Backup/Restore Boot Camp Partition

Leopard Disk Utility nor Time Machine image seem to be able to produce a restorable image of the Boot Camp partition. Is this facility available in Leopard? In a computer lab environment we need to be able to readily restore both Mac and Windows partitions.

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
depending on the file system used for Windows two possible solutions:
If using FAT32: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=717201&start=0&tstart=0
If using NTFS: http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/ (currently BETA for Leopard).
Regards
Stefan

Similar Messages

Backup restore Boot Camp partitions by Disk Utilities

Hello,
I am new to MAC world and need to know about the backup & restore procedures of Boot Camp Partitions;
I want to make a disk image of my FAT32 Partition like Acronis Ture Image or similars. ( in case of any problem i would able to restore my system without waisting time in reinstalling windows and other software programs etc on both MAC OS & Windows sides.)
please guide me if it is possible by using Mac DISK UTILITIES or by some other programs.
My Curent MAC Config are;
MACBOOK pro 2.1
2.33 Ghz core 2 Duo
O.S. 10.4.9
Boot Camp : Windows XP pro with SP2
Thanks in advance
MAC book Mac OS X (10.4.9) Boot camp with FAT32 using Windows XP Pro

"need to know about the backup & restore procedures of Boot Camp Partitions; "
Then you should post your question in the Boot Camp discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1165

Daily Backup for Boot Camp partition

I'm looking for a Windows software to perform daily incremental backups from my Boot Camp partition to an external USB drive. It should also be possible to restore the COMPLETE Boot Camp partition from that backup in case of a hard drive failure. (It's NOT necessary that various versions of files are kept around-the-clock like Time Machine does. It's also not necessary that the backup itself is bootable.)
I've tried Genie TimelIne, but unfortunately it wasn't able to manage a complete restore. The taskbar was missing, no applications were installed (only present), settings were missing after the restore..., so I had to manually install nearly everything.
I've heard "Macrium Reflect" should be better. Is this true or does anyone have another good tip?
BTW I'm not looking for a solution to backup from the Boot Camp partition to the OS X partition and I don't want to create a complete clone every day.
Thanks for your help!

coxorange wrote:
A bit difficult to test such a software including worst case recovery if you can't dispense with the concerned computer temporarily. And VERY time-consuming!! Hence I asked for personal experiences.
Well, Anyone elses personal experience won't mean much to you unless they have the same setup as you, so asking others for personal experience is as much of a crap shoot for you as doing it yourself. I went through lots of testing several years ago on my first MacBook Pro, but almost none of that testing is valid for my current machine. With the variations in machines, and machine configurations, what works for someone else might not work for you, and what might work for you might not work for someone else. I learned this when I was testing Colnexzilla as a possible backup/cloning tool. It worked fine on my MacBook Pro, but wouldn't work properly for a number of other users.
coxorange wrote:
What do you mean I'm confusing?
I always wrote about the Boot Camp partition.
I agree that what you are asking for seems rather confusing. You talk about backing up your data on your Windows partition, and you talk about performing incremental backups. The WIndows 7 Data backup utility it perfect for tasks like that. It's when you start wanting to perform disk image backups, and then ontop of that perform incremental image backups of your Windows partition that things get challenging and confusing. Since you aren't clear about what scheme you want to use, it is hard to answer with a "clear answer" and not get confused by what you seem to be asking.
coxorange wrote:
As far as I know that's not enough to perform incremental backups including EVERYTHING on the Boot Camp partition.
If you use the Windows 7 data backup and perform incremental backups, you will have a backiup of all your data from the Windows partition. Isn't that want you want? If you want to perform a restore, it will not restore you back to a bootable drive, but it will have all your data and files backed up. If you want to perform a partition backup image, and make those backups incremental nightly, it might be possible. Since you are talking about a Boot Camp partition on a Mac here, you also need to clarify if you want this backup to run when teh system is booted into Windows, or when teh system is runnign MacOS, or ifit is acceptable to boot from yet another media for the backup purposes.
At this time, I'm not sure that any software exists which can make backup image of your Boot Camp/Windows partition when runnign MacOS that will make a backup image that cna restore to a bootable volume and can do incremental backups. There are few, if any backup tools that will run runder native Windows on your Boot Camp partition that will make an image file backup that can do incremental backups, and also allow you to restore to a bootable partition. I beleive that the Paragon software is one of the very few that can do this. I have tried and successfully made backupns and restores from backup disk images using custom boot drives for CloneZilla, and the Paragon Drive Backup tool. I don't believe that CloneZilla will do inremental backups, and I'm not sure about the Paragon software as I stopped using Boot Camp about 1.5 years ago when I upgraded to my current MacBook Pro. Now with this system, I don't run native Windows, I only run it virtualized using Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion. For both of those, I get a full system backup with each MacOS backup I take, since the Windows File System is virtualized and stored entirely in files on my MacOS partition.

