Clonezilla, Kleo Bare Metal Backup, Mondo Rescue

[tmetro-blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org (Tom Metro)]

James Kramer wrote:
> 2. I am planning to make a backup copy of the system using Clonezilla
> so that in the unlikely event that something happens while trying to
> install Debian, I can restore the original system.  Is Clonezilla the
> best choice for this?

I recently tried out Kleo Bare Metal Backup (http://www.kleobackup.net/) 
as an alternative to Clonezilla, and I prefer Kleo's UI.

But both tools are wrappers for partimage, and partimage has numerous 
weaknesses as a backup tool:

-It has no automation to backup multiple partitions.

-The MBR/partition table backup functionality doesn't seem to work all 
that well. Aside from the confusing UI for MBR restoration, I kept 
getting a nonsensical "device busy" error. Plan B was to dd the first 
512 bytes and use "sfdisk -d" to save the partition table. But when I 
tested a restore to a raw disk, the drive wasn't bootable. I ended up 
having to use dd to capture all sectors up to the start of the first 
partition.

-partimage, being a partition tool, provides no means to exclude known 
disposable files from a backup.

-partimage apparently provides no means to verify a backup.

Mondo Rescue used to be the tool I turned to to address all of these 
weaknesses, but it seems to be suffering from some quality issues 
lately, and I wasn't able to get it running under 64-bit Ubuntu 9.04. 
Also, due to a different design philosophy, unlike these other tools it 
lacks a pre-built live CD, which can make it trickier to get working.

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/