I've only started using Linux Mint and spent the last few days making a bunch of modifications to how it looks. Conky, folders, mouse pointer, Cairo and what not. Got it all set up how I want it and then thought, I wonder if its possible to save this to a bootable USB installer should anything go wrong, I can reinstall everything with a .img just how it was before? The only program I've ever used successfully in Windows was Macrium Reflect, of which I have my Windows 8.1 images safely kept on a separate external drive, should I ever need them. I have made a backup of my Mint system using Timeshift (great program) but I can't figure a way to move that backup to another drive for safe keeping, and then I thought about making a bootable USB ... What do you Linux guru's use for making bootable images? Cheers
Thanks for the reply If I may explain: I have 2x 512GB M.2 Sata SDDs (not RAID) for Windows & Games, and a 2TB Samsung SpinPoint drive for storage in this laptop. Linux Mint is installed on an external 240GB Intel SSD drive via an Orico USB 3.0 HDD enclosure. I tried your suggestion using Clonezilla, but it can only see the drives installed in the laptop, its not listing the external Intel SSD which has Mint installed. Any suggestions? Cheers.
well maybe the enclosure is the issue. Can't you boot into windows and use a windows based backup tool to clone the partition ?
Absolutely. I could use Windows, but my end goal, if possible, is to eventually be Windows free and be able to do these types of processes with Linux.
Try these three: Terabyte Image for Linux (create a boot usb using makedisk.exe); Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 (WinPE based boot USB); Acronis True Image 2016 boot USB.
Figured it out. I dunno about all the above advice (no offence intended), but it seems like an awful lot of work just to have a system image stored just in case things go wrong. I guess this is one of the areas that puts people off using Linux when something as simple as a system image backup is all so complicated. That being said I think I figured out a way to do it, its pretty simple and works. Using a program called Timeshift which makes system backups and stores them on your OS drive, I wanted a backup image for storage in case of drive failure. It took some figuring out as no matter what I tried the back up image just would copy to the USB thumb drive. Then I had to find out how to get root access because of constant errors telling me I didn't have access. After finally finding a way to get root access and trying to copy the system backup I got more errors: "There was an error copying the file into /media/mint/USB Stick/2015-09-08_16-14-32/localhost/home/mint/.config/xpad." When pressing the Show More Details tab I got "Can't copy special file" WOW that's really helpful ... Like I said, Linux can be really unfriendly and offers stuff all help especially when using say Google to search for a meaning to these problems. Page after page after page of useless information not even related to the problem, talk about finding a needle in a haystack. Anyway after much stuffing about I figured is Timeshift is a specific program made for Linux, and though I'd read it had the function to save system backups to other drives, for some reason it could only see my external SSD that has Linux Mint installed, yet was completely blind to my USB thumb drive? A moment of enlightenment as it dawned on me, what was the USB thumb drive formatted too? A quick check and it was formatted to NTFS. Maybe that was the problem? So I reformatted the USB thumb drive to ext4 and low and behold Timeshift could now see my USB thumb drive Hallelujah!!!! In the end after much #*^@!!^%# Timeshift finally installed a system backup to my USB thumb drive for safe keeping. Not exactly what I was looking for, as a bootable USB thumb drive would be more to my liking, but this will have to do. What it means is, should the day ever arise and a hard drive failure emergency happens, I would have to go through the process of reinstalling Linux Mint, then install Timeshift, then plug in the USB thumb drive, and use Timeshift to restore the system backup image from the USB thumb drive. Meh, better than a kick in the pants I suppose ...
I am using True Image for years without any problems. Actual I am using 2014 HD Edition which came free with a 7 Euro 2.5->3-5" SSD mounting frame. True Image has imho the best compression/speed ratio of all backup solutions I ever tried (beside outdated PQDI). I only use the windows part of True Image once to create the boot medium.
For starters redo backup didn't work for me. Made the USB/image fine enough, but when it came time to restore, it failed. It seems the program is very hit and miss for many users, not to mention the fact that its old and not even supported anymore. Secondly I am serching for something that does a complete system restore. Which means including user data. So far many of the back-up options are limited in size - roughly 4GB+ give or take. I am looking for something that will allow a 60GB backup or more without limitations. To be honest, I've played around with so many so called backup options for Linux (here and other forums) I've pretty much given up on the idea until something is released that actually works. My only experience (that actually works as advertised) has been with Macrium Reflect, which I have used for my Windows system. A simple couple of clicks and everything is backed-up and stored on a separate drive for safe keeping. Maybe one day something will be released that actually works (for all users and their different requirements) until then, I'll just simply keep my eyes open and hopefully not get criticized in the process ...