Restoring Boot Camp Partition

Hey Guys,
I have created an image (compressed) of my older Boot Camp Partition (on my old Mac). Then I set up a new partition on my new MacBook Pro, on which i installed Windows 7 via Boot Camp.
Now I want to restore the image of my old Boot Camp partition (where all my data is on) to the new partition on my new MacBook Pro.
In order to do that, Disk Utility has to scan the image I made. When it finished scanning, I always get the error "Could not scan image: Internal Error"
I have heard of a lot of cases, where this restore works. How do I solve this error? Any suggestions?
Thank you!

Just installed it in the normal way. I've now overcome the problem by repartitioning the HD & reinstalling Vista. For some bizarre reason, the Boot Camp partition had renamed itself "Time Machine Backup" & was completely empty! And the only thing I did was install Snow Leopard...

Cannot restore Boot Camp partition using Boot Camp Assistant with OS X 10.6

I have decided to eliminate my Boot Camp partition running Windows Vista, but when I attempted to restore the partition using Boot Camp Assistant, I got the following message:
Boot Camp Assistant cannot be used.
You must update your system software before using this setup assistant.
I am running Snow Leopard, and there IS no update to the system software! How do I resolve this?

Found the answer. . . I needed to enable journaling on my hard drive and. . .voila!

Restoring Boot Camp Partitions...

Hi,
A While back I Partitioned my main hard drive and created a boot camp partition. Now that i'm done using Windows on my mac, i'd like to restore my drive to one partition WITHOUT losing all of my data. Now, Boot Camp Assistant makes it sound as though this is possible and I have heard from others who have done this however i'm a little unsure and would just like to confirm that this will not destroy all of my data on the Mac OS X side of the Hard Drive.
Mac OS X (142GB) - Windows (5GB) = Mac OS X (147GB)
Above is the basic process i'm imagining.
Can anyone help me out?
Thanks,
Nigel

Backups should be automatic and require only setting up once. So really are no brainers.
Cloning is not formatting, installing etc. Though it might require RTF once in awhile.
It is the folks that don't that get into trouble.
Disk Utility RESTORE or Carbon Copy Cloner, along with (essential) one drive. You would be surprised at the problems people post, and how much can be avoided.
One guy just killed his Mac Pro system disk and wondering what to do.

Time Machine Backup of boot camp partition

Will Time Machine back up a boot camp drive partition with Windows XP SP3 installed as the OS?
Maui Guy

no, TM will not back up the bootcamp partition. TM will only back up partitions formatted mac os extended. if you want to back up windows use Winclone or a windows backup program.

Why is Winclone Needed? Can't Disk Utility Restore a Boot Camp Partition?

Hi. Could we just use Disk Utility to create a backup the Boot Camp Partition running Windows 7 64-bit for example and then just use Disk Utility to restore it if you need to replace your Boot Camp partition?
Why is Winclone the tool use to create an image of Boot Camp partition as well as to restore a Boot Camp partition? Thank you in advance.
Gbu.

Thanks for the reply. How about if you opt for the non compressed image, the DVD/CD Master option (Image Format) when you do the New Image in Disk Utility? Would choosing the DVD/CD Master option be cloning it instead of archiving it? If the images created by Disk Utility are not the exact copy or clone then, it won't be bootable I believe but how come when you create an image of a DVD (to back it up for example) and burn that image, it is bootable which mean it copies it exactly (clone it in effect)?
What does WinClone do or copy exactly that Disk Utility can't?

How do I back up my Boot Camp partition to external firewire drive?

