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Looking for a good free app to image a friend's hard disks (Windows PC) for backup because the laptop will be wiped and then restored.

Ideally the app would be quick and dirty, easy to use and reliable.

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7 Answers

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Use PartImage.

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If I were your friend, I would feel safer if you remove the hard drive, install your own, do whatever testing you need, and then put my hard drive back in.

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That sounds like a lot of trouble just to perform some testing. – Robert Harvey Mar 1 '10 at 4:00
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So does a full backup/format/install/restore, but I don't know what kind of testing this involves. – Greg Hewgill Mar 1 '10 at 4:03
Good point. I reworded the question. – John K Mar 1 '10 at 11:13
@Robert: You're right it's not for testing. It was just easier for me to say instead of going into an involved paragraph. So your suspicion of the matter is correct although it's nothing nefarious. – John K Mar 2 '10 at 3:12
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Clonezilla is very good. Not quite "quick and dirty", but easy to use (lots of option menus to guide through the process) and very thorough.

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Two things i'd wonder 1) does it need to be online or off - most previous answers are meant for offline backup you can use macrium reflect free, or selfimage for an online backup, though the last will need another app to restore the backup, which is a standard img file 2) do you NEED to do this- if you can get your hands on a old copy of altaris svs or some other sandboxing tool, or do this in a VM, you could get away with not needing to backup and restore the system.

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Try using FOG, its exactly what you describe in that its free, robust, easy to use.

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Paragon Software's Backup & Recovery Free Edition:

  • Support for the latest Windows 7
  • Cyclic Backup - complete infrastructure for establishing a self-acting data protection system.
  • Complete Backup - Create an exact copy of your PC including the operating system, applications, user settings and all data
  • Differential Backup - backup only the archive changes
  • Backup Scheduler - plan your regular backup
  • Support for all existing backup techniques, including disk and file level backups with differential or incremental updates
  • Any backup destination - including external storages, CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs, network as well as the secured hidden partition (Backup Capsule)
  • Automatic data exclusion - automate the process of building up contents of the future backup image, by excluding irrelevant data such as movies, music, etc.
  • Support for GPT (GUID Partition Table) disks - back up and restore not only single GPT volumes but entire disks with the option of resize during the restore operation
  • Complete Restore - restore your computer to an earlier state without losing data and reinstalling and reconfiguring your programs.
  • Restore an entire disk, separate partitions or only files you need from the previously created backup image
  • Restore with Shrink to restore a backup image to a free block of smaller size taking into account only the amount of actual data of the image.
  • Create a bootable USB Flash drive - recover your PC on demand
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I use G4L with good success.

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