There are a lot of back up programs out there… Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage, etc.. but if you are in a hurry, or don’t want to spend hours reading through the instructions, use Clonezilla. Clonezilla is a free Linux based open source program that can back up and restore your computer. Before I explain how to back your system up, you will need a few requirements, they are:
- An .iso burner program such as CDBurnerXP (http://cdburnerxp.se/)
- 1 blank burnable disk (either CD-R or DVD-R)
- Extra space on your hard drive or an external hard drive with extra space (when I say extra space I mean double what your current used hard drive space is)
1.) First, go to the Clonezilla website and download the latest .iso version (http://clonezilla.org/downloads/stable/iso-zip-files.php). If your system is 64-bit use build i686, if your system is 32-bit use build i486.
2.) Once you have downloaded the .iso file, open up CDBurner XP.
3.) Select Burn ISO image and click OK.
4.) Put your DVD-R or CD-R in the computer.
5.) Click on Browse and find the Clonezilla .iso that you just downloaded.
6.) Click Burn Disk to start the burn process.
7.) Once the burn process is finished, your computer might automatically eject the disk. If it does, put it back it.
8.) Restart your computer.
9.) When your computer reboots, you should see a screen that looks like this:
***If you do not see this screen, you have to go into your BIOS settings and change the boot order to your CD/DVD drive.***
10.) Generally you want to select: Clonezilla live (Default settings, VGA 1024 x 768). If this doesn’t work, select the 800 x 600 mode.
11.) On this black screen, you should see a bunch of text loading. Basically, Clonezilla is analyzing your computer and gathering information.
12.) Once everything is loaded, you should see this blue screen. Select “English” and press enter.
13.) The next screen is the keymap records screen. Select “Don’t touch my keymap”.
14.) Finally, we can now begin the backup process. Make sure “Start Clonezilla” is selected and press enter to continue.
15.) This screen asks you to locate where you want to save/restore too. Since we’re backing up the hard drive, select “device-image” and press enter.
16.) As the directions say on the screen, “Before cloning, you have to assign where the Clonezilla image will be saved to or read from.”. We want to select “local_dev” because it’s the local device (your hard drive). The other modes can be used if you want to do a network restore/save (samba_server) or an advanced mode by using shell commands (enter_shell).
17.) When you press enter, you should notice a black box that appears at the bottom of the screen. This black box has a message in it that basically translates to: “if you are backing up your hard drive to an external hard drive, plug it in at this time”. If that’s your case, if your external drive is not already plugged in, please do so at this time and press enter.
18.) Select which device that you want to save/restore your image too then press enter. Yours will look different than the picture shown.
19.) I generally save it to the root of the drive which is indicated by the forward slash ” / “. Until you get comfortable with Clonezilla, I recommend the same, because it’s easier to find. Once you are ready, click or arrow down on <Ok>.
20.) Now that you have pressed enter, Clonezilla scans your device and prepares it to restore/save. Press enter.
21.) Select “Beginner mode” and press enter.
22.) At this point, you can either save (which is what we’re going to do) or restore. If you had already had a saved image on the device you selected earlier, you could now begin the restore process.
23.) Specify a name for your image. I always use something logical such as: 09-04-11GoodImageSave. I use a date in the file name in case my computer needs to be restored in the future and then I know what day the image was created.
24.) This next screen basically is indicated that you are choosing the local disk as a source. Make sure there is an star in the [ ] to indicate that it’s selected. Press enter.
25.) When you press enter you will notice another box similar to step 17. This starts the save process. If you look at the green text, it will display a brief summary about your current process. Press enter.
26.) The Last Step. Now Clonezilla will ask you, “are sure you want to do this?”. At this point, if you are unsure of the selections you made and don’t want to continue, you can press Ctrl + Alt + Del and it will reboot your computer without making any changes. Why would you want to do this? Perhaps at the last minute you realized that you selected the wrong drive and need to go back. WHEN YOU PRESS ENTER IT WILL BEGIN THE SAVE PROCESS! THERE IS NO TURNING BACK ONCE YOU PRESS ENTER. Press enter when you are ready to backup your computer.
27.) Depending on how big your hard drive is, how fast your computer is, and how fast your hard drive can seek data, this process can take minutes or hours. It will usually give you an estimated time remaining. Once Clonezilla is finished, you will be given a few options: Poweroff, Reboot, Enter command line prompt, and Start over. I normally reboot my computer once everything is finished. When you select reboot, it will display a message indicated to remove the disk. Your computer should automatically open the CD/DVD tray once you choose a number. You should take the disk out if you don’t want to boot back into Clonezilla again.
The Conclusion
Now that you have followed these steps, you should have an identical backup of your operating system. If you have any questions, please ask.