What is the easiest way to make a backup of an entire hard disk

I got myself a dell laptop from the local computer store. Its a used machine with Windows Vista Home Basic on it. I want to load Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 though so I can do perl development. BUT I want to keep a copy of the entire harddrive with the dell utility partition and Windows Vista in case I want to go back. I was thinking I could image the drive but I not sure what to use, I don't have Ghost or anything, Someone had told me about Clonezilla. Would that work for me? Is it hard to use? Also I want to burn the data to a DVD or something more storable than a harddisk.

Solution 1:

I would use Clonezilla. If you have a windows share available somewhere on your network then CLonezilla will let you backup the entire disk out to the SMB share... and you could restore from the same location as well. Clonezilla is hard for some people but it uses a wizard and so there aren't very many places that you can get lost in it.

Solution 2:

Use the original Dell restore disk if you want to go back. If the machine didn't come with it, it usually can be ordered from the manufacturer, although sometimes for a charge.

Solution 3:

While it is a good idea to image the disk and I would recommend Clonezilla as well, are there other requirements to using Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 besides just for Perl development? If you are looking to only do Perl development then why not give Strawberry Perl a try (http://strawberryperl.com/) since they have a release for Vista?

Solution 4:

Have you considered using a product like VirtualBox or other desktop virtualization? If you want to preserve your current configuration then this could be an option.

Solution 5:

Where to begin...

There is a whole host of alternatives: System commander, disk master, Acronis, driveimage XML, Linux tools like gparted, old favorites like Ghost, cloning the drive to one of those neat portable hard drives, BartPE, creating a secondary partition and cloning the first partition to the new partition. With this limited list you can roam the internet with a search engine and reveal all the choices you have, their upsides, downsides and options.

I personally like Acronis, even if it is a bit tempermental. I liked ghost better, but the new version isn't very good, at least for what I want. Acronis costs a little coin, but the amount of time I have saved is well worth it. Lose a hard drive, fix it, re-image, get a virus, re-image, corrupt the OS, re-image, you name it short of blowing up or crushing the computer; this works to get up and running in an hour or so. No more time wasting tail chasing trying to salvage a damaged system. This is what works for me:

I open the drive, put in the acronis true image disk, boot to the disk and image. The reason I like this method is that you can save a virgin image since the OS never even boots to automatically suck up all the keys etc. I also like it because you can do an image test to make sure it got captured right.

Then I boot and let all the generic key sniffing, patches, updates etc. happen and then let the system stabilize. Then I image this software stack.

Finally I rip out all the "crapware" add my settings, screen savers, applications etc. etc. and create a base personalized image. Purists will wipe the drive and re-install, but there are a bunch of good articles on how to rip all the junk off a machine.

Now I have a fall back for everything but the end of the world. I re-image as I add to the software stack on my machine to capture changes as I go.

I know this is a down and dirty solution, but hey I'm just an end user what do I know :)