I have a 15 GB Windows XP Boot Camp partition (FAT32). I want to back it up to a 120 GB external Firewire drive. (I know the backup won't be bootable). In OX X Disk Utility, I formatted the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT). I planned to do the backup using the Windows Backup utility.
However, when booted into WinXP, Windows will not recognize the external hard drive. I thought I might need to create a FAT32 partion of 32 GB or less on the external drive, but I apparently can't do this in OS X or Windows (since Windows doesn't recognize the drive).
Any suggestions on how to backup the Boot Camp partition will be appreciated. I'm mainly interested in preserving all programs and data. Ideally, a clone could be created that could be restored back to the original partition in bootable form, but from studying this and other forums, it dosn't seem to be easy to do this for a FAT32-formatted volume.

My goal was to create a bootable clone of my FAT32 Boot Camp partition, while at the same time increasing the size of the partition from 15 GB to 32 GB if possible. This is what I did:
1. As suggested in this thread, I used Disk Utility to create a disk image. I formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT), and made it 32 GB in size.
2. Used the Finder to copy all files from my 15 GB Windows XP partition to the new disk image.
The following steps were only to determine if the disk image is a viable backup:
3. Removed the internal hard drive with my original Win XP partition, and installed a new internal hard drive.
4. Used Boot Camp Assistant to create a 32 GB Boot Camp partition on the new internal drive.
5. Inserted my Win XP installation disk and started the Windows installation. Formatted the new partition as FAT32. (I used the long rather than the quick format method--not sure if this was necessary.)
6. Continued the Windows installation to the point of restarting the computer, at which time I used the Option key to boot back into OS X.
7. Used the Finder to copy all the files from the 32 GB disk image to the new Boot Camp partition. (This overwrote a few Windows files installed by the aborted Win XP installation.)
8. Restarted and used the Option key to select the new 32 GB Boot Camp Partition. Windows booted as usual with all files, programs, etc. from the original 15 GB partition. Windows did complain about "new hardware" and required a restart, but all appears normal.
This indicates that the disk image containing all the files from my original Boot Camp partition is a viable backup, and can be used to restore the partition if necessary. I'm not sure if formatting the disk image as MS-DOS (rather than Mac OS extended) was necessary, or not.

Boot Camp Partition v Fusion

I need to make a decision on whether to install XP Pro on a BootCamp partition or just in Fusion. I am aware of and like the option of being able to use the BootCamp partition directly in Fusion. Are there any features that do not function or function poorly if I only use the BC partition in Fusion instead of a direct installation in Fusion itself?
Will Time Machine also backup the Boot camp partition or will I need a separate XP backup software for that? I assume that Time Machine will successfully backup a Fusion vmdk file, obviating the need for a separate windows backup if XP is directly installed in Fusion?

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
BCorFusion wrote:
I need to make a decision on whether to install XP Pro on a BootCamp partition or just in Fusion. I am aware of and like the option of being able to use the BootCamp partition directly in Fusion. Are there any features that do not function or function poorly if I only use the BC partition in Fusion instead of a direct installation in Fusion itself?
Not that I am aware, but some report a sort of delay at startup of that 'BootCamp' VM in Fusion.
Will Time Machine also backup the Boot camp partition or will I need a separate XP backup software for that? I assume that Time Machine will successfully backup a Fusion vmdk file, obviating the need for a separate windows backup if XP is directly installed in Fusion?
Time Machine can not backup a BootCamp partition, you need something like WinClone http://twocanoes.com/winclone/
Since the vmdk file is changed so much while running, it is not recommended to use Time Machine for that file, because of the resulting workload for Time Machine.
For a vmdk file it is better to copy it with the Finder to a backup location.
Regards
Stefan

Best way to make an image backup of a Boot Camp partition?

I want to upgrade my Windows XP partition to Windows 7. Before I do, though, I want to make a complete image backup of the partition, so if anything gets terribly screwed up, I can restore from the image and be right back where I started.
How can I make an image backup of my Boot Camp partition, and then restore it? Do I use Mac OS X Disk Utility for this?

I use Paragon Hard Disk Mgr 2011 Suite ($49) to clone to a new drive, backup, and Paragon has a number of products aimed at support for Boot Camp.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/
http://www.betanews.com/article/Paragon-Hard-Disk-Manager-2011-Suite/1295234930
New product with special, Paragon Drive Copy
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/dc-professional/
http://blog.paragon-software.com/?p=1160
Migrate XP to Windows 7
http://blog.paragon-software.com/?p=85

Does Winclone still work to restore a Boot Camp partition?

