Imaging From external HDDs

[BKGarry]

Hello all,

 

it has been a while since i have posted (Feels like a lifetime)

 

I was wondering if anyone has a nice (and preferable free) way of capturing an image to an external USB HDD and then restore it to other machines.

 

It comes down to server space etc,

 

Any ideas on what should be able to do this, the images will have a sysprep for naming etc, so just needs to capture not configure.

 

Gaz

[tommccann]

Ghost version 8 onwards i think

[tommej]

Clonezilla

 

Clonezilla

[stevenwba]

Clonezilla

 

Clonezilla

 

 

+1

 

recently tried windows 7's system image and restore feature but it was hard work!

[redhelpdesk]

we use ShadowProtect IT Edition. Not free but it works great and also lets you do a hardware independant restore to use an image from any architecture and put it onto anything else.

[BKGarry]

just testing out clonezilla at the moment,

 

I will be taking images direct from current machines, these are never going to be for new ones, so all seems fine at the moment.

 

The only trouble is that i am testing it on a on del D610 with an old HDD so is taking its time

[round2it]

clonezilla works well with d610's here no issues

 

you can not clone a 80gb drive onto a 40gb drive even if you have only used say for example 5gb in the image.

 

i have been bitten with that once

 

so i always make sure i clone the machine with the smallest HD.

[tommej]

clonezilla works well with d610's here no issues

 

you can not clone a 80gb drive onto a 40gb drive even if you have only used say for example 5gb in the image.

 

i have been bitten with that once

 

so i always make sure i clone the machine with the smallest HD.

 

This was so annoying the first time it happened, then the second and the third!

[BKGarry]

Luckilly all our machines of the same models have the same size HDDs,

 

oh the fun of legacy equipment ay.

[round2it]

This was so annoying the first time it happened, then the second and the third!

 

oh yes face slap time:doh:

[BatchFile]

We use a mixture of

:)Windows PE and Imagex

:)Ghost (9 - I think)

depending what, exactly we're trying to acheive. Neither of them has the HDD size issue as all you need is the data size.

Both work with USB drives, no problem

[hakko]

Try imagex from MS/Windows PE.

 

Doesn't do the whole disk and skips recycle bin, pagefile and system restore files.

 

Downside, needs to have the drive partitioned, active and lettered before applying image (although you can make a script for the diskpart utility).

 

What is ImageX?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en

[pwds]

Late response but +1 for Clonezilla from me

[stevehp]

An old coworker of mine used Ghost and a Western Digital USB HDD. It imaged a few machines and started crapping out, most likely from overheating. It was a 2.5inch drive so the enclousure was probably not providing enough airflow. Needless to say the image on the drive was corrupted after that.