Are there any alternatives to Winclone?

[balamw]

Here it is.

ERROR(16): Opening '/dev/disk3' as NTFS failed: Resource busy

Are you running anything that could be attaching to the newly created resource?
Anti-virus, 3rd party NTFS driver software, HDD manufacturer's software...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1060282/

EDIT: Hey what do you know I'm a 603!

B

 

[greamelexon]

I must say I am a little surprised an enterprising individual have not went to revive Winclone or offer an alternative. It seems that many users of OSX out there that need a Bootcamp partition backup solution. I would do myself, except I do not know.

 

[sonare]

ERROR(16): Opening '/dev/disk3' as NTFS failed: Resource busy

Are you running anything that could be attaching to the newly created resource?
Anti-virus, 3rd party NTFS driver software, HDD manufacturer's software...

B

I formatted the new HD; partitioned with Bootcamp asst (150GB for Bootcamp); installed 10.5 and updated, opened Winclone and was attempting to restore when the msg appeared. Was not using any of the things you named-- to my knowledge, anyway.

Rich

 

[balamw]

Was not using any of the things you named-- to my knowledge, anyway.

I don't see anything obvious in your log, but something is accessing your image without it being mounted.

Do you have enough room to let you copy the winclone image to your OS X partition? So you can disconnect your USB drive?

Are you comfortable running commands from Terminal.app?

B

 

[sonare]

The Winclone image is on an ext USB-- I am comfortable using Console (but have not much). I thought that the only way to get the Winclone dmg over to to the Macbook was to have it restore it from the USB to the Macbook. You seem to be implying that I can drag it over, unmount the USB, and then restore. Correct? When expanded it will be around 100GB and the prtition is 150. I did note that it is FAT32 and and am pretty sure the dmg was in NTFS. Should I re-format rhe partition first? Or will it ask me to do it if necessary?

Rich

 

[balamw]

If you have enough room in the OS X partition to copy over the compressed winclone file from the external that would eliminate a variable.

I presume it's ~60-70 GB right now?

I'd do that first, disconnect the USB drive entirely, and try Winclone again.

I did note that it is FAT32 and and am pretty sure the dmg was in NTFS. Should I re-format rhe partition first? Or will it ask me to do it if necessary?

This will be handled for you as part of the restore if we can get it to work.

The step it is bombing on is the critical step. You need to get it past it somehow.

B

 

[sonare]

MANY thanks-- it will be Monday before I can try this.

Rich

 

[sonare]

It worked!!

Happy to report that copying the bootcamp dmg to the Mac partition and restoring from there to the bootcamp partition was the answer. This is terrific for two reasons-- it saved me several hours of work doing clean installs with PC programs, and showed me for the first time how to restore with Winclone. Heretofore it was only a "subconscious security blanket"-- now I know how to use it.

I still do not know about the FAT32/NTFS question but testing will likely give the answer.

Rich

 

[balamw]

Happy to report that copying the bootcamp dmg to the Mac partition and restoring from there to the bootcamp partition was the answer.

Good to hear that it worked! Still leaves the question of why it failed in the first place. Can you tell us what external HDD you have?

It should be NTFS now.

B

 

[sonare]

It is a USB bus powered 250GB HDD from Verbatim. The actual drive is a TOSHIBA MK2555GSX The whole thing was about $50 on Amazon. This drive is what I sometimes record to with the smaller of my 3 location recording rigs. I have another one for the daily backups with my MacMini (the "rest of life" machine). My MacBook Pro (the "main machine") has a dedicated mini FW for "emergencies" and I also have a DROBO with 6TB. All my audio work is done in XP pro in Sequoia-- hence the concern for the bootcamp partition, which has "magically" become NTFS after the restore.

The mantra in digital recording is "never turn your back on digital."

Rich

www.sonarerecordings.com

 

[bobkatz]

Winclone worked just fine for me and I'm running snow leopard. I used it just a couple weeks ago to clone my windows partition. (running windows 7)

Don't be so sure it will restore! I've discovered that since about February snow leopard has changed enough so that winclone images will not restore. Something about apple changing to the sparsebundle format or changing this format around 10.6.5. Or winclone no longer being able to write the MBR. Don't quote me on that exact fact, but I can confirm my winclone images made in SL would not restore in SL. That left me high and dry when my bootcamp drive developed a bad sector!


