This topic is mostly to make sure I'm not completely misunderstanding how this works and brick my computer.
The story: So, as I'm sure you're aware, Windows 10 is ending in October. I have no desire to move to Win11 if I don't have to. To test if I could handle it, I bought a cheap used laptop off of eBay to put Linux Mint on it and see how that would work out. Turns out, it works fine. I actaully really like the laptop too. But my good laptop is much more powerful, so I don't want it to gather dust.
What I want to do: So I have this Windows 10 laptop, and I want to move it to the latest Linux Mint. But, I want to preserve my Win10 install in case I fuck things up, so I can revert back to it and either try again, or try something else.
What I understand about Clonezilla: Clonezilla is a tool for making an image of a hard drive so that one can restore such image at a later date.
Questions I have:
‣ Does it take a full image of the hard drive(s) in question, or can particular apps be omitted?
‣ Is it a 1:1 image, or does it compress?
‣ I have multiple drives, does it do all of them in one go, or does it have to do each separate?
‣ The Live image can be booted from, BIOS/UEFI, correct?
‣ In the case of the Live version, it never lives as a program within the OS?
‣ Can the image could be cloned onto another, computer?
‣ Does it have to be the same model, or can I use different ones?
‣ That messes with drivers, wouldn't it?
‣ Is there a way to pull files/folder from the image without putting it onto a hard drive?
‣ In this case I'm thinking of if I do a fresh install of Win11 but need some esoteric driver that I can't find offline, (cough HP Printer cough)
‣ Is there anything I need to do with my BIOS/UEFI so it's not angry and I'm trying to boot something other than Windows?
‣ Is there anything in particular I should be aware of, make sure to do/do not do, or in general something that I could do that would fuck up the image/my computer?
‣ are there any suggested USB sticks to use? eg speed/size/brand/etc. I think I'm going to need a new one for Mint, so a two pack should be fine.
‣ For what it's worth, the two SSDs are 1TB and 2TB respectively.
I'll probably have more questions, but this is what I can think of at the moment.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Actually you can get most of the answers on https://clonezilla.org
I replied to you in general:
Clonezilla live is an imaging or cloning too. It only deals with the used blocks on the hard drive if the file system is supported. Hence there is no way it can backup only part of the applications in your OS.
It can compress or you can choose not to compress it....
For the rest, please consult the website https://clonezilla.org or you can ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok...
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
So I take it that if a program has registries in C, but the bulk lives in D, if I don't copy D as well it'll be broken registries. (That's most of my programs)
I'm actually considering deleting most programs beforehand to make the image smaller, but we'll see.
It also turns out that Mint has ceased security support for 20, which is what my second machine is using, so I'll have to format two OSes this summer. Fuuuuun.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hi all,
This topic is mostly to make sure I'm not completely misunderstanding how this works and brick my computer.
The story: So, as I'm sure you're aware, Windows 10 is ending in October. I have no desire to move to Win11 if I don't have to. To test if I could handle it, I bought a cheap used laptop off of eBay to put Linux Mint on it and see how that would work out. Turns out, it works fine. I actaully really like the laptop too. But my good laptop is much more powerful, so I don't want it to gather dust.
What I want to do: So I have this Windows 10 laptop, and I want to move it to the latest Linux Mint. But, I want to preserve my Win10 install in case I fuck things up, so I can revert back to it and either try again, or try something else.
What I understand about Clonezilla: Clonezilla is a tool for making an image of a hard drive so that one can restore such image at a later date.
Questions I have:
‣ Does it take a full image of the hard drive(s) in question, or can particular apps be omitted?
‣ Is it a 1:1 image, or does it compress?
‣ I have multiple drives, does it do all of them in one go, or does it have to do each separate?
‣ The Live image can be booted from, BIOS/UEFI, correct?
‣ In the case of the Live version, it never lives as a program within the OS?
‣ Can the image could be cloned onto another, computer?
‣ Does it have to be the same model, or can I use different ones?
‣ That messes with drivers, wouldn't it?
‣ Is there a way to pull files/folder from the image without putting it onto a hard drive?
‣ In this case I'm thinking of if I do a fresh install of Win11 but need some esoteric driver that I can't find offline, (cough HP Printer cough)
‣ Is there anything I need to do with my BIOS/UEFI so it's not angry and I'm trying to boot something other than Windows?
‣ Is there anything in particular I should be aware of, make sure to do/do not do, or in general something that I could do that would fuck up the image/my computer?
‣ are there any suggested USB sticks to use? eg speed/size/brand/etc. I think I'm going to need a new one for Mint, so a two pack should be fine.
‣ For what it's worth, the two SSDs are 1TB and 2TB respectively.
I'll probably have more questions, but this is what I can think of at the moment.
Actually you can get most of the answers on https://clonezilla.org
I replied to you in general:
Clonezilla live is an imaging or cloning too. It only deals with the used blocks on the hard drive if the file system is supported. Hence there is no way it can backup only part of the applications in your OS.
It can compress or you can choose not to compress it....
For the rest, please consult the website https://clonezilla.org or you can ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok...
I can say Grok has about >= 95% correct answers. Here you are:
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_dccfca5d-34af-488b-a17e-64809632d93a
Yeah, no LLMs, thanks.
So I take it that if a program has registries in C, but the bulk lives in D, if I don't copy D as well it'll be broken registries. (That's most of my programs)
I'm actually considering deleting most programs beforehand to make the image smaller, but we'll see.
It also turns out that Mint has ceased security support for 20, which is what my second machine is using, so I'll have to format two OSes this summer. Fuuuuun.