Multiple Different Laptops, same USB HDD.
A partition and disk imaging/cloning program
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steven_shiau
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I have successfully used clonezilla a few times. Always through the wizard. I can't help but think there is an easier way to do what I need to do. I hope anyone can help me develop an elegant solution to my problem.
Objective: I need to minimize user input and automate clonezilla to restore images to 8 different laptops with corresponding images all located on one external USB HDD.
Details: The eight laptops consist of 4 Vista (home basic, home premium, business, ultimate) and 4 XP (home, media center edition, pro, tablet). They need to be "clean install" images (which I already have made).
Perfect World: I would like to be able to plug in the external USB HDD, power on the laptop and boot into Clonezilla from the USB HDD. The only user input would be to select which image to use. Then it would automate all the way to reboot/poweroff.
Problems: I don't think that some of the older laptops (Dell Latitude D500 and D505) support usb boot devices. In which case I would be ok with having a Boot CD for each operating system image that would point to the correct image directory on the USB HDD.
Thanks for taking a look at my problem, thanks in advance to any replys!
Adam, please excuse my interruption in your inquiry/ thread. I thought of sending this to you directly, but maybe others will find your feedback useful as well. That said; I’m new to this, have been reading different forums for quite sometime, & your inquiry answered my question about storing multiple images on 1 eternal HD…which is I find awesome…so Thank you!
Provided you have time, may I ask how you have your external hard drive setup? I have a WD Passport Elite 320 which has sat idle except for repartitioning several times. I intend to use Clonezilla to backup XP Pro & Office Pro 2003 on 2 older desktops & 1 laptop (Compaq Pressario 2010US). On the rest of the drive will be backup data/ files for websites, photos, clips, docs, etc.
The Elite came w/ what looks like nice software, but per recommendations I took it off. I also didn’t know if I should create a small Fat32 partition just for Clonezilla…if so how large? I’m guessing you can’t put killdisk, clonezilla exe files on same partition 4 a PC to boot from.
Any thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I won't be offended if you suggest I research more and/ or start a new thread.
Thanks in Advance!
Sorry! I put my last post in the wrong place and knocked Steven’s important/ valuable links down a notch...so I'll just reply to my own.
Adam: Not that I can help on your last and I'm probably way out in left field, but do you mean all 8 of your PC images on 1 DL DVD? I figured XP w/ updates = 4.5 GB by itself. Unless I’m way off and not understanding correctly; I’ll have to use several CD’s just to back up my XP and Office 03’ b/c I need to make a CD version incase my USB ports don’t work after running killdisk.
I promise I won’t ever jump on another of your future threads, but I have found your information useful.
Nevermind...I saw why you cannot exceed 4.5 GB http://www.clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/#Advanced_mode
I'm done...
Adam,
To put Clonezilla live on a external harddrive, you can follow this:
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/liveusb.php
or
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/livehd.php
Some of the boot parameters you can use:
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/fine-print.php?path=./99_Misc/00_live-initramfs-manual.doc#00_live-initramfs-manual.doc
This might minimize the choices of the wizard.
If you really want to make almost 1 or 2-step restoring, a customized script is required:
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/#make_custom_clonezilla_live
Good luck!
Steven.
Jay -- I do not have my HDD working as a live bootable. Currently, I use it to hold 8 different whole disk images. The HDD is a Maxtor One Touch III 320GB formatted as 1 NTFS partition. I boot from the Clonezilla Live cd, and that in turn recognizes my external HDD. In the root of the HDD there is a directory I have called Clonezilla, and the subdirectories were created by clonezilla while creating the images. I also do not have any Maxtor software on this HDD.
Thanks Adam!!! And you are correct, Steven’s reply/ links were a tremendous help…so I Thank you as well Steven! I have read all posts & have been monitoring these forums. I saw Steven’s answer, but didn’t want to rudely jump in…again b4 you replied. I saw your responses above when they came across, but have been re-reading & thinking.
Until your response, I was still hung up on how to partition my ext. HD b/c I wasn’t sure if I should make a 300mb Fat32 partition for the 101mb Clonezilla zip file, so I couldn’t even get started. I realize Linux is more versatile, but I used Unix at work for certain ops which is it’s own animal to say the least. So I really appreciate your feedback on that Adam! I’m still torn. My disk images will be most important and be on a NTFS partition. I was told it was better to put small files, photos, etc on a Fat32 partition & the rest NTFS.
For multiple separate images on same drive, along w/ numbers you can use letters to label images…correct?
I have a tendency to initially make new projects harder than they actually are, but usually fly after that phase. I appreciate everyone’s patience as this my issues may seem very trivial in comparison to others.
Thanks Again Adam! And Thanks again to you Steven! I’m really looking forward to using and learning your awesome software!!! Maybe I’ll become proficient and able to help answer a few questions myself.
Steven -- Thank you very much for the links, I need to spend some time digesting them. I think you may have helped out Jay as well with his problems.
Adam, Jay,
What you need is really advanced one, so you might have to spend some time to realize it. Remember to look at some of the examples in /opt/drbl/samples. For some cases, the only thing you have to do is just to modify some lines only.
Good luck.
Steven.
It looks like I am out of luck with making a live iso with embedded image as all my images are greater than 4.5GB. I was hoping to get these onto Dual Layer DVD.