Guide to backup a drive in Clonezilla

Purpose

Backup an entire drive (e.g., m.2 SSD, SSD, HDD) with your operating system and files as an image stored in a folder on another drive (e.g., USB drive). If a hardware failure occurs, or if you want to go back to that state, you can restore from that image.

Requirements

• Bootable Clonezilla USB drive
• USB drive to store the backup

Notes

Use the Tab key to highlight the <Ok> or <Cancel> buttons in Clonezilla.

Begin

1. Boot the Clonezilla Live USB

   

2. At the GRUB boot menu, select Clonezilla live (VGA 800x600)

3. Which language do you prefer:

   
   • Choose language

4. Change keyboard layout?

   
   • Select Keep the default keyboard layout - US keyboard

5. Start Clonezilla or enter login shell (command line)?

   
   • Select Start_Clonezilla Start Clonezilla

6. Two modes are available, you can

   (1) clone/restore a disk or partition using an image

   (2) disk to disk or partition to partition clone/restore

   Select mode:

   
   • Choose device-image work with disks or partitions using images to copy the entire drive into a folder with the image to be stored later
   • Choose device-device work directly from a disk or partition to a disk or partition if you want to clone one drive to another, such as buying a new drive because your current OS drive is running out of space and you just want the whole new drive to act exactly like the old one

7. Before cloning, you have to assign where the Clonezilla image will be saved to or read from.

   
   • Select local_dev Use local device (E.g.: hard drive, USB drive) to save the image to a local device, such as a USB drive

8. When prompted at the bottom, insert the USB drive and press Enter to continue

   

   • On the next screen, verify the USB where the image will be saved is in the list and note the name (e.g., sdc). Press CTRL+C to exit this screen

     

9. Now we need to mount a device as /home/partimag (Clonezilla image(s) repository) so that we can read or save the image in /home/partimag.

   
   • Select the device you noted earlier (e.g., sdc2 232.9G)
   • This will mount the device as /home/partimag and store the backup image there

10. Choose if you want to check and repair the file system before mounting the image repository.

    
    • Select no-fsck Skip checking/repairing the file system before mounting

11. Which directory is for the Clonezilla image repository?

    

    • This screen specifies which directory on the USB drive to save the image to. Note the Current selected dir name: "/".

    • Press Tab and select Done to leave it as is

    • Verify the info at the bottom is correct and press Enter to continue

      

12. Choose the mode to run the following wizard about advanced parameters:

    
    • Select Beginner Beginner mode: Accept the default options

13. Select savedisk Save_local_disk_as_an_image to backup the entire disk including all partitions

    

14. Input a name for the saved image to use.

    
    • Keep the name short since errors may occur if it is long

15. Choose local disk as source.

    
    • Select the drive you want to backup if the asterisk is not marked
    • Verify the asterisk is marked on it and select Ok*

16. Choose either compression option

    

17. Choose if you want to check and repair the file system before saving it.

    
    • Select -sfsck Skip checking/repairing source file system

18. After the image is saved, do you want to check if the image is restorable?

    
    • I chose Yes, check the saved image

19. Do you want to encrypt the image?

    
    • I chose -senc Not to encrypt the image

20. Do you want to copy the log files to Clonezilla live USB drive if it exists in this machine?

    
    • I chose -plu Yes, copy log files to Clonezilla live USB drive if it exists

21. The action to perform when everything is finished:

    

    • I chose -p choose Choose reboot/shutdown/etc when everything is finished

    • Verify the information at the bottom and press Enter to continue

      

    • Verify the information at the bottom and type y and press Enter to continue

      

22. Wait for the cloning process

    

23. When the cloning process is complete, press Enter to continue

    

24. Now you can choose to:

    
    • I generally choose poweroff Poweroff so I can safely remove the USB drives before turning on the PC for normal use