Rescuezilla backup/imaging

[ssfc72]

https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=11038

This looks to be a nice backup/imaging alternative to Clonzilla.
Looks to be a graphical version of Clonezilla.  It now uses the Clonezilla format, for full interoperability with Clonezilla.
I will have to give it a try and report back my assessment.

[buster]

My kind of backup software! Nice find Bill.

[Jason]

I was going to say that we already have a great GUI image backup program in Timeshift. And recall that I was a big Clonezilla pusher back in the day. But I see now that this distribution will also backup Windows and Mac partitions. And that it has more restoration features over Timeshift. Regardless, It's always good to have alternatives. Let us know how it goes, Bill.

[ssfc72]

Ok, I got around to downloading and installing Rescuezilla on a usb pendrive.  Works great.
The graphical interface is very nice to use and is easy to understand.  I will be using Rescuezilla instead of Clonezilla, from now on.

I did an image of my Dell Inspiron notebook computer, which dual boots with Win 8 and Mint 19.1
The only snag I had was due to my setup, where I was using an hdmi monitor attached to the notebook.  The monitor does not show the complete desktop of Rescuezilla.  I had the notebook closed and I could see on the external monitor, the Rescuezilla desktop, to do a backup image.
However after the backup image was done, I did not see anyway to close down Rescuezilla.  I had to open up the notebook computer and then I saw the bottom part of the desktop, where there was a menu icon, which led me to the shutdown menu item.

I have not yet tried to restore the Rescuezilla backup image that I created for the  Dell Inspiron notebook computer.

[fox]

If you're looking to clone a partition, one of the easiest solutions I have found is to use plain 'ol gparted. I'm now using this all the time for partition cloning. It's fast and easy.

[buster]

"I have found is to use plain 'ol gparted. I'm now using this all the time for partition cloning. It's fast and easy."


A few years ago I found gparted was excellent for a stand alone partition, but not a bootable partition. Is that still true?

[fox]

Not sure what you mean by a bootable partition. If you mean using it to clone the MBR, it probably works but I never tried that. However, if you're talking about cloning a bootable distro, it definitely works. Bear in mind that any clone, regardless of what you use to do the clone, will give the cloned partition the same UUID as the original, so if you try booting it from the same computer that still has that original, funny things can happen (like it will only boot the original). But if you change the UUID in the original or the clone, and change the corresponding UUID reference in the /etc/fstab file, you can boot either the original or the clone even if both are present on the same computer.

[buster]

It was a while ago. but I think I cloned a magnetic drive running Mint to a new ssd, and it didn't work for me. Cloned the entire drive. No boot when turned on. No other OS on the drive.

[ssfc72]

Thanks for the reminder of using Gparted to clone a partition, Mike.
I have never had a need to clone a single partition.  Are you doing this to put a copy of a partition on one computer drive, onto another computer hard drive?
Do you run into problems if the partition you are cloning is a bootable partition?

If you're looking to clone a partition, one of the easiest solutions I have found is to use plain 'ol gparted. I'm now using this all the time for partition cloning. It's fast and easy.

[fox]

The most recent situation was to clone a Ubuntu 20.04 and a Mint 19.3 partition off of my 2015 iMac onto an external drive before reformatting the iMac's internal drive and shifting its use to Mac only for my wife. I'm pretty sure that after doing the clone I changed the UUID of the Ubuntu partition and then tested whether it would boot on another Mac. However, my Macs boot with a Mac-friendly grub substitute called Refind. It detects bootable drives, however connected.

The reason I cloned the Ubuntu partition was so that it could be put on my new 2019 iMac. So what I did was to install first another version of Ubuntu onto that the new iMac in order to generate a grub. Then I made another partition and installed the clone on it using gparted. It booted fine.

So what I can say for sure is that the clone worked and the clone of the clone was bootable. I guess I can't be certain that this would work on a PC.

[fox]

It was a while ago. but I think I cloned a magnetic drive running Mint to a new ssd, and it didn't work for me. Cloned the entire drive. No boot when turned on. No other OS on the drive.

I think I understand why. You need a boot partition with grub or a grub substitute to boot. If you just cloned a Mint partition and tried to boot it without a grub or equivalent-equipped boot partition, then I wouldn't expect it to boot.

[buster]

Well, the magnetic drive booted before and after I  cloned with Gparted. The ssd did not. The magnetic was three partitions, nothing else: /, /home, swap. No tiny boot partition.

I suspect back in the old days booting was different. I remember having to make my first partition 'bootable' when setting up a new drive for a Windows install. But it's a bit hazy with the passage of time.

For Windows cloning now I use Macrium Reflect, which takes the old drive and reproduces it partition after partition. And it always works.

[ssfc72]

Ok, I just tried a restore of a Rescuezilla Image that I had saved to a portable usb hard drive and it did the Restore without a problem.  A very nice GUI hard drive Imaging program. :-)

[Jason]

Ok, I just tried a restore of a Rescuezilla Image that I had saved to a portable usb hard drive and it did the Restore without a problem.  A very nice GUI hard drive Imaging program. :-)

Always a nice feeling when your backups work. Did you need to do a full restore because something went wrong?

[ssfc72]

Nothing serious.  I wanted to retrieve some audiobook and movies that I had lost while trying to move them to a usb flash drive.  I could have just downloaded the files, again,  from the internet.
It was just an excellent opportunity to restore the notebook image that I had made about a week ago. :-)