Free Cold Imaging program - w MBR backup/restore and sector-by-sector backup/restore

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Swordfish_, Jan 28, 2014.

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  1. Swordfish_

    Swordfish_ Registered Member

    Joined:
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    Hello,

    I am looking for a free imaging program, with the following functionality:
    - ability to make cold backups (running from a USB recovery media)
    - ability to make a sector-by-sector approach backup/restore
    - ability to backup/restore bootloader/MBR alone (for a triple/quadruple boot, i.e. Win 8.1, OSX and Linux) and ability to backup/restore other, non-windows partitions (EXT, ReiserFS)

    I am currently testing Macrium, possibly will try Paragon and maybe Clonezilla.

    What I need to to - is before changing my OS configuration (from only Windows to triple boot, possibli using two separate SSD drives for Win and Unix based systems, this will turn out soon...).

    My hardware is SSD (OCZ Vertex), backup will be done to other disk's (preferably to external one).

    Any suggestions?
     
  2. Gaddster

    Gaddster Registered Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    UK
    Clonezilla quite frankly is just amazing freeware and images all sorts of devices including Ipods, satnavs, SD cards, usb sticks etc where the pay software either fails or requires a time consuming full sector by sector mode.

    I personally believe its because of Linux like for example, I could successfully clone and restore two Ipods using Acronis Backup & Recovery Linux boot media but doing the same using Acronis Backup & Recovery WinPE 5 media made the Ipods fail to boot (showing an message about Itunes was needed to restore them).

    As for Macrium Reflect I've never understood why it gets praised so highly on this forum as it still cant do something so basic like creating images of removable devices.
     
  3. Feandur

    Feandur Registered Member

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  4. s23

    s23 Registered Member

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    Another option is
    http://redobackup.org/

    Which is a GPLv3 Perl script built with a GTK2+ interface designed in Glade. It is simply a front end to partclone (http://partclone.org/), which performs the actual backup and restore. The live CD is built on Ubuntu to provide a graphical user interface.
     
  5. Feandur

    Feandur Registered Member

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  6. Feandur

    Feandur Registered Member

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    @ s23... just beat me to the submit button. :thumb:

    -cheers,
    feandur
     
  7. alan_b

    alan_b Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 13, 2008
    Posts:
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    Location:
    Lancashire, England
    Try Lazesoft Data Recovery.
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=351632

    It does FAR MORE than data recovery.

    It includes MBR/Track Zero backup and restore as well as whole partition/drive backup and restore.
    It can do this when for Flash Drives as well as HDD.
    It can do this when Windows cannot see the partition.
     
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