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I use Clonezilla with success for many years to make images from partitions that host Windows 7 or smaller and Ubuntu and other operating systems. Making images and restore them was easy for me.

But now with the advent of UEFI I‘m not sure how to make images with Clonezilla and how to restore them in a correct way.

I am running Windows 7 and Ubuntu on the same GPT disk. Both using UEFI.

The questions are:

  • If a want to make a restoreable image of the partition hosting Windows 7 or 8 with Clonezilla, do I have to make also an image of the „EFI System partition“ and the MRP?

  • Or is it not required to make images of the partitions „EFI System partition“ and MRP, because it is possible to rebuild these both partitions (maybe with a Windows installation disc or with an Linux tool) after restoring the images of Windows and Ubuntu on a new disk?

  • What is a easy way to restore an Windows 7 or 8 (UEFI) image on a new disk (e.g. with Clonezilla) - do I have to create the other partitions („EFI System partition“ and MRP) manually before restoring the image?

I know that it is possible to clone the hole disk and not only one single partition, but this is not what I want.

Many thanks in advance!

3 Answers 3

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The EFI System Partition (ESP) holds your boot loaders for both Windows and Linux. Thus, backing it up is critically important. Although you can restore both boot loaders using emergency tools, it's likely to be easier to restore them from a backup. Note also that some critical boot information (namely, which boot loader to start) is stored in NVRAM. In theory, restoring that information is easy -- if you know how. Under Linux, you'd use the efibootmgr utility. I recommend storing its current configuration in a file:

$ sudo efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0004
Boot0000* rEFInd (direct)   HD(2,c00,114000,6e49fcaf-d054-47c9-ba69-a668c5ee8192)File(\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi)
Boot0004* UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell  Vendor(5023b95c-db26-429b-a648-bd47664c8012,)..BO

This example doesn't redirect to a file, simply so I can describe its contents. This system boots just one OS (Linux) via rEFInd -- the Boot0000 entry. The Boot0004 entry boots the "built-in EFI shell" (but that's really the firmware setup utility, in the case of my computer). A dual-boot system is likely to have at least one more entry. The key point here is to record the filename(s) of the boot loader(s) -- \EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi in this example. You can then restore those entries with efibootmgr's -c option if and when that becomes necessary. Note also that the NVRAM entry refers to the partition by its GUID number (6e49fcaf-d054-47c9-ba69-a668c5ee8192 in this case) and perhaps other hardware identification. Thus, if you repartition or replace the disk, you may need to re-create these entries even if you restore the files and efibootmgr shows the old entries intact. Most computers have entries, like the "built-in EFI shell" example here, that are managed by the firmware and that you shouldn't normally try to re-create or modify.

I assume that by "MRP" you mean the Microsoft Reserved partition. This partition doesn't normally contain anything; it's used as "scratch space" by Windows partitioning tools -- or at least, it's reserved for that purpose. (I don't know if the tools actually ever use it for anything.) As such, it should be safe to not back it up, but you should make a note of its size and be sure to create a new partition in its place. If you want to be extra-careful, you could do a low-level backup with dd or the like. I don't know if Clonezilla will back up this type of partition.

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I looked for a such discussion. This new UEFI thing makes changes. For my opinion, in case of Windows 7 64 bit, you have to save(if making images of partitions) both partitions, f.e. sda1 and sda2 to restore them. F.e. sda1 is EFI partition(I created it manually, it's 100 MB partition), and sda2 is windows partition where the whole system is. EFI is important, I haven't find a way to restore windows boot if you lose that partition, you will lose your windows installation. In case of linux, f.e. Debian it's easy to restore boot just using that instruction. I haven't experimented with restoring of that kind partitions saved by clonezilla, but I think it should work. I'm using parted magic live usb. So, I'll give to know if it works.

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-c | --create create new variable bootnum and add to bootorder -C | --create-only create new variable bootnum and do not add to bootorder

Be very carefull that switch in this trail is not very accurate?

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