Awesome Technology: Using Backups to Save Time

Its always tedious job to Format Computer, Install OS, install software's & then configure them takes 2-3 hours but you can easily save this time by backing up clean system drive & then restoring it whenever there’s problem. Restoring backup will hardly takes some minutes. ( depending on backup size. Vanilla Windows 8 installation can be restored in 8-10minuts )

So Advantages of Backup are:

1. No need to waste 2-3 hours

2. No need to install & configure system that you already done in backup

3. No need to pay attention to restore process, once started do your work.

In this tutorial I am using Clonezilla as backup & restore software, its free & open source, you can read more on Wikipedia & its website.

What's Needed?

1. Clonezilla ISO file

2. Unetbootin

3. Pen drive

Steps:

1. Start Unetbootin & select Clonezilla ISO file, select your pen drive letter & click OK

2. Now Unetbootin will start installing clonezilla on Pen Drive

3. You can click on reboot once installing gets done.

4. Now start clonezilla

5. Select Device image if you want to make drive or whole disk backup or restore on same disk ( backup/restore from same disk –> on same disk )

6. Select local dev to save clonezilla image on local hard disk.

7. Now Select drive where to save backup or from where to restore backup

8. Select folder where to save backup or restore.

9. Select Beginner mode if you don't want to select verbose options like backup program, compression scheme.. ( Defaults are used in this mode )

10. If you want to backup partition (e.g. system partition C drive ) select saveparts else if you want to backup whole disk including all partitions then select savedisk.

11. Enter name for backup or use default

12. Now select drive to backup ( use space to select ) & click OK

13. You can skip checking of drive that is going to backup.

14. You can also skip checking saved image ( If you sure there are no hard disk problems like bad sectors are there )

15. Backup is started now.

Now you successfully backup your drive. ( Be careful while choosing correct system drive, From Windows Vista (i think) there is 100MB partition which boots first so if you want complete backup of system drive you must backup this partition & system partition ( normally c drive), although backing up only system partition ( e.g. c drive ) alone is sufficient )

Restoration Process:

Situations:

1. System is not booting at-all :

In this case if you have Linux cd, start system from it, connect to internet & download & use Unetbootin from it.

or

Go to Friend & get pen drive bootable from him or write clonezilla cd.

2. System is booting but something is wrong :

Try to make pen drive bootable as Linux binaries are completely different from Windows malware most likely can’t affect Clonezilla files OR try to boot in Safe mode by pressing F8 at the start or system & make pen drive bootable or write cd.

3. There is beep sound at start up :

In this case clonezilla cant do anything, this is hardware problem, count beeps & Google this count to get meaning or consult hardware shop.

Steps:

1. Select partition where clonezilla backup files are stored.

2. Select folder of backup files if you given different folder while backup else leave it default ( backup folder is situated outside in drive )

3. Select mode Beginner is you don't want to see verbose options

4. Select “restoreparts” if you want to restore only specific partition not whole disk.

5. Select backup image to restore.

6. Select Target partition which will get formatted & restored from backup ( if backup is System partition then carefully select correct system partition )