first hand feelings of the tool.

5 responses doesn't make a good pole, and as much as I could wait a week for more, it's good enough
to tell me to stay where I am. Thanks for the input.

[Monsieur]

Post by Big Al

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup
and I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side
effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions
or even single files.

I was just curious for some first hand feelings of the tool.
5 responses doesn't make a good pole, and as much as I could wait a week
for more, it's good enough to tell me to stay where I am.  Thanks for
the input.

Clonezilla can't even count properly. I've posted this here a few times
before, but here it is again:

https://imgur.com/a/spt9sbg

Maybe this is fixed by now, but I wouldn't count on it.

Just be careful with that "gold standard".

[Killadebug]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Big Al

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup
and I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side
effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions
or even single files.

I was just curious for some first hand feelings of the tool.
5 responses doesn't make a good pole, and as much as I could wait a
week for more, it's good enough to tell me to stay where I am.  Thanks
for the input.

Clonezilla can't even count properly. I've posted this here a few times
https://imgur.com/a/spt9sbg
Maybe this is fixed by now, but I wouldn't count on it.
Just be careful with that "gold standard".

Clonezilla is saying the partition you want to restore to is "Smaller"
than the partition you imaged from. I can reproduce that error if I try
and restore a 3 GB partition from my old drive to a 2 GB partition on my
new drive. Acronix True Image should post the same error I would think.

[Edmund]

Post by Killadebug

Post by Monsieur

Post by Big Al

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup
and I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side
effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions
or even single files.

I was just curious for some first hand feelings of the tool.
5 responses doesn't make a good pole, and as much as I could wait a
week for more, it's good enough to tell me to stay where I am.  Thanks
for the input.

Clonezilla can't even count properly. I've posted this here a few times
https://imgur.com/a/spt9sbg
Maybe this is fixed by now, but I wouldn't count on it.
Just be careful with that "gold standard".

Clonezilla is saying the partition you want to restore to is "Smaller"
than the partition you imaged from. I can reproduce that error if I try
and restore a 3 GB partition from my old drive to a 2 GB partition on my
new drive. Acronix True Image should post the same error I would think.

Reporting that a 2 GB partition is smaller then a 3 GB partition is
correct AFAIK.

[Monsieur]

Post by Killadebug

Post by Monsieur
Clonezilla can't even count properly. I've posted this here a few times
https://imgur.com/a/spt9sbg
Maybe this is fixed by now, but I wouldn't count on it.
Just be careful with that "gold standard".

Clonezilla is saying the partition you want to restore to is "Smaller"
than the partition you imaged from. I can reproduce that error if I try
and restore a 3 GB partition from my old drive to a 2 GB partition on my
new drive. Acronix True Image should post the same error I would think.

That was not the case, and that is not what the picture says.
209716 MB is not "sometimes 2 GB" and "sometimes 3GB".

Besides, 209716 Mb is 209 GB, not 2 or 3.

[Killadebug]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Killadebug

Post by Monsieur
Clonezilla can't even count properly. I've posted this here a few
https://imgur.com/a/spt9sbg
Maybe this is fixed by now, but I wouldn't count on it.
Just be careful with that "gold standard".

Clonezilla is saying the partition you want to restore to is "Smaller"
than the partition you imaged from. I can reproduce that error if I try
and restore a 3 GB partition from my old drive to a 2 GB partition on
my new drive. Acronix True Image should post the same error I would
think.

That was not the case, and that is not what the picture says.
209716 MB is not "sometimes 2 GB" and "sometimes 3GB".
Besides, 209716 Mb is 209 GB, not 2 or 3.

Sorry I was using 2GB to 3GB as a example. I have done literally hundreds
of Clonezilla Restores on my PC's and people's pc's that I support etc.
Linux, Windows, Mac.....Clonezilla works with no errors. Clonezilla is
plainly telling you that the partition you imaged is Bigger than the
partition you are restoring to. If you are so determined to follow thru
use the -C flag and go for it. Good luck though, you will end up with a
Borked partition restore.

[Monsieur]

Post by Killadebug
Sorry I was using 2GB to 3GB as a example. I have done literally hundreds
of Clonezilla Restores on my PC's and people's pc's that I support etc.
Linux, Windows, Mac.....Clonezilla works with no errors. Clonezilla is
plainly telling you that the partition you imaged is Bigger than the
partition you are restoring to. If you are so determined to follow thru
use the -C flag and go for it. Good luck though, you will end up with a
Borked partition restore.

There should be no need to use -C flag if the partition is *exactly* the
same and on *exactly* the same disk, without having changed anything at
all. Clonezilla should just know that 209716 MB is not "smaller than"
209716 MB.

Clonezilla is just a sloppy programming exercise by people who are still
stuck in the DOS-era. Hard to believe something like that can have so
many... well, "followers".

I'm sure they're all professionals.

[Killadebug]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Killadebug
Sorry I was using 2GB to 3GB as a example. I have done literally
hundreds of Clonezilla Restores on my PC's and people's pc's that I
support etc. Linux, Windows, Mac.....Clonezilla works with no errors.
Clonezilla is plainly telling you that the partition you imaged is
Bigger than the partition you are restoring to. If you are so
determined to follow thru use the -C flag and go for it. Good luck
though, you will end up with a Borked partition restore.