The good news is I created a special leopard partition and can confirm that winclone will restore these images properly in that environment. Sad situation. The developer probably threw up his hands at that development as he's at the mercy of certain existing Macos tools

I flirted with Deploy studio, kept on getting bugs when trying to write the win image file. I'm sure it's something specific and curable and deploy studio is a currently supported product with its forum. But I didn't have time for the nonsense and felt that maintaining a special leopard partition to run winclone is my best bet for the moment.

When I upgrade my entire audio mastering DAW to win 7 from xp on this macpro, I'll reconsider moving to deploy studio as a replacement for winclone

Hope this helps

 

[balamw]

I've discovered that since about February snow leopard has changed enough so that winclone images will not restore.

There seem to be a number of reasons why Winclone restores fail currently, but many of them appear to be Winclone's fault for not doing enough error checking. I've helped a bunch of folks in the forum restore manually using the command line tools Winclone relies on.

B

 

[greenythebeast]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

Hoping someone can help me with my restore problem. When trying to restore a compressed DMG image of my W7 bootcamp partition, winclone just hangs on the mounting phase of the restore. It doesnt even error out, just sits there trying to mount the backup unsuccessfully. Any ideas?

 

[dimme]

What does the log file say?

 

[greenythebeast]

What does the log file say?

I tried an uncompressed dmg and it worked! Took a long time but whatever. Hopefully someone will make a new app soon!

 

[jawado]

Hello Everyone

I am having problems with Winclone as well but here is my case:
Because my iMac's optical drive failed and I have tried every option online to install Windows without using the optical drive but non of the options I have found worked for me.
I decided to install my Windows7 on my Mac Book Pro, then winClone it to my iMac. Before Wincloning windows 7, I Wincloned my Xp partition and that carried through fine to the iMac. Then I got greedy, and installed the Windows 7 update on the Mac Book Pro, and again tried to Winclone it to my iMac. Everything seemed to work, and Winclone did not report any errors !
However, when I restart the computer to boot into windows, it starts the boot and then in less than a second ( and as the windows loading screen is showing up ) it restarts again, and it keeps going on like this. I tried different options per the thread, I tried the DMG and the uncompressed, everything I tried resulted in the same symptoms, before Windows 7 has the chance to load, it restarts.

Any idea of how I can solve this ? Its driving me insane that I cannot install using external drives nor USB with rEFIT and now no Winclone. What am I doing wrong ? and how come the XP carried thru flawlessly but the Windows7 is giving me problems ?

Thanks in advance guys

 

[sonare]

FOUND: software that makes a disc image of BOTH Mac & Bootcamp!

This will not help the folks who have already been bitten in some way by Winclone but it could be THE silver bullet for the boot camp conundrum. The answer is Paragon Software-- who support folks who have lots of servers in the PC world. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/brh/features.html

I spoke with Tech Support-- their software must be installed in bootcamp and the backup image must be to an external NTFS drive (bus-powered USB is fine). Once the backup of the ENTIRE drive is done you can use it on a new non-formatted drive (as in case of a HD failure).

I will be testing this, and encourage others to do the same-- if you look around their site you will find several free downloads.

 

[balamw]

Interesting. The GPT and Boot Camp specific bullets at the bottom of the page make it interesting.

It's not clear if it fully supports resizing HFS+ though, which would be necessary for resizing your Mac or Boot Camp partitions.

Let us know how you make out with it.

B

 

[sonare]

I asked about partition size and was told that it could re-size but it was best not to have to. Much better to install in same size (or larger) partitions.

Rich

 

[DonCarlos]

Well as I mentioned early in this thread Winclone has always worked for me in Leopard and SL......it was a fantastic application. But now with Lion, I was unable to get any of the 4 versions that I have of winclone to work. Each said must be running Leopard or SL

I must say I am a little surprised an enterprising individual have not went to revive Winclone or offer an alternative. It seems that many users of OSX out there that need a Bootcamp partition backup solution

I definitely agree with that. What a great opportunity for a highly skilled computer master to take a "swing" at making an alternative. I will not mention names ...
balamw
balamw
balamw

But if there were a competent person...
balamw
Then I would mention that name...
balamw

I mention this all with good intent and well meaning spirit and not trying to put you on the spot. I can understand the time and work involved in such a task. But I would "buy it" most definitely. At as we now progress into Lion I think many would agree that it is sorely needed. I sure do not want to go what I just went through in installing Lion and then having to reinstall W7.
.

Best Regards
Don

 

[balamw]

Well as I mentioned early in this thread Winclone has always worked for me in Leopard and SL......it was a fantastic application. But now with Lion, I was unable to get any of the 4 versions that I have of winclone to work.

