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SelfImage: The open-source hard disk imaging utility

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KenR:
Here is a nice, freeware program for creating backups of your operating system and software. If you don't already have a backup program of this type, you would be doing yourself an enormous favor by downloading and trying this program. To give you some perspective, it would take someone between 80-100 hours for me to rebuild my system from scratch. With my backup program though (analogous to this freeware program), I can restore it from my 8GB image in about 30 minutes.

SelfImage is the little hard drive utility with big aspirations.
SelfImage is capable of making an image file of a hard disk or hard disk partition, and can restore an image back to any drive or partition that doesn't have open files.  Useful for making backups.  Unlike dd for Windows (or cygwin), SelfImage is capable of creating an image of a partition that is currently in use.
Additionally, when run on Windows 2000 or XP, SelfImage can create images of partitions that Windows doesn't even recognize or have mounted on a drive letter.  Perfect for the dual-boot system, you can create an image backup of a Linux partition directly from Windows.
Features include:
    * Create 1:1 image files of any mounted (or unmounted on Windows 2000/XP) hard disk partition
    * Can create an image of an entire hard disk, including the master boot record, partition table, and all partitions (Windows 2000/XP)...

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http://selfimage.excelcia.org/




from http://shellcity.net/

mouser:
This looks like a very promising tool, but just keep in mind that it is relatively new and probably not nearly as thoroughly tested as some of the big disk cloning/backup tools.  So I agree with ken completely that you need a disk imaging tool, i'd be a little hesitant to depend on a new tool until you check it out thoroughly and get some more reports about it, etc.  I'd be very interested in hearing if anyone uses it and how they like it and how well it works, etc.

TucknDar:
Ok, so beeing a Necromancer here, but is anyone using SelfImage actively? It hasn't been updated since this thread was started, so either it's working just as it should be or it's just been abandoned...

I'd like to hear if anyone has any experiences using this to restore an image :feedback:

40hz:
Words of wisdom: Never 'beta' when it comes to backup and security software.


Two tools that you can depend on to create reliable disk images are Conezilla and Acronis TrueImage.


Clonezilla is much more powerful, sports an uglier interface, uses a lot of non-Windows terminology, and must be run from the live CD if you're a Windows user. It is free under GPL. It gets the job done - and the some.  http://www.clonezilla.org

TrueImage is also quite powerful, has a very pretty graphic interface, uses terminology most users are familiar with, and can be run either from within Windows, or from the live CD. It also gets the job done.

For most people, TrueImage is probably the better choice. The only real knock I have with TrueImage is that there seems to be more and more "feature bloat" (and price hikes) with each new release.

I vastly prefer the simplicity of Version 8 or 9 to the current Version 11. I still use version 8 even though I have the newest versions.  Opinions aside, TrueImage is still an excellent program, although the average $39 US street price makes it somewhat expensive for such a specialized app.

Especially when you hope you're never going to actually need to use it. ;)

TucknDar:
Thanks, 40hz! I'll take a look at Clonezilla. I've considered Acronis, but hoping to find something that's free...

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