Disk imaging program?

[John Hupp]

On 6/30/2014 5:54 AM, Nio Wiklund wrote:
> 2014-06-24 20:35, John Hupp skrev:
>> I'm looking for a freeware disk imaging program that supports/offers:
>> __ imaging of Windows and Linux partitions in a single image-the-disk
>> operation that includes the boot sector and related structures
>> __ bootable disc can do offline image backup and restore
>> __ image to spanned DVD’s
>> __ good compression
>> __ free for business as well as personal use
>>
>> Notes on a few of the programs I have considered:
>>
>> Clonezilla doesn't know how to span to DVD's.
>>
>> Promising newcomer Aomei Backupper has no stated support for ext4
>> partitions.
>>
>> Redo Backup is a front-end for partclone, and I have seen no
>> documentation indicates that it supports spanned DVD's.
>>
>> In short, everything that I have looked at in the past or now in a fresh
>> new sweep falls short on one point or another.
>>
>> I'm willing to fudge on my desire for a single image-the-disk operation
>> if I could find a recipe or documentation on how to use a
>> partition-oriented tool with a script that uses several succeeding
>> operations to build a complete drive backup.  Needless to say, I would
>> want to arrive at both backup and restore scripts.
>>
> Hi John,
>
> Clonezilla creates 2 GB chunks, which can be copied to DVDs and file
> systems in general, that cannot manage files larger than that. I don't
> know (haven't tried) to write the image directly to DVDs, but it would
> certainly be possible in a two-step procedure (with intermediate storage
> in an external HDD or flash drive).
>
> Best regards
> Nio
>
> ps/
> I don't really trust DVD disks for backup, but that is another issue.
> /ds

Hi, Nio.

Yes, I was aware that I could do such a restore in two steps, and have 
used that setup at least once.  But I wanted the cheapest, simplest 
thing to give away with a computer to someone with no more than average 
skills.  ("Just boot with this .....")

I have had a fair amount of exchange about this on the Ubuntu users 
forum, much of it exploring the idea of using dd in conjunction with 
utilities that zero-fill free space (as a preliminary step) and then 
compress and split the resulting dd archive.  But that idea stalled at 
the point where there was no apparent way to input the DVD splits to dd 
during a restore.  (Also a challenge with removing the boot disc and 
replacing it with a data disc, but I imagined that could probably be 
solved with a small distro that boots to memory.)

After I last posted there, I also encountered PING, which may possibly 
do what I wanted, at least on a dual boot setup with Win Vista.  But it 
and its backend partimage are apparently no longer under active 
development,  and people report some problems with Win 7, so I already 
regard it with less enthusiasm and have not had a closer look.  (But 
interesting to note that partimage is one of the alternate backends 
employed by Clonezilla, so they must think it is reliable for certain 
purposes.)

I've concluded that, for the moment, I can't get quite what I was 
looking for.  My choices are among half a dozen solutions that are a 
compromise on one goal or another.

--John