#CREATE IMAGE OF HARD DRIVE FROM UBUNTU INSTALL#
#CREATE IMAGE OF HARD DRIVE FROM UBUNTU DOWNLOAD#
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#CREATE IMAGE OF HARD DRIVE FROM UBUNTU INSTALL#

Now, if you want to perform an installation from the same ISO, you'd need to unmount the ISO image first as it is mounted from a partition on your HDD (probably you've got a single HDD and want to install Ubuntu to the same HDD) and the installer needs to unmount any mounted partitions before it can make any changes. Hopefully, it will boot successfully to the desktop. Reboot and choose the new ISO entry from Grub menu this time. Save and close this file and now run this command: sudo update-grub Suppose your image is contained in the sda1 partition, you'd change (hd0,8) in the above line to (hd0,1) and if the image is in the sdb1 partition, you'd change (hd0,8) to (hd1,1).

To find out your partition, run this command in a Terminal: sudo fdisk -l 'hd0' means first HDD which is read as sda by Ubuntu, and 8 is the partition which is the same as for Ubuntu. Grub reads the partitions in a different way than Ubuntu does. the 4th line in this example is the first comment line, which is fine. note: the tail -n +4 means simply 'which line grub starts to read the configuration from as is'.(hd0,8) = The partition which contains the ISO image.boot/iso/kubuntu-12.04.iso = The location and name of your ISO image.Kubuntu ISO = The name you want to display in the Grub menu.Linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject Set isofile='/boot/iso/kubuntu-12.04.iso' # menu entries you want to add after this comment. # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Edit the file by: gksudo gedit /etc/grub.d/40_customĪnd replace the text in that file with this one: #!/bin/sh The entry for the ISO image needs to be added to /etc/grub.d/40_custom file.

Where ~/Desktop/name.iso is the location and name of your ISO image assuming that the image is located at your desktop. For the sake of simplicity, we would place it inside a new directory under /boot (assuming it is on a separate partition).Ĭreate the new directory and copy your ISO image: sudo mkdir /boot/iso The ISO image must be placed on a separate partition that does not have an operating system installed on it. If you do that, there will be confusion because there are pairs of identical partitions and file systems, and the boot system may choose to use them and write to them in a way, that both get damaged, so that they will no longer work.Grub2 is capable of directly booting ISO images for many Linux distros if the entries have been properly defined in the Grub2 configuration files.

Never boot the computer with both the original drive and a cloned copy of it connected at the same time.

So, get an extra drive with at least the same size as the original drive, and use the imaging tool to restore from the image to that drive and test that the computer works as expected when the original drive is replaced by this new drive. Otherwise you cannot be sure that the image can really be restored, and it might be too late when the original drive fails.

It is a good idea to check that you can restore from the image to a new drive.

(I must admit that Disks is easier to use.) Relevant advice for every method and tool, that you use for backup. I have used Clonezilla for years, and I am still using the 'Beginner Mode', which makes it fairly easy to do the correct thing every time. This means that Clonezilla will be faster than a crude cloning tool like Disks, and the image will be smaller too. It will also skip swap partitions and unallocated drive space, but the boot sectors and partition table are copied (to separate small files in the Clonezilla image directory).

#CREATE IMAGE OF HARD DRIVE FROM UBUNTU FREE#

Clonezilla is smart enough to only copy used blocks in the file systems, and skip free blocks.But I prefer to create an image (in this case a directory with a set of files, where the big files are compressed).You can clone directly to a new drive with at least the same size (not one single byte smaller).Boot into it and let the menu system guide you through the process.

#CREATE IMAGE OF HARD DRIVE FROM UBUNTU DOWNLOAD#

Download the stable iso file and create a USB boot drive.

ClonezillaĪn alternative tool, that I use is Clonezilla. And it is easy to use in a correct way according to the instructions by C.S.Cameron. I can confirm that it works to use Disks alias gnome-disks for this purpose.

Create image of hard drive from ubuntu