dd on linux for me. If I need to compress it, I will run the resulting image file through gzip or 7zip, depending on how much I need to squash it.

Browsing it is easy on linux, just use image mounter.
On windows, winimage can look inside just fine as long as the filesystem is either FAT or NTFS.

dd is a command line tool, so you need to know what you are doing. Ubuntu's repository has a tool blandly named 'disks' that can do image creation and restoration, that is basically just dd with a gui.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-09-03, 21:50:

dd on linux for me. If I need to compress it, I will run the resulting image file through gzip or 7zip, depending on how much I […]
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dd on linux for me. If I need to compress it, I will run the resulting image file through gzip or 7zip, depending on how much I need to squash it.

Browsing it is easy on linux, just use image mounter.
On windows, winimage can look inside just fine as long as the filesystem is either FAT or NTFS.

dd is a command line tool, so you need to know what you are doing. Ubuntu's repository has a tool blandly named 'disks' that can do image creation and restoration, that is basically just dd with a gui.

The attachment disks.png is no longer available

The attachment disks2.png is no longer available

The issue with dd and with disks (gnome disk utility) is that they image non-used parts of the filesystem - so if you had a load of jpgs that were deleted, that data is still imaged and non-compressable. The nice thing about macrium is it ignored empty space and just compressed it.

I was a paid Macrium Reflect user until recently. But I disliked the subscription model they implemented. So I switched to Hasleo Backup Suite. There is a free version as well but I paid for a decently priced 5 PC version (lifetime license).

It does exactly the same as Macrium Reflect. So compressing, encryption, backup only used blocks etc. Very happy with it.

squelch41 wrote on 2026-09-03, 22:15:

The issue with dd and with disks (gnome disk utility) is that they image non-used parts of the filesystem - so if you had a load of jpgs that were deleted, that data is still imaged and non-compressable. The nice thing about macrium is it ignored empty space and just compressed it.

A good/easy "trick" you can do is to mount the drive (don't try this on an active system drive), and write a little program to open a new file and write 0s to it till it fails (out of space).
Then just delete that file - this will zero all unallocated sectors which will make them VERY compressible!

Granted this can take a while - so not good if you are doing it on a regular basis, but for the odd "one of"it can work quite well.
(and with SSD/Flash, be mindful that you are writing all unused sectors - even if they've not been written before)

BootIt Bare Metal

And it does more

I've VGACOPY'd a lot of personal disks decades ago. no regrets. rather that than winimage (then the only tool everyone recommends frequently). It can also do the unused data clearing (modify) but I've never enabled that. It also won't stop to prompt you if there's an error, you can set the retries to 99 and it'll skip and there's a visual map of the sectors onscreen while this all happens.

I like norton ghost

Minitool ShadowMaker is great (as is their Partition Wizard).

These are my current fave for solid, reliable and feature complete tools after Acronis, Paragon and Macrium fell into various degrees of sloppy and/or greedy over the years.

I like using Clonezilla for imaging and restoring drives.

It's a bootable text-based solution that can do whole disks or just a single partition, and it walks you the process.

You can even assign your images custom names, which is great when you're troubleshooting an install process.

There's also a GUI fork called Rescuezilla.

There was a Clonezilla version for i686 architecture CPUs that's probably best for vintage PCs that aren't too old.

I boot from SD and CF cards in my vintage PCs, they can easily be imaged in a modern laptop running the latest Clonezilla release through USB adapters.

Yoghoo wrote on 2026-09-03, 22:29:

I was a paid Macrium Reflect user until recently. But I disliked the subscription model they implemented. So I switched to Hasleo Backup Suite. There is a free version as well but I paid for a decently priced 5 PC version (lifetime license).

It does exactly the same as Macrium Reflect. So compressing, encryption, backup only used blocks etc. Very happy with it.

I also hated their new sub plan, so I only use it on one PC now. Though I looked at the HBS prices and they don't really seem much better; why is a lifetime upgrades package for a single PC considered 'optional'? Does it have image browsing for selective file restore? I assume it has scheduling built in?

ldeveraux wrote on 2026-09-04, 17:04:

Yoghoo wrote on 2026-09-03, 22:29:

I was a paid Macrium Reflect user until recently. But I disliked the subscription model they implemented. So I switched to Hasleo Backup Suite. There is a free version as well but I paid for a decently priced 5 PC version (lifetime license).

It does exactly the same as Macrium Reflect. So compressing, encryption, backup only used blocks etc. Very happy with it.

I also hated their new sub plan, so I only use it on one PC now. Though I looked at the HBS prices and they don't really seem much better; why is a lifetime upgrades package for a single PC considered 'optional'? Does it have image browsing for selective file restore? I assume it has scheduling built in?

The lifetime upgrades means that you get all new versions in the future for free. Without it you probably only get updates for version V5. It has all the options I used in Macrium Reflect like scheduling, mounting images and selective restores.

Yoghoo wrote on 2026-09-04, 17:18:

ldeveraux wrote on 2026-09-04, 17:04:

Yoghoo wrote on 2026-09-03, 22:29:

I was a paid Macrium Reflect user until recently. But I disliked the subscription model they implemented. So I switched to Hasleo Backup Suite. There is a free version as well but I paid for a decently priced 5 PC version (lifetime license).

It does exactly the same as Macrium Reflect. So compressing, encryption, backup only used blocks etc. Very happy with it.

I also hated their new sub plan, so I only use it on one PC now. Though I looked at the HBS prices and they don't really seem much better; why is a lifetime upgrades package for a single PC considered 'optional'? Does it have image browsing for selective file restore? I assume it has scheduling built in?

The lifetime upgrades means that you get all new versions in the future for free. Without it you probably only get updates for version V5. It has all the options I used in Macrium Reflect like scheduling, mounting images and selective restores.

Good to know, maybe I'll try out the free version for a bit! I'm still curious as to why the lifetime upgrades are optional when they don't change the price at all...

I also do the dd thing after zero filling the free space.

You can pipe dd through gzip and the output of that through netcat, and catch it somewhere else and pipe it to a file. Very convenient.

I like a raw image because that can go directly onto a raw device. No proprietary file format risk.

I use dd and clonezilla a bunch as well. And diskpart, parted and gparted.
But at some point you may find yourself wanting to resize filesystems on the fly during a restore. Or pull an individual file from your images, or change partition order.
Maybe you need to convert an mbr style partition layout to gpt or vice versa. Recreate or resize EFI, system reserved and Windows Recovery partitions.
Shrink your ending partition down to create space for an overprovisioning area, or fix partition alignment for your storage device's cluster size. Not unimportant for optimal performance.
Free tools go a long way but me personally I'll happily pay a fair price for that kind of functionality. Just as long as it's a one time thing, because eff subscriptions.