It's still on my list, though real work comes first. I also have to get Lion on one of my boxes first, and somehow accepted becoming a mod here which leaves me with even less time.

I had a brainstorm on getting Windows on ODD-less Macs too via USB which I want to experiment with.

Too many projects, too little time.

B

 

[sonare]

I definitely agree with that. What a great opportunity for a highly skilled computer master to take a "swing" at making an alternative.

What I do not get is that Paragon seems to have done exactly that. From a business perspective they have an advantage of being a company that already has a reputation (and web presence) in the data backup world. Their biggest advantage, however, is that they were first. Now, the rest of us can wring our hands that balamw wasn't the first--- or we can download the Paragon product for free and see if they have "landed on the moon or not."

I am going to try their software, and if it does what they say it can, I can finally breathe easy that my entire "business in a computer" is backed up in a manner that is usable and dependable.

Or maybe I am missing something...

 

[balamw]

Or maybe I am missing something...

What Winclone did that Clonezilla or Paragon doesn't do is image your Boot Camp partition from within a working OS X system. This is the bit that is still missing today.

For those of us who prefer to run OS X on our systems and are used to live tools like CCC/SuperDuper this remains a big deal.

EDIT: I'm actually more curious about this Paragon tool that is currently on sale for $10. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/pm-personal/

B

 

[dimme]

Just tried Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite

Now that I am running Lion and Winclone no longer works...
I tried Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite, a friend lent me his cd because I need to move my Win 7 partition to a new drive. I made a archive with no problem and saved it to a external drive. When I did the restore I canceled it after 24 hours it said it had another 23 hours to go. It's only 81 GB not sure if it is reliable, I have a older winclone image so I booted into a Snow Leopard partition and winclone took 40 minutes to move the data.
Not sure what to do in the future???

 

[MJL]

Now that I am running Lion and Winclone no longer works...
I tried Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite, a friend lent me his cd because I need to move my Win 7 partition to a new drive. I made a archive with no problem and saved it to a external drive. When I did the restore I canceled it after 24 hours it said it had another 23 hours to go. It's only 81 GB not sure if it is reliable, I have a older winclone image so I booted into a Snow Leopard partition and winclone took 40 minutes to move the data.
Not sure what to do in the future???

I've mentioned elsewhere that I recently experimented a lot with different backup / recovery scenario's. (e.g. a dud HDD) The problem appears to lie around the issue that OS X wants to have GUID partition scheme and Windows a MBR partition shcme resulting in a hybrid partition scheme. Apple mentions not to use third party tools to change this. I did resize a nearly empty OS X partition and make a windows partition larger using Paragon but when I tried the same yesterday with a filled up OS X partition on an external hdd it corrupted the lot, not giving me much confidence that it would be better on an internal hdd.

What I am going to be doing is having OS X on an external raid 1 array (firewire, mac mini mid 2010) and already have windows on an internal ssd (Intel X25M 80 Gb). However whereas before winclone under Snow Leopard could happily see the internal windows partition it now does not know what to do with the ssd....

I am back to using the build in windows backup and restore for the internal ssd with windows but have not much faith in it either: while starting a backup a number of times I got error message telling me the backup location was full, please delete some files etc. while it was empty. Tried different drives to no avail and then suddenly after I copied some other data on it the backup hdd it started to work again. Fortunately no issues with restores. I have not yet tried the Newertech Raid 1 (all the data is still sitting on the individual hdd and I need first to sort everything out, ensuring the system is stable) and then will start experimenting with some of the "freebee" software that came with it. In due course I hope to report back.

PS One reason to move OS X to an external HDD was to use Winclone to backup / restore. Even ordered the retail version of Snow Leopard so I can move the raid easily between different machine, grr....
The second reason moving OS X off the internal SSD is that I do not know how much conflict there is between the OS X / "enabled Trim" (a hack) and the windows Intel Toolbox (not native Trim and build for older OS's like Vista and XP). As far as I can determine Windows 7 does not natively pass the TRIM on to the SSD which is under Boot Camp not running in AHCI. The Toolbox appears to be communicating with the SSD and seems to do its job properly. (based on other observations made over the past 6 months that I have had this SSD running in a Thinkpad (laptop).


I have used CopyCatX to clone a HDD and that does work in one go with a hybrid HDD (not tested on the SSD). Unfortunately the HDD that you are cloning to needs to be of same or larger size than the source. It appears to work very good but since it really copies everything it goes relatively slow, regardless if there is data or not on the disk. A 320 Gb disk took about 4 hours. (running in Snow Leopard) You need three disks: one to run it from and then the one to be copied and the target.