Using Clonezilla to clone my Hard drive

[lemmerdeur]

I have a T42 and I need more room on my hard drive. I purchased a new 250gb hard drive and a live cd with Clonezilla. There is no instructions with Clonezilla and I would like to know how to use it. Thank you in advance for your help

[Norway Pad]

I use Clonezilla as my main imaging application. The first time I used it, I think I used this tutorial, a nice step by step tutorial:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/free ... tware.html

Put the CD in your cd drive, and make the laptop boot from here. If you are saving your image onto and restoring it back from an external USB drive, you can go with the selections that are highlighted in this tutorial. The exception is the menu where you select what parts to save. I use the top choice, "savedisk - save_local_disc_as_an_image". That saves all the partitions as one single image; I guess that's what you want to do. This is also the menu where you do a different selection when you put the image *back* on the new drive. (Select restoredisk, if you selected savedisk when you created the image) And make sure you know which partition/drive is which. I believe an external USB drive comes up as sda instead of hda.

Be aware that when you restore the image on your new drive, the total size of the partition(s) will be the same size as your old hard drive. So you will need to use a partition manager application to extend the size of the partition(s) to actually fill your entire drive.

[GomJabbar]

Be aware that when you restore the image on your new drive, the total size of the partition(s) will be the same size as your old hard drive. So you will need to use a partition manager application to extend the size of the partition(s) to actually fill your entire drive.

That happened to me the first time I tried Clonezilla, but there is a way to prevent this. On my second attempt, I was able to make full use of the larger hard drive. Sorry I don't remember the details atm, but it is something like restore partition instead of restoring the drive (the default option).

EDIT: Also, put the target drive (new drive) in the main hard drive slot of the ThinkPad when cloning, and put the source drive (old drive) in the 2nd HDD adapter or external enclosure. After cloning, shutdown the ThinkPad and disconnect or remove the source drive before booting up the new drive. I've read that two copies of the same version of Windows on one computer can lead to significant problems.

[Norway Pad]

I imagined there might be a way to do that, yes. I used the partition restore once, but I think that only gave me the option of restoring separate partitions in their original size, instead of the entire drive. So I suspect you maybe used the device/device mode, where you just transfer the image from one drive directly onto the other, and that there might be some setting there(?) Using this mode is probably an easier solution in this case, to avoid having to go through separate save/restore processes. As long as you have equipment to install your old drive in an external enclosure or UltraBay adapter, that is. I have never tried that, so I couldn't give specific advices on it. But I will look into finding out though, to use in cases like this.

I use Clonezilla as a backup tool as well, so I store images on an USB drive, and I always keep one image taken when the installation was brand new (to revert to in case a fresh installation is needed), in addition to one with the latest applications that I can go back to in case of HD crash or other major failure.

[rkawakami]

Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak:

http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/g ... ve-use.php

[lemmerdeur]

First I want to thank you all for your help.
I am still not 100% sure of what to do at the start.
I insert the live cd of Clonezilla in the optical drive of my T42 and boot from it.
The instruction say:
# Prepare Clonezilla live
# Boot your Clonezilla live via USB ???
I have my new hard drive (blank) connected via USB port in a external enclosure
Is it better to have a external HDD enclosure with double USB or external power?
I have one with double USB and when connected to my T42, I don`t see it in "my computer"
A red light comes on and I don`t know if it should turn green. I have no message stating it found a new hardware. Is that normal?

[Norway Pad]

I am almost wondering if you don't have the right cd. You probably have a cd from where you can create a live cd or a bootable USB device. If that's the case, "Prepare Clonezilla Live" would be the right option, and it should either give you the Live CD menu, or give you options to create one. I have only downloaded my Clonezillas as .iso or .zip files, depending on whether intend to boot from a cd or a USB stick.

If you don't figure out what to do with your cd, I can give you another solution I know will work: Download the ISO directly http://clonezilla.org/download/sourcefo ... -files.php and burn it on a cd. This is freeware, so it'll only cost you a cd-r, and then you can make sure you deal with the same menus as in the tutorial. Since you have the new drive already connected, there is no reason for you to go through the save image / restore image steps. You should just go with the device / device option. Menus and choices should be pretty straight forward in this mode as well, but I have, like I said, never used this mode, so I can not give specific advice. Others will have to fill in here if you run into issues.

Most external USB drives with 2.5" drives are powered through USB, and I assume that by "double USB", you mean a cable that uses two USB ports. That should manage to power your drive, given that you are using the right cable for it. It should show up as new hardware, or worst case in your device manager as "Unknown device". Red is usually not the color used for a status ok/idle signal, so I would think it's trying to tell you something is not right. But there are too many things here that can be wrong for me to dare make a guess.

[GomJabbar]

I have my new hard drive (blank) connected via USB port in a external enclosure

That may work or it may not. The only sure way is to have the "new hard drive (blank)" in the main hard drive slot of the computer that you plan to use it on when you do the cloning. I mentioned this already...