Best free imaging software?

Are you sure Clonezilla will image a Raw format usb stick? No mention of RAW format here (at official Clonezilla website):
Many File systems are supported: (1) ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, btrfs, f2fs and nilfs2 of GNU/Linux, (2) FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS of MS Windows, (3) HFS+ of Mac OS, (4) UFS of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, (5) minix of Minix, and (6) VMFS3 and VMFS5 of VMWare ESX.

 

Any ideas which one I should click for Windows 8.1 on Clonezilla website's download page; I'm unsure. Thanks in advance.
http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

 

Win32 Disk Imager can image raw flash drives.

 

I'm concerned about the reviews on SourceForge about this product, one review claims the contents were lost by using this product.
What do you think?

 

What is your OS? Do you have Fast Startup enabled?

Can you see the files from Linux?

 

I've only ever used it to write, and not create images from a flash drive, so I can't say.

 

Sourceforge description says:
"This program is designed to write a raw disk image to a removable device or backup a removable device to a raw image file"
I'm concerned about the word 'write', just to be clear I'm trying to image a raw usb stick and store that on another usb stick.
Then I intend to work on the original usb stick to recovery files

 

Windows 8.1 on HD and Linux on a USB.

I can see the USB but not the files inside it in Linux.

I'll check.
Thanks Brian.

 

Yes, it does

http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/01_Save_disk_image/advanced/09-advanced-param.php
If used with the default settings it will try to identify the file-systems and use the first program in it's priority that supports them. If no program supports the file system it falls back to "dd" to perform a raw backup.
q1 priority uses only "dd" and performs raw images.

note: dd does not compress the image (image size= equal to the partition size or entire disk size)

Panagiotis

 

You can also use
DD for windows
http://www.chrysocome.net/dd
or
OSFClone
http://www.osforensics.com/tools/create-disk-images.html
and OSFMount for reading/writing investigating the dd image
http://www.osforensics.com/tools/mount-disk-images.html

Panagiotis

 

It should do what you want. Are you going to be using recovery software that writes to the flash drive? Usually recovery software will make no changes to the source drive, and recover files to your hard drive or another drive you select, in which case you shoudn't need an image of the drive.

 

Not sure what fast startup has to do with this as it applies to computer shutdown and reboot speeds.

 

It can cause data corruption on UFDs if the UFD was connected at shutdown. I've seen it cause RAW partitions.

 

My motivation

Re downloading Clonezilla for Windows 8.1
Which one should I select; there are a few clickable options on
http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
Thank you in advance.

 

How about during restarts; hibernation?

And would someone be able to guide me to correct link for windows 8.1 on Clonezilla download pages, there are so many options there to click; everything is vague. Thanks
http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

 

It depends on the system you want to use it.
Stable = debian based = for systems that are at least 1 year old
Alternative stable= ubuntu based = for macs, for new systems (6 months old) or for systems that cannot disable UEFI secure boot.

If your CPU is 64bit download amd64, if the CPU is 32bit download i386 architecture.
If you intend to use a cd/dvd download the iso format.
If you intent to boot from USB flash download the zip (or the iso) and use tuxboot.(http://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php )

Panagiotis

 

What I did for four Win 7 PCs (users prefer set-and-forget backup) is install Macrium Reflect Free and scheduled them to do full backups yearly, and the free features in the Crashplan desktop app to do period backups of data files.

 

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ucf/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=427

 

You do not mention if you intend to boot from an cd or an usb stick. So I will assume a cd.

http://cznic.dl.osdn.jp/clonezilla/66612/clonezilla-live-20161024-yakkety-amd64.iso

 

Correct, restoring to a blank HD from a NAS share fails...so, I already removed it and reported it to Qilink and they told me that this option will be available in a future version....huh? Such a basic function is not working and will become available in a future version..

Quite by accident, I found Arcserve Unified Data Protection for Workstation 5.0 and this version is for free. I decided to give it a try and so far it impressed me with regards to:
1) Speed: backup and restore (boot from BMR USB stick) of 80GB within 9 minutes...about the same I see with MR Free. Note: backups are from internal disk to another internal SATA disk (and after 8 backups they are consolidated to my NAS).
2) Full, Incremental and what they call infinite incremental backups.
3) File backups with versioning.
4) Email notifications, even for missed schedules
5) The Incremental backup window can be as small as 15 minutes and as it performs block level backups, it goes very fast. By having a small backup window it is almost CDP (what Acronis offers with Continuous Backup).
6) The amount of options available (might scare some people but after reading the User Guide made it became clear what to use)

I've seen that many options only available in the paid version of Macrium are available in Arcserve.

What doesn't impress me is the size of the installation file (1.8GB!!) and the BMR uses Windows 8.1 (tried to fool it to use Windows10 but that failed).
I'll keep it running as a second backup/recovery tool and see how it works out..

 

Here you go: https://www.arcserve.com/kr/freeworkstation.aspx

In case you don't want to leave your personal details behind, let me know and I can send you a link where you can download the installable.