Need a Bootcamp partition imaging utility for Lion

JacaByte · Jul 22, 2011

I've been using Windows 7 on my MBP since I got it in 2010, and have been using WinClone under Snow Leopard to make an image of my bootcamp partition for backup reasons. I want to back up my bootcamp partition before upgrading to Lion, but the trouble is that WinClone doesn't work on Lion, so if Lion somehow goofs up my bootcamp partition I won't be able to restore it.

So what I need is a imaging utility like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper that works with NTFS partitions but is not WinClone, and works with Snow Leopard and Lion. Anybody know of an application that will suffice?

dalstott · Jul 22, 2011

Here is the text from a post made by "The Hatter" on the Apple BootCamp forum. I have Casper 6 and it is easy to use. I have ordered Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite as it seems to be a bit better.

Cloning Apps for Windows on Mac
*
You should bite the bullet after making backups and try one or more as if you were writing a review.
*Acronis won't. It must support GPT (and EFI). I think the same for Ghost.
*One program for 'foreign' OS also means you are asking a lot, maybe a linux CD for instance.
*Not everyone has the same results too. Clonzilla works but some thought "oh, that is too complicated."
Casper 6 works for Windows on Boot Camp only, and was the first commercial program. You just use SuperDuper for your HFS partition.
*You will need NTFS for your Windows clone.
*CopyCatX is more lengthy and sector copy so takes the longest.
*
Paragon has come out with more programs to support Apple Boot Camp than anyone else, but I only use the one that I need and have not used it in the manner you want.
Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite
blog.paragon-software.com
Paragon Drive Copy Pro - Hard Disk Copy, Disk Cloning and System Migration

dalstott · Jul 22, 2011

I forgot to include these urls.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/

http://www.fssdev.com/products/

JacaByte · Jul 22, 2011

I guess my real problem is I don't want to shell out $30-$50 dollars on a program I'm only going to use once or twice a year. Though you might say that I'm paying for reliability, that doesn't really matter to me because I have all my mission critical documents and such stored in my Dropbox.

Clonezilla looks like the way to go, I'll take a closer look at it later.

ECD · Jul 23, 2011

Please Provide a Review of Lion Boot Camp Backup and Restore Solution

I also have been using WinClone to successfully back up and restore my boot camp partition containing Win 7. I desperately want to install Lion, but will not make the change until I am confident in an alternative boot camp backup program.

I am not concerned about backing up my data because I already store all of that on my home server, with frequent secondary backups stored off site. I just don't want to deal with having to reinstall Windows and all my Windows programs in the event of a problem with my boot camp partition.

I have sent emails to Paragon Sales to find out if their software will back up the boot camp windows partition on Lion; but, have received no replies. At this point I have no confidence in Paragon Software because they do a terrible job in following up on questions posted to their own forum, and they do not seem to respond to e-mails.

PLEASE, if someone finds a good solution and has tested a restore operation with success, then you will help many of us if you post the steps here. I am perfectly willing to spend the money to purchase a good solution; but, I'd like to be able to see the software manual that documents the process.

JacaByte · Jul 23, 2011

What I've done is use DiskUtility to create a new image of my Bootcamp partition. If I need to restore, I'll have to use Bootcamp to create a NTFS drive partition and NTFS-3G or something so I can use DiskUtility to write the image back to the Bootcamp partition. Should work in theory, if I need to do this I'll let you guys know if it works.

Edit: fixed minor spelling error.

ECD · Jul 23, 2011

JacaByte said:
What I've done is use DiskUtility to create a new image of my Bootcamp partition. If I need to restore, I'll have to use Bootcamp to create a NTFS drive partition and NTFS-3G or something so I can use DiskUtility to write the image back to the Bootcamp partition. Should work in theory, if need to do this I'll let you guys know if it works.

I look forward to your letting us know if this works.

I hope that you will provide a detailed step-by-step description of your boot camp backup/restore process under Lion. I am a senior citizen with limited mac experience -- hence, a bit of extra discussion would really help!

JacaByte · Jul 23, 2011

Hmm. There appears to be a snag in my plan; there's no way to introduce NTFS write support to Lion. (NTFS-3G and ntfsMounter are unsupported by Lion at the moment.)

Now, if you use Windows XP and your boot camp partition gets nuked while upgrading to Lion you can set the format for your Bootcamp partition to FAT32 and "Burn" the backup image you made of the partition under Snow Leopard to the FAT32 partition using Disk Utility. Once this has been done XP has a utility called convert.exe that can be used to take a FAT32 partition and convert it to NTFS.

Windows 7 may or may not have the same functionality, I'll have to go rooting around my Bootcamp install sometime.

And it's possible that there's an easier way, e.g. using a Linux distro with a disk imager and NTFS support to write the disk image to your Bootcamp partition.

balamw · Jul 23, 2011

JacaByte said:
And it's possible that there's an easier way, e.g. using a Linux distro with a disk imager and NTFS support to write the disk image to your Bootcamp partition.

i.e. Clonezilla.

I really don't see why ntfsprogs, which is basically the engine Winclone was using won't work under Lion.

Winclone does a few things to re-enable booting that are not included in ntfsprogs which you might have to emulate somehow. These are done with dd, and that still ships with Lion.

