Keep your computer contents safe by cloning your hard disk

We’re always exhorting PCW readers to back up files.

But even though there’s no shortage of backup applications available, they can be difficult to use, and it can be time-consuming choosing which files and folders to back up and which to ignore.

Choose to clone a hard disk instead and it’s possible to safeguard its entire contents with very little effort and for no cost, as we’ll show you in this back-to-basics feature.

Clonezilla is a free but powerful program that can create an exact copy of one hard disk and copy it to another.

This image can be used to back up data, or to transfer to a new disk if one with a larger capacity has been installed.

With support for a wide range of drive formats, Clonezilla can easily be used with Windows or Linux. Here’s how to get cloning.

Getting started
Start by paying a visit to the Clonezilla website and click the Live CD/USB/PXE link in the left-hand navigation pane.

Scroll down the page to section four (How to make Clonezilla Live) and click the link labelled ‘Download an ISO file for CD/DVD’ before clicking the ‘iso file’ next to the ‘Stable branch’ label.

The latest version of Clonezilla is shown at the top of the list of available files, and the download can be started by clicking the link with the .iso extension in the Filename column ­ at the time of writing, the file was called clonezilla-live-1.2.1-39.iso.

The download is a little over 90MB in size.

Once the download is complete, the ISO image file needs to be burned to a disc.

This can be done with virtually any disc-recording program, such as Nero, but if you don’t have such a tool installed there’s a free program called Imgburn ­ (if you’re unfamiliar with image files, read our feature on working with ISO files.

Windows’ built-in disc burning facility won’t work with image files, they will just copy the ISO file to the CD, which is not what we want.

Click the Download link at the top of the page and then choose from one of the listed download sites.

Run through the installation of the software, launch the program and then click the ‘Write image file to disc’ button on the start-up screen.

In the Source section at the top of the dialogue box, click the button marked with a folder and a magnifying glass before double-clicking the .iso file that has been downloaded.

If more than one CD or DVD burner is available, use the Destination dropdown menu to select which should be used before inserting a blank recordable CD-R.

Use the Write Speed dropdown menu to the right to choose the speed at which the disc should be written ­ to ensure that everything runs smoothly, it is a good idea to select a burn speed below the maximum your drive can manage, as this will help to avoid errors.

With these settings configured, click the Write button in the lower left of the main dialogue box and wait while the disc is written.

Once the disc has been burned, it will be automatically ejected and then re-inserted before the files are verified.

The message ‘Operation Successfully Completed’ indicates that the disc is ready for use.

Launching Clonezilla
To use Clonezilla, the PC with the hard disk you want to clone must be booted from CD rather than the hard disk.

This setting is made in the Bios. To access the Bios, restart your computer and press either the Del or F2 key during the initial checking process (the key that needs to be pressed can vary from one computer to another, so check for an on-screen message about how to access the Bios or ‘Setup’).

Move to the section called Boot, Boot Device, Boot Priority or something similar and ensure the first boot device is configured to be the CD or DVD drive, relegating the hard disk to the second device on the list.

This means that if the computer is switched on while a disc is inserted it will attempt to start from that disc before looking for a hard disk.

If the disc is not bootable or there is no disc present, Windows will load as normal from the hard disk.

With this done, ensure that the newly created CD is inserted and restart your computer. You may be prompted to press a key to boot from the CD ­ if so, press one.

A menu listing various options will be displayed, but it is only the first three that are of interest.

While all three provide access to Clonezilla itself, each runs at a different resolution. Start by trying the first option labelled ‘Clonezilla live (Default settings, VGA 1,024x768)’ by either pressing Enter immediately, or by waiting for the countdown timer to reach zero.

If there are any problems, particularly with the look of the program, try using the 800x600 or 640x480 modes instead.

After selecting the mode, there will be a pause while all the necessary files are read from the disc and loaded into memory.

Although at times it may seem as if nothing is happening, the activity light on the front of the disc drive should indicate otherwise.

It may take a little while, but once Clonezilla has been copied into the memory, use the menu that is displayed to select the correct language and press Enter.

Make sure that the option labelled ‘Don’t touch keymap’ is highlighted and press Enter, select the first option from the Start Clonezilla menu and press Enter once again.

You should find that you can use a mouse to choose from the various options that are displayed, but if this is not the case, use the cursor (arrow) keys instead, pressing Enter to make selections.

Two options for cloning
Clonezilla can be used in one of two ways. The first option is to work with an image file.

This means either creating a single file (the image file) that replicates the contents of an existing drive or partition, or recovering the contents of an existing image file to a drive.

The second option is to cut out the imaging process and simply copy the contents of one drive or partition to another.

For now, we are going to concentrate on working with image files, as this is a quick, easy and space-efficient means of creating a backup of the entire contents of a hard disk.

At the first screen, select the option labelled ‘device-image disk/partition to/from image’ and press Enter.

The next screen is labelled ‘Mount clonezilla image directory’ and lists a number of confusing-sounding options.