Clonezilla

The time is approaching when I would like to clone my Zorin 12 laptop installation to my older laptop, presently running Zorin 9.

Both machines have 500 GB drives and 64 bit operating systems and I have a spare 500 GB drive which I can use, so I am confident.

Can anyone talk me through using Clonezilla to achieve what I would like, please?

That is a tough request. Clonezilla has lines and lines of text. It also gives you warnings which sound scary, but the thing to remember is that it's just like any other such software. You choose a device on which to save your disk or partition, and you make sure all is correct before you hit the final button. It's important to remember to choose either to work with a disk or partition. you would choose "disk" if you're cloning an entire hard drive, and "partition" if you're cloning a partition on a hard drive. Basically, whenever it asks you to choose a device to save the disk or partition on, it means your external hard drive. This is the first thing it asks you. Then it asks you what disk or partition to save. you just choose the one you want to save. Accept all defaults, for the most part. It will give you plenty of time of check that you have it correct, and won't proceed until you are sure you are saving the right thing, in the right place. It's \very complicated for me, as I have three Linus OSs and Windows, so I have to make sure I choose the right partitions. If you only have one hard drive, your choices will be much simpler. What I did was to make some "dry runs" where I got all the way to the final choice, but then opted out, and did it again. I actually waited quite awhile before going through with it. Once you do it successfully a few times, it will become clearer. Again, just remember the basic variables: what you want to save, and where you want to save it. It really comes down to that. I don't know why they make it seem so complicated!

I can't give you one of those nice tutorials, with pictures with arrows and highlights, as I'm just not good at that stuff. But there are good tutorials online. It's not as hard as it looks. It is definitely worth mastering, it works really well (and fast). Sorry I can't do better, hopefully someone else can do a better job. But if you stay with it, run through it a few times without pulling the trigger, so to speak, you will figure it out, I'm sure.

When using clonezilla you also have to ensure that you copy the mbr (in this case GRUB) files in order to make the cloned disk bootable. I have not done this in GNU/Linux only Windows.

I do it using "Disks" from a live session of a Linux Distro so this may be worth a look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYpHPe3VAOo
There is also a few other videos on the channel regarding using Disks in slightly different ways that may give you ideas!

If all your drives are 500GB and the same make and model it will likely work. Normally I create an image (*.img file) onto a USB drive that is much larger, say 1TB and then restore that *.img file onto the new target drive. MBR (UEFI???) or GRUB is copied also so usually just boots after the process. Going from a smaller drive to a larger one is no problem as it just leaves unused space that you can reclaim later on.


DD command is another one I have used:

Copying Partition
dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=/dev/sda2 bs=1M

Image Partition
dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1/imagename.img
dd if=/dev/sdb1/imagename.img of=/dev/sdXX (not sure Iv'e used this one!)

"if" is "input file" or source file, partition or image and "of" is "output file" or destination and choose your sda1 sda2 sda3 and sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 etc
Boot a live session and use "Disks" to help identify your drives and partitions, then start a terminal and set the sdax or sdbx etc
This may also be helpful if the other drives are smaller than the target as you could shrink the partitions using "Disks" live session from memory?
DD command was the only way I could find to move my Windows 10 UEFI system 64GB drive onto a new 128GB drive as all my other methods failed so it is very powerful command IMHO.

As mdiemar states clonezilla as a bit of a head full of text lines so maybe bribe him to come and help you

Redo Backup might be another option however I think I recall having resizing issues or such....but it is a GUI and quiet simple to use.

perhaps following link on clonezilla might assist

Code:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-advanced-hard-drive-cloning-solution-from-clonezilla/

Thank you all for your responses. In the meantime I found this link useful:
https://www.tecmint.com/linux-centos-ub ... lonezilla/

I think that the suggestion of doing a few “dry runs” with Clonezilla to gain familiarity is a good idea and one that I will try - thanks Mdiemer.


Before I get there, however, I still have several queries:

I found with REDO that the external USB drive was somehow linked to the laptop I was backing up. I found that REDO would not open the external USB drive, if I used that drive on the wrong laptop (I was backing up both my laptops). Presumably Clonezilla will open the external USB drive connected to the laptop at that time - so as to clone the drive from laptop A to the external USB drive and then be able to load the cloned drive from the same external USB drive onto laptop B. Correct?

Presumably, Clonezilla enables you to run disks, or something like it, to determine which is the drive on the laptop to be cloned and which is the external USB drive and later, with Clonezilla running on the new laptop, which is the drive on the new laptop and which is the external USB drive you're going to clone from. Correct?

Presumably, the Clonezilla interface covers making the clone copy as well as installing the cloned copy to the new laptop. Correct?

Does Clonezilla automatically copy the grub files from the original laptop, which is being cloned? Or do you have to do something extra to copy grub (mbr)?

There are two versions of Clonezilla that I have downloaded - clonezilla-live-2.5.2-31-amd64.iso and clonezilla-live-20170905-zesty-amd64.iso. The former is supposed to be non UEFI and the latter UEFI compatible - both are supposed to work with older machines without UEFI and safe start. I disabled safe start and UEFI on my older laptop before installing Zorin 9and had my newer Zorin12 laptop was supplied without either. Which version of Clonezilla should I use?

What happens if I use clonezilla-live-20170905-zesty-amd64.iso on a machine with UEFI and safe start - does it automatically load? I'm going to copy my Zorin 12 install onto my Grandson's new PC, which will probably be running Windows 10 latest standard. Should he get a new machine from someone who can supply him a PC without an OS and with no UEFI and safe start?

What happens when you boot the freshly cloned laptop? Presumably you have to enter the same password - anything else? - I have no security on initial start up. Will Zorin 12 cope with marginally different hardware - like a 1366 x 768 screen rather than HD? Will the cloned laptop be accepted onto my home network as a separate, new machine?

This might help you Finston:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JflYnwe8cTE