Hopefully some time, I'll get Lion on my internal HDD and can play with it.

B

JacaByte · Jul 23, 2011

Is ntfsprogs available via MacPorts? If so, I'd be in business.

balamw · Jul 23, 2011

https://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/sysutils/ntfsprogs/Portfile

B

JacaByte · Jul 23, 2011

So, would you agree that using ntfsclone to grab a disc image of the bootcamp partition before the Lion upgrade, as well as using dd to grab the first 512 bytes of the partition (for the MBR and partition table), installing Lion, then using ntfsclone to write the image back to disk then dd to replace the MBR and partition table, is the way to go without Winclone?

balamw · Jul 24, 2011

JacaByte said:
So, would you agree that using ntfsclone to grab a disc image of the bootcamp partition before the Lion upgrade, as well as using dd to grab the first 512 bytes of the partition (for the MBR and partition table), installing Lion, then using ntfsclone to write the image back to disk then dd to replace the MBR and partition table, is the way to go without Winclone?

That's basically all Winclone is doing. It just provides a GUI and container format to contain the image.

B

mkflyfish · Jul 24, 2011

at roaringapps.com other users have reported that winclone works with Lion if you use (System/Library/CoreServices/)SystemVersion.plist from Snowy.

http://roaringapps.com/app:904

Kludge420 · Aug 15, 2011

mkflyfish said:
at roaringapps.com other users have reported that winclone works with Lion if you use (System/Library/CoreServices/)SystemVersion.plist from Snowy.

http://roaringapps.com/app:904

Unfortunately they are typical Internet users that just want to hear their own voices and they haven't actually tried it. If they had they would see it does not work.

In fact the next time any of you want to say, "I haven't tried it but..." just stop yourselves. Just say "I haven't tried it..." to yourself over and over again so you can hear your lovely voice and not bother clogging up the Internet with useless posts.

Now if you will excuse me I have work to do; I hear the sound of someone being wrong on the Internet.

ZBoater · Aug 15, 2011

Would the build in backup/restore software of Windows work? I mean, in case of disaster, once could theoretically reinstall Windows without any updates or apps and run the built in restore utility?

jgATL · Sep 20, 2011

ZBoater said:
Would the build in backup/restore software of Windows work? I mean, in case of disaster, once could theoretically reinstall Windows without any updates or apps and run the built in restore utility?

I found that Windows Vista/7 backup/recovery software does a full hard drive, not just partition overlay. So no, it won't work.

I just recently lost my full bootcamp partition. I had my backup on Windows Home Server. See post here on wegotserved.com. I used a combination of Clonezilla and ReFit (to fix the MBR) to get it reinstalled.

gigadigit · Sep 20, 2011

I have a win home server also. Are there any easier ways to backup/clone the MAC and Win7 boot camp partition to the server? I read the wegotserved.com forum and it seems to be too much work just to back up/restore my computer.

jgATL said:
I just recently lost my full bootcamp partition. I had my backup on Windows Home Server. See post here on wegotserved.com. I used a combination of Clonezilla and ReFit (to fix the MBR) to get it reinstalled.

dimme · Sep 20, 2011

jgATL said:
I just recently lost my full bootcamp partition. I had my backup on Windows Home Server. See post here on wegotserved.com. I used a combination of Clonezilla and ReFit (to fix the MBR) to get it reinstalled.

Would it be easier to just do a winclone back up to the Windows Home Server.
Winclone still works under Snow Leopard. If you are running Lion all you need is a spare external hard drive running Snow Leopard, Boot from that and do your backups & restores.

MacCentric · Mar 30, 2012

TwoCanoes says Lion supported

Not sure when it happened, but according to their website, Winclone does support Lion.

dimme · Mar 30, 2012

Yes but it is no longer free. $19.95 for a single user.

dalstott · Mar 31, 2012

dimme said:
Yes but it is no longer free. $19.95 for a single user.

True, but now there is an incentive for the new developer to keep it current and in working order. Current version is 3.1 and requires OS X 10.6 or OS X 10.7. Supposed to work with Windows 7, Vista, or XP on a Bootcamp partition.

Balrama · Apr 10, 2012

Hi all

This is a topic I have been following for since I got my first Mac a year ago and I get the impression that there is still no answer to this problem, the problem being the ability to create an Image of your Bootcamp Partition and Restore it successfully

I must admit that I find this staggering that there appears to be no solution for this.

Is the following possible?

1 - Use Disk Utility that comes with OSX to make and restore and image
2 - Use System Image that is built into Windows
3 - What are the OSX disk imaging tools that take an image from say boot and are indifferent to the drive format

Now with 1 or 2 above will they work 'as is' or would you need to say recreate your Bootcamp partition, format it NTFS and then restore the image

murphychris · Apr 10, 2012

Balrama said:
This is a topic I have been following for since I got my first Mac a year ago and I get the impression that there is still no answer to this problem, the problem being the ability to create an Image of your Bootcamp Partition and Restore it successfully

Why an "image" rather than a file based backup? It's unclear what problem you have with existing backup tools for Windows.

Need a Bootcamp partition imaging utility for Lion

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