Clone a hard disk

[Volker Dirr]

An other very useful tool in school is a hard disc cloning tool.
So you just need to install one computer of a student and just clone the disk of that computer to all other computers.

My favorite tool for cloning g4u.
http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

It is very small, so it boot very quick and you just need to write one command.

You also need a ftp server for this.
So linux users can install the ftp server of their distribution.
Windows users can use fileZilla server.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=21558

But i hope i am allowed to buy a NAS hard disk drive next time :-)

There are also other cloning projects, but i didn't use them. (I am using g4u several years now and the other projects were not so stable as g4u in the past. But my test a very old, i think it already changed. The other projects are more complex today. So i fear they need longer time to boot and you must click or write more to clone a disk.

Maybe try yourself and tell me your experience.

The other tools are:
g4l
http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l

and
cloneZilla
http://clonezilla.org/

[daviodan]

      
In my school use the program GPARTED-CLONEZILLA LiveCD.This is the Gnome Partition Editor, combined with CloneZilla, combined with a LiveCD. There are all sorts of options with Gnome, CloneZilla, and the way they are used together - but this combined solution looks to be the best bet for Windows users, out of the various options. It's an offline app, meaning that you boot up with the CD and use the command line.

It is unlike others in that it makes a full-size image of the disk - if the disk is 80GB then the image will also be 80GB, even if there is only 10GB of data. This rules out CDs or even DVDs for the backup media, but only a skinny OS install can realistically be burnt to CDs anyway. There is a cheat method to get a small image file, though: adjust the partition size right down to just above the data size first, then image it, then expand it up again.

It works with W2K, Win2K3 (server), XP, Vista and Linux - it's platform-agnostic as it works with the disk file system not the OS - so it can work with FAT32, NTFS, Ext2 etc.

[Volker Dirr]

G4U do an image of the whole disk (or part of the disk). But it compress the image, so it is smaller.
It is also good to "fill" the unused disk space with the same caracter (just have a look at the g4u homepage) after you prepared the first computer that should be cloned. Because:
1. The disksize of the image will be much smaller by that.
2. Compressing and decompressing the image is much faster.
But overall it is of course (a little bit) slower and imagesize is (a little bit) bigger then a tool that only clone the files of the disk.
I know that disadvantages, but i still prefer a tool that clone the whole disk, because cloning a whole disk has an other advantage:
3. You are not able to recover old files by an file recovery tool. So if i clone the whole disk with g4u (and not only the files like some other cloning tools), then the students can't recover work, solution or information from a previous year by an file recovery software.

[daviodan]

I tested G4U but we had more problems.I want to use this program without ftp server.It is possible?What steps should be taken?How to do backup and restoration ?

[Volker Dirr]

I tested G4U but we had more problems.I want to use this program without ftp server.It is possible?

no. you need a ftp server.

What steps should be taken?

1. install an ftp server. if you are a windows user, then i recommand to install file zilla server.
2. start file zilla server (don't change the visible ip 127.0.0.1. that is correct) and add a user with the name "install" (you must use this name!) and give him a directory with read and write access.
doing step 1 & 2 just took around 5 minutes if you know what to do.
3. check your ip number. (maybe there is more comfortable way. i always open a terminal/command shell and write command "ipconfig")

4. install your client pc like you want.
5. fill unneeded disk space like it is explained in the short g4u manual. (so just start that small programm and wait.)
6. boot g4u on the client.
if your ip is maybe 192.168.2.100 and you want to save image with name "image_JAN_09" then just write this command:
uploaddisk 192.168.2.100 image_JAN_09
if then he ask for passwort of "install" and start uploading.
if it doesn't upload, then there are normaly 3 problems:
a) no write access to directory of install
b) your firewall is open
c) you forgot to start file zilla server service

7. to restore an image it is as easy.
just boot g4u on the client and write command like this:
restore 192.168.2.100 image_JAN_09

so you see. installing ftp server on a windows systems need only 5 minutes.
uploading a disk take less then 30 seconds to you (booting and writing 1 command)
of course then you need to wait a longer time, but you can do other things during that time.

and restoring a disk also just need less then 30 seconds to you (again just booting and writing 1 command).

[daviodan]

Thank you very much for your response.

[Volker Dirr]

i found some nice new information about cloning images:
you don't need to boot from cd/dvd anymore. you can also boot from usb-stick. this save a bit time (it's faster to write data and switch a stick then doing it with a cd/dvd.) and you maybe also can buy computers without cd/dvd.

you just need to copy clonezilla on a usbstick and set "boot from usb" in your bios.
you can copy it one a usb stick for example with this tools:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-multiboot-usb/
http://www.aligunduz.org/FUSBi/
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

sadly it doesn't work with my favorite cloning software g4u. maybe someone know a hint how to get g4u bootable from a usb stick?

[Volker Dirr]

Two more tools to clone a harddisk.
I didn't test them much yet, but they look fine so far.

Redo (opensource):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/redobackup/

and
Easeus Todo Backup (only free for use. source closed):
http://www.easeus.com/

[Volker Dirr]

maybe a bit over the top, but maybe use http://www.freenas.org/ as server for backup.

[Silver]

who is the best?

[Volker Dirr]

Difficult to say. They have different advantages and disadvantages.
I still use g4u. That's my favorite one. It doesn't look nice (no gui) and it doesn't support multicast, but i still use it because it always wipe the whole disk, boot very quick and is not slow.
Redo for example look very nice (nice GUI), support also WLAN (but i don't need that), but it boot slow and you must click several icons to start cloning. so overall I must "work" more. Cloning is a bit faster then g4u (that doesn't matter, because i always do other things while cloning), but it doesn't wipe the whole disk.

If you must clone on 50 or more computers which support PXE, you should try a multicast cloning tool. But it is more difficult to install that.

I just saw an other multicast cloning tool. it look also very intresting, but i didn't test it yet: http://www.fogproject.org/

[Silver]

thanks

regards

[Volker Dirr]

two more cloning tools:
http://ping.windowsdream.com/
http://www.mondorescue.org/