I'm using Clonezilla.

Firtasik wrote:

I'm using Clonezilla.

I'll give it a go. Normally I have some negative tendency to anything Linux (I'm definitely not a Linux guy and has no idea about console commands of it).

I hope it has somehow intuitive interface for a Linux noob like me. 😊

I use DriveImage XML in conjuction with BartPE as my bootdisk utility when I want to restore my hard drive partition (it works even when I want to restore my Windows 7 partition). You obviously don't require BartPE to backup your partition.

However, BartPE hasn't been updated since February 2006 and I will probably have to look at an alternative boot disk utility (just haven't bothered yet as it still works for me).

DriveImage XML, on the other hand, is still being supported and runs on their own Runtime Live CD or a WinPE boot CD-ROM.
The Private Edition is free of charge, provided you use it for private use.

Most of the PCs in my house are connected to our Windows Home Server, so they get daily incremental backups. For the retro PC, I occasionally will take an image using Clonezilla.

Regarding Acronis True Image (which I'm using), it does require installation but you can then create a bootable media to use everywhere and do pretty much everything.
There's also a "free" version downloadable from WD that all it needs is to find a WD HDD attached. Even a USB WD HDD hooked up on the machine just for the program to start is enough.

tayyare wrote:

I'll give it a go. Normally I have some negative tendency to anything Linux (I'm definitely not a Linux guy and has no idea about console commands of it).

I hope it has somehow intuitive interface for a Linux noob like me. 😊

Although command line is very useful, in most Linux distributions you don't need to use it. Clonezilla can be managed using CLI, but it uses a text user interface by default.

Also, clonezilla is the only tool I've found capable of cloning eMMC disks.

konc wrote:

Regarding Acronis True Image (which I'm using), it does require installation but you can then create a bootable media to use everywhere and do pretty much everything.
There's also a "free" version downloadable from WD that all it needs is to find a WD HDD attached. Even a USB WD HDD hooked up on the machine just for the program to start is enough.

That's good news, I was thinking that the bootable CD is only for restoring, not cloning/backing up. I'll check this tonight, since I already have the bootable CD on hand and ready for my main rig.

What is the name o this free software? I'm asking since I know from the past WD renames some retail utilities (like Ontrack Disk Manager). No problem with Western Digital, all the HDDs in my modern(ish) rigs and all my external USB disks used for backup are WD.

E D I T : No worries, I already found the Acronis WD software! 😁

Macrium Reflect is kind of popular, or at least it used to be.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-dri … ng-software.htm

tayyare wrote:

E D I T : No worries, I already found the Acronis WD software! 😁

Good, it was that obvious that I didn't even think to mention it 😀

Acronis True Image is fantastic, and as Konc says, when you've installed it, then you can create a bootable CD/DVD/USB stick, and then you never need the installed program again, as you can just boot with the bootable disc/USB stick any time, and use that (on any PC or laptop) to create or restore a partition/disc.

It's powerful, easy to use, reliable, and fast.

+1 for Clonezilla. I'm not a Linux guy either and have had no issues with it -- it has an interactive live environment which you can boot off of whatever, and there's a tutorial for n00bs.

There's g4u if you're allergic to Linux, it's based on netBSD instead:
http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

lolo799 wrote:

There's g4u if you're allergic to Linux, it's based on netBSD instead:
http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

If he's not interested in the low level bits, it smells the same to him.

calvin wrote:

lolo799 wrote:

There's g4u if you're allergic to Linux, it's based on netBSD instead:
http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

If he's not interested in the low level bits, it smells the same to him.

Unfortunately yes, It smells and tastes the same. Much more command line operations then I ever need in an alien console. 🤣

Thanks a lot for everyone, now I have really many options and I tried many, just for curiosity (clonezilla is not bad at all). But at the end, I think the best is WD Acronis software which is both free, and have everything I need and know how to use. I also found a Seagate version of it which is also free, called Disc Wizard. http://www.seagate.com/tr/tr/support/downloads/discwizard/

Now I have WD software installed in all three modernish PCs in the house and backed up all those WD HDDs into all those WD Mybook externals. 🤣

All the HDD manufacturers have an Acronis version 😀

I prefer using removable drive bays and take images on my main desktop in a USB 3 bay. Much faster and reliable than using the old boxes to do it. You also need a place to save, and load the images to and from.

philscomputerlab wrote:

All the HDD manufacturers have an Acronis version 😀

I prefer using removable drive bays and take images on my main desktop in a USB 3 bay. Much faster and reliable than using the old boxes to do it. You also need a place to save, and load the images to and from.

I also used removable drive bays in the past. Remember those beige ones with front handles and metal keys for locking them?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NIB-StarTech-Removabl … =item2803d29cd7

But it was an era during which the floppy is too small, and CD burning is too expensive, so only feasible sneaker net medium was the HDD itself. But in modern times, I see them as more trouble than they worth. Actually I have a USB HDD dock that can accept both SATA and IDE 2.5"/3.5" drive, but it is rarely used, to say the truth.

In my retro rigs, at least the ones that matters, I always have at least one SCSI drive that I used for each machines data storage, and this drive also contains all the Norton Ghost drive images that belongs to this machine (my retro machines are almost always multiboot). Since the biggest of them, even Windows 2000 images are not much bigger than 5-6 gigabytes, its very easy to transport the images by USB stick, CF card, or over network to my main rig to be backed up into my external backup disks.

For the modern(ish) rigs (I have one XP, two 7, one 8.1 machines), I just installed the free Acronis to each of them, connected an external HDD and backed them up directly.

tayyare wrote:

[
I also used removable drive bays in the past. Remember those beige ones with front handles and metal keys for locking them?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NIB-StarTech-Removabl … =item2803d29cd7

Yes, but:

🤣 I use SATA drives in all my machines + modern SATA drive bays. I wouldn't have it any other way, got so used to them.

Except my XP machine (which I don't consider it as 100% retro, anyway), none of my retro things has any SATA on them. I have a huge stash of IDE and SCSI drives mostly in the 20-80 GB range, with an addition of a few 0.5-3 GB drives and some 120-200 GB, accumulated during my mid to early days of being "computer-guy-next-door", so as long as they last, I have no intention of contaminating my PIII and below builds with anything SATA. 🤣

I've got, I think, two IDE drives. Work has a, basically limitless supply of old SATA drives. Mostly 80, 160 and 500 GB drives.