CloneDisk

Nice catch : "disks and parts" option seems to have a bug.

Going to play with multi parts disks then and fix quickly.

Good to hear the "part" option is fixed !

Thanks for the feedback.

Erwan

Bug solved : now all parts will be displayed (below respective disk) when ticking "display disks and parts".

Hi erwan,

Now, CloneDisk displays all the partitions when I click Display Disks and Parts. Thanks.

Hello There,

Been a while since last update.

Latest version changes :

• added : can backup/restore to/from a wim file (using MS WIMGAPI)
• added : can mount/unmount a wim file
• added : get information about an image within the .wim file

CloneDisk can now backup/restore to/from a plain raw file OR a WIM file.

The WIM file format is handy as it stores only the used datas and compresses it.

Side note for dev guys : WIMGAPI is a PITA when it comes to threading and callbacks...

Regards,

Erwan

Hello,

I want to virtualize a harddisk that is from an old ssl/vpn appliance. Therefor I took the harddisk out of the appliance and mounted it to my computer. The disk contains several partitions. I think it is vital that all partitions must be preserverd. Some are for licenses, etc.

Hereto I thought to use clonedisk 2.0 and start with creating a backup to image. (That is the first step in obtaining vmdk file right?)  But I get the error "could not createfile"?

Any idea what went wrong? Thanks.

Jan-Kees

Hi Kees777,

If you want all partitions then indeed you need to select a 'disk' item, not a 'part' item.

Regarding the createfile error it is either an issue when accessing the "to be cloned" disk or when creating the target image.

I would need a screenshot to know more.

Once you have an image file of your disk, you will indeed be able to generate a vmdk pointing to the img file.

I cannot guarantee thus if it will start in vmware : some O.S will accomodate and redetect devices, some others not.

Regards,

Erwan

PS : download latest version (2.0.1) which will give you more details on the createfile error when backuping a disk or partition.

Hi Erwan,

I just downloaded the version 2.0.1 from the website. I realize the error was simply caused because I had launched the program without administrator permission.

So now I created an "backup to image" from the disk. I noticed that the file was created without any extension. So I renamed the file to sa700.img. Next step is to make a vmdk file from the img file.

Hereto I am now in advanced mode and , in "disk image" section, where it says "Turn a Disk Image into a Vmware or MS Virtual Server file".

I have the img file selected and click on "Make", it has already the "save as type" selected as vmdk and I select a location and a file name.

I get now a popup that says " wrong extension!". What went wrong?

Cheers,

Jan-Kees

You need to call the file XXX.vmdk (the vmdk extension is important).

If the extension is different from '.vmdk' then you'll get "wrong extension" error.

The vmdk is basically a text file with basic informations for vmware.

Clonedisk will simply calculate the cylinder/head/sector (c.h.s) for you based on the image file you have selected.

With that vmdk you shall then be able to add it to a vmware guest.

Example below :

# produced by CloneDisk
# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=ded23225
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="monolithicFlat"
# Extent description
RW 2097152 FLAT "test.img" 0
# The Disk Data Base
#DDB
ddb.adapterType = "buslogic"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "131"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"

Hi Erwan,

It worked! To explicitly having to type in the extension (vmdk) is not very intuitive though.

Vmware guest boots now. I see a boot loader. Now next problem is to change the network interface to E1000. No idea how to do that with vmware workstation. But this is now off topic.

Thanks.

Jan-Kees

Hi Kees,

Good news : happy it worked out for you.

I am no linux expert (it is linux right?) but I guess you would need to add/mount the correct network drivers.

I also believe you have several network cards possible in vmware workstation : may be one them will suit your O.S?

Anyway, thanks for the feedback : most useful for me and others.

The scenario "Backup disk to img, then make a vmdk for that img in order to start the machine in VMWare" is a challenging one.

Ideally one would use "vmware converter" but when the harware is down (server not starting, etc) all you have left is a cold/offline convert solution.

Regards,

Erwan

Hi Erwan,

Thanks for the new version 2.0.3.  I have a tool named vscopy to create volume shadow copies. It assigns a letter to the volume shadow copy. CloneDisk does not display them in the Image<->Disk pane. However, the Advanced pane is showing the shadow copies identified by a letter. Could you fix it so that I can backup a volume shadow copy of a partition?