There should be no need to use -C flag if the partition is *exactly* the
same and on *exactly* the same disk, without having changed anything at
all. Clonezilla should just know that 209716 MB is not "smaller than"
209716 MB.
Clonezilla is just a sloppy programming exercise by people who are still
stuck in the DOS-era. Hard to believe something like that can have so
many... well, "followers".
I'm sure they're all professionals.

Easy solution, Whack the partition and create a new one yourself, or let
clonezilla create the new partition from the image.

[Paul]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Big Al

Has anyone used this?   Any drawbacks?
I currently find Acronis True Image in Windows doing my full backup and I've restored Linux and the boot/efi several times with no side effects.   Just wondering how good is Clonezilla for single partitions or even single files.

I was just curious for some first hand feelings of the tool.
5 responses doesn't make a good pole, and as much as I could wait a week for more, it's good enough to tell me to stay where I am.  Thanks for the input.

https://imgur.com/a/spt9sbg
Maybe this is fixed by now, but I wouldn't count on it.
Just be careful with that "gold standard".

Is there any way to test partclone independent of clonezilla ?

It's likely a bug in partclone.

An ingredient may be the CHS universe versus
the megabyte universe, and how the maths were done.

You would be surprised sometimes, just how weird partitions
can be, and you can never figure out later, what tool made
the mess.

Say for example, you back up a partition from an MSDOS disk drive
(size divisible by 63) and restore to a GPT disk (size divisible by 1M
or 1048576 bytes). Those don't go evenly. There could be a "size consequence"
in that case.

Paul

[Monsieur]

Post by Paul
Say for example, you back up a partition from an MSDOS disk drive
(size divisible by 63) and restore to a GPT disk (size divisible by 1M
or 1048576 bytes). Those don't go evenly. There could be a "size consequence"
in that case.

Not in this case. It was the exact same partition on the exact same
physical disk. Absolutely nothing had changed.

[Bubba the Corn Dog]

Post by Monsieur

Say for example, you back up a partition from an MSDOS disk drive (size
divisible by 63) and restore to a GPT disk (size divisible by 1M or
1048576 bytes). Those don't go evenly. There could be a "size
consequence"
in that case.

Not in this case. It was the exact same partition on the exact same
physical disk. Absolutely nothing had changed.

Baloney....the issue is between the keyboard and the monitor.......

[Monsieur]

Post by Bubba the Corn Dog

Post by Monsieur

Say for example, you back up a partition from an MSDOS disk drive (size
divisible by 63) and restore to a GPT disk (size divisible by 1M or
1048576 bytes). Those don't go evenly. There could be a "size
consequence"
in that case.

Not in this case. It was the exact same partition on the exact same
physical disk. Absolutely nothing had changed.

Baloney....the issue is between the keyboard and the monitor.......

Funny how the Clonezilla-lovers always try to blame the user for an
error that was *clearly* an error with Clonezilla or one of its
components. And if they can't blame the user, they'll come up with some
other vague excuse for why they think the error happened. I've seen it
so many times before.

[Bubba the Corn Dog]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Bubba the Corn Dog

Post by Monsieur

Post by Paul
Say for example, you back up a partition from an MSDOS disk drive
(size divisible by 63) and restore to a GPT disk (size divisible by
1M or 1048576 bytes). Those don't go evenly. There could be a "size
consequence"
in that case.

Not in this case. It was the exact same partition on the exact same
physical disk. Absolutely nothing had changed.

Baloney....the issue is between the keyboard and the monitor.......

Funny how the Clonezilla-lovers always try to blame the user for an
error that was *clearly* an error with Clonezilla or one of its
components. And if they can't blame the user, they'll come up with some
other vague excuse for why they think the error happened. I've seen it
so many times before.

Typical Woke Windows wanker.....you can't fix Stupid

[Monsieur]

Post by Bubba the Corn Dog

Post by Monsieur

Post by Bubba the Corn Dog
Baloney....the issue is between the keyboard and the monitor.......

Funny how the Clonezilla-lovers always try to blame the user for an
error that was *clearly* an error with Clonezilla or one of its
components. And if they can't blame the user, they'll come up with some
other vague excuse for why they think the error happened. I've seen it
so many times before.

Typical Woke Windows wanker.....you can't fix Stupid

Instead of making assumptions about me, try explaining the stupidity in
the picture instead. Exactly what "stupid" thing did *I* do that caused
this error? Do enlighten us.

[Bubba the Corn Dog]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Bubba the Corn Dog

Post by Monsieur

Post by Bubba the Corn Dog
Baloney....the issue is between the keyboard and the monitor.......

Funny how the Clonezilla-lovers always try to blame the user for an
error that was *clearly* an error with Clonezilla or one of its
components. And if they can't blame the user, they'll come up with
some other vague excuse for why they think the error happened. I've
seen it so many times before.

Typical Woke Windows wanker.....you can't fix Stupid

Instead of making assumptions about me, try explaining the stupidity in
the picture instead. Exactly what "stupid" thing did *I* do that caused
this error? Do enlighten us.

Delete the Partition....STUPID!!! What a Woke Windows Wanker.....my GAWD
you are so STUPID!!!!