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Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9713
Posted: 08:18am 19 Oct 2025
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In Windoze, there were various softwares that could do that WHILE THE SYSTEM WAS RUNNING.
This does not seem to be possible in Linux, but I have downloaded and made a Clonezilla Live USB stick thing, which can apparently clone just about anything.
I want to clone my current Mint setup, so that if I do something stupid, I can just restore and carry on, without having to do everything all over again.
Do any of the member have anything to say about ClonZilla or perhaps some other clone software that works inside of Linux?Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!
dddns Guru Joined: 20/09/2024 Location: GermanyPosts: 640
Posted: 08:54am 19 Oct 2025
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Look at Timeshift in your system tools menu. The best program I can think of. Make a snapshot and restore it back as a 1:1 clone to a clean PC. You only need the snapshot and a Mint booted from USB and it will restore it to an even not formatted HDD.
tgerbic Regular Member Joined: 25/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 82
Posted: 07:40pm 19 Oct 2025
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I never clone a running system since what you get is not exactly what you would if the disk is not mounted. There will be files that are open, lock files and other things that you will not want in the clone.
In Linux there is a simple way to get a mirror image of the boot disk. Get another disk the same size or bigger. Boot from a CD or USB stick into some version of Linux. Open the console and type ' sudo dd -r -v if=/dev/your boot disk of=/dev/your clone disk and press enter. You will get an exact clone of your boot disk. You can also use this command to make exact duplicates of whole directories. The -r is necessary to recursively travel down the directory trees. The -v is optional to make it verbose, if you want to watch it work. Optionally you can use the bs= command to pick how big the read blocks are, and maybe set to 64K or 1M.
If you want, you can get a disk a bit larger and run the following: dd -r -v if=/dev/the disk name of=/dev/my-boot-backup.img to make an image file of the disk so you can restore it later.
Linux provides the tools you need at the command line to do just about anything. Look up cloning a linux disk using dd.
I have not used Timeshift but hear it is somewhat popular.
dddns Guru Joined: 20/09/2024 Location: GermanyPosts: 640
Posted: 08:56pm 19 Oct 2025
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You can even copy a running Linux to another mounted disk by using cp and/or tar without problems. Timeshift is so advanced, it could be written by Linus T. himself Edited 2025-10-20 06:56 by dddns
dddns Guru Joined: 20/09/2024 Location: GermanyPosts: 640
Posted: 09:05pm 19 Oct 2025
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There is a partimage with a text based gui and clonezilla.
You can save an image of your disk in dd style with the onboard tool "Disks"
gnome-disks
Edited 2025-10-20 07:07 by dddns
Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9713
Posted: 10:45pm 19 Oct 2025
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Timeshift sounds like the way to go, so I will look into that firts.
Thanks chums! Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!
58kk90 Regular Member Joined: 14/06/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 70
Posted: 03:27am 20 Oct 2025
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Also take a look at 'Rescuezilla', I used that recently to image a Windows 10 drive and restored it to a SSD, dead easy to use and is GUI based.
Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9713
Posted: 05:50am 20 Oct 2025
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Sounds good! I will download the ISO and take a look. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!
dddns Guru Joined: 20/09/2024 Location: GermanyPosts: 640
Posted: 07:26am 20 Oct 2025
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Timeshift does in the first run a complete snapshot of your system. In the second run it will make an incremental snapshot and so on. You can play around with installing this and that and if your system is messed then you can step back to any snapshot in time and it will restore the condition.
It does that in a tricky way and thus needs a physical partition dedicated as snapshot container. This partition can be on an USB attached hdd Edited 2025-10-20 17:30 by dddns
dddns Guru Joined: 20/09/2024 Location: GermanyPosts: 640
Posted: 08:12am 20 Oct 2025
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Just checked, the partition can even be on an USB stick!
As you are playing lot with hardware..do you know hardinfo?
sudo apt install hardinfo
dddns Guru Joined: 20/09/2024 Location: GermanyPosts: 640
Posted: 08:23am 20 Oct 2025
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You have been looking for a portable solution. Use one USB stick as container and boot with another USB stick Mint.
Then install Mint to the container stick but only use part of it and leave space for the backup partition.(the stick is used and formatted like a SSD) Use your PC and do the snapshot to the container partition. Now you could boot with the container the destination computer and restore.
A second way is to boot with a live session with your installer stick, plug in the container stick and launch Timeshift Edited 2025-10-20 18:25 by dddns
tgerbic Regular Member Joined: 25/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 82
Posted: 08:28am 20 Oct 2025
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Installed Timeshift on my system and made a backup of the OS files. I have BTRFS on most partitions/drives but one is still Ext4 (/boot) so I used rsync setting. Worked flawlessly for me. I may convert the Ext4 /boot partition to BTRFS to get the super speed backup.
The dd process is still easy to create a full mirror replacement disk. I like to have a mirrored boot disk including my home directory sitting un-powered in the chassis. Instead of getting a USB live disk, I just plug in the mirrored disk as the 0 drive and reboot. A fully installed working system comes up.
I would suggest you find an app or process that works and just stick with it.
JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4096
Posted: 08:58am 20 Oct 2025
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For the dd example, -r wouldn't be needed I think and both it & -v are only available on some dds. Instead of -v you can use status=progress (although even that is newish).
dd with mounted and active file systems isn't ideal but generally works well, though cp, rsync, tar and/or cpio are likely wiser :)
rsync is great for just copying changes (*) but bear in mind if you corrupt something your copy will inevitably also be corrupted - so backups you don't overwrite are a good idea (aka grandfather, father, son type backups etc).
(*) the r in rsync is for remote (across LAN/WAN/...) but it works locally too of course
John
Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9713
Posted: 05:01am 21 Oct 2025
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Thanks chums - lots of options!
I'll probably play with Timeshift first, simply as it is already there and I can run it from inside Linux.
I just received mt ADATA 2TB USB3 external HDD today, and the plan was to keep at least a couple of different backups/images/Timeshifts(or whatever they are called in whatever is being used), on this drive. I have a 1TB NVMe SSD as the system drive, but the difference in price between 1TB external USB HDD's and 2TB was only about forty bucks or so, so I went for the 2TB one, with the idea that I could keep at least a couple of snapshot-y things on it.
I don't PLAN to screw anything up BADLY in Mint, but I'd be happier with the image thing-y, so I don't have to do everything all over again, as I mentioned in the first post. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!
Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me.
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