My tool to reproduce the case :

http://vortex.masmco...s/vscopy101.zip

OS = Windows XP Sp3

Thanks

Hi Vortex,

volumeshadow support is next on my todo list.

Can you tell me more on the command line for vscopy.exe? Usage : vscopy <volume_letter> <assigned_letter> <file_to_execute> ?

Side note :

-in the advanced/informations tab, I am listing dos devices (thru querydosdevices API) whereas I am listing logical drives (thru getlogicaldrives API).

An inconsistency I am willing to fix in future versions.

-in the advanced/dosdevices tab, you can already mount a drive x: pointing to a volume \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopyN.

Next to that, in the advanced/symlink tab, you can then create a symbolic link pointing to that x: drive.

One could then capture this folder to a wim file using clonedisk advanced/wim tab.

Regards,

Erwan

edit : for the record, see a similar discussion here around vss and live capture.

Hi Erwan,

Thanks for the information.

An example :

vscopy.exe C: V: copyfiles.bat

copyfiles.bat:

copy "V:\Documents and Settings\Vortex\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\*.*" D:\Backup /y

You can specify any batch file or executable here. V: is the volume shadow copy of the partition C:

Oki, got it.

I dropped getlogicaldrives api and now use querydosdevice.

I will publish a new version later today.

Then I could test the following (windows Xp) : vscopy.exe c: x: "c:\_dev\system\clonedisk\clonedisk.exe".

This way one could backup a vss snapshot of a live drive. (need to test that part).

See attached screenshot.

Regards,

Erwan

Hi Erwan,

Thanks for the new release. Now, I see the volume shadow copy in the main pane.

Thanks for the feedback.

I could not test a backup yet, let me know if you have a change to perform this test.

/Erwan

Hi Erwan,

I tried to create a .wim backup of a volume shadow copy but CloneDisk displayed an exception error. Attached is the error report.

Hi Vortex,

Will have a look.

Sending the bug report is perfect.

In the meantime, as the issue would be with the WIM process, could you try to backup to a raw img instead?

Thanks,

Erwan

Edit1 :

Backuping a VSS snapshot to a raw image works fine on my xp pro 32 bits. See screenshot.

WIM seems to be the faulty part. Checking now.

Edit2 :

Got the WIM backup against VSS snapshots fixed. Will issue a new version later this afternoon.

Version 2.0.5 out

Hi Erwan,

Backuping a raw image using VSS works fine.

wim backup with VSS works properly. I can restore the image. Thanks. Any chance to skip the page file and the folder System Volume Information during wim backup?

Hi Vortex,

I should be able to do it.

The way I see it : if a wim_exclude.txt file exists next to the main exe, clonedisk will ignore files listed in the txt file while capturing to WIM.

How does this sound?

Regards,

Erwan

Hi Erwan,

Good idea. By default, you can even omit the pagefile and the system volume Information folder like imagex.exe.

Version 2.0.6 out

added : will exclude files listed in wimscript.ini (if exists) when capturing to wim

wimscript.ini has the same format as the one used by imagex 

[ExclusionList]
\$ntfs.log
\hiberfil.sys
\pagefile.sys
"\System Volume Information"
\RECYCLER
\$RECYCLE.BIN
\Windows\CSC

Version 2.0.7 Out

• modified : regorganised menus into clone, disk and volume categories
• added : ability to backup and restore to/from devio (from Imdisk / Olof)

I clone disks a lot, most of the time from a Winpe.

In order to retrieve my disk image file, I each time have 2 choices : use a windows share on my network, or plug a usb disk to my "to be cloned" computer.

It is not always practical and adds an extra step each time.

Therefore I added a feature to CloneDisk to use Devio from Olof (Imdisk author amonstg many other great tools).

On my proxy (where I store my disk images) : i run devio 9000 c:\disk.img 0 0, and on my winpe, I can either, backup to, or restore from, my devio daemon.

This makes my cloning process easier and quicker.

Regards,

Erwan