I have a 50GB Boot Camp partition, NTFS file system, with Windows XP. My computer is a Mac Pro running OS X 10.6.5. I have been using Winclone to clone the Boot Camp partition as a backup. I know that Winclone is no longer supported, and have heard that Winclone may not work properly with Snow Leopard.
I have no problem creating an image of the Boot Camp partition using Winclone. I have not yet had to do a restore to a new partition, but assume that some day I may need to do so.
My question is: Has anyone running Snow Leopard successfully used Winclone to restore a Boot Camp partition?
A secondary question: Is there any other utility, running on the Mac side, that will clone/restore a Boot Camp partition?

coruscate wrote:
I have the Winclone backup, but I am unclear how to restore it.
Using Winclone, I can select the Image to restore.
When I click on Mount, Winclone puts a disk image of the partition on the desktop.
When I select the desired partition in Destination and click Restore, it tells me "No Windows Partition Found."
Has anyone done this? Can you give me any advice about how to complete the restore?
Good luck to you. I am trying to transfer/migrate my Bootcamp partition (XP pro, FAT32) to a larger HD. I tried Winclone, and like you could create an image, but am unable to restore it on the new drive. I get the same error that you do. I tried creating a Bootcamp partition, rather than having Winclone do it, but would get this error in the log:
Source image volume size is not an exact multiple of 1 MiB
This happened whether I used Bootcamp Assistant or Disk Utility to create the partition, and it didn't matter whether I used a larger partition size or attempted to match the existing one. Apparently Winclone measures the block-sizes differently than Finder, Terminal, or any other measurement that I have used reports.
I've read about suggestions to turn my old FAT-32 Bootcamp Parition into an NFTS one, but I'm loathe to do that since I have on idea if that will work.

Creating and restoring a Boot Camp partition using Paragon

I am trying to restore a clone of the Boot Camp partition that's on my MacBook Air (Snow Leopard) to My MacBook Pro (Lion).
I was told I could do this without requiring the Windows 7 installation disk by using Paragon Hard Disk Manager.
I downloaded the Paragon Hard Disk Manager on the MacBook Air in the Windows partition and followed the steps the Wizard told me. I chose back up. I successfully backed up the Boot Camp partition but noticed that the amount of disk space on the back up external drive was about 8GB, but the amount used up by Boot Camp was 16 GB.
When I went into the new computer and tried to create a Boot Camp partition, I am not able to do this without installing Windows software.
When I plugged in the external drive which had the back up on it, it just has some files and no Wizard I can use to restore the Windows partition.
So I think I've done it wrongly.
When I first started the wizard, there was a choice of making an image. I did choose this initially and a message came up and said I had done this but there was nothing else - no information about where this image was and what I should do with it. So I chose "Back up" and that is where I am.
Even if I do manage to create an image that contains everything, the operating system and the files, how can I restore that to the newly created Boot Camp partition on the other computer if in order to create the Boot Camp partition I need to install a Windows 7 disk?
It's not that I don't have a valid Windows 7 installation disk, I do but I have to call telephone support to install it because the activation is tied to the first laptop which has issues and needs to be repaired and that's why I am doing the migration of the data. And it's inconvenient to do the telephone thing because it's after hours now and I want to get the clone of the Windows partition before I send off the computer for repairs which I am supposed to do tomorrow morning.
Plus, I am not sure by using the Windows 7 installation disk and migration of data method that I will have the partition looking exactly the same as before, and that's very important for me because I do internet banking with a foreign bank and it took ages for them to set up the internet banking on my computer, and I am worried that internet banking won't work if I do not have an exact clone of the Windows partition.
I can go back again and try making an image disk but I still have the problem of using the Paragon program which is a Windows program on the Mac operating system, which I have to use when I am creating the Windows partition. Is there other software from Paragon that I am supposed to get?

Paragon didn't work for me and their support is quite lousy. I think I just threw $50 away.
I didn't need another activation key to install Windows 7 on the second computer (MBP). The boot camp installation went smoothly. Once in Windows, I downloaded the software again, Paragon Hard Disk Manager, and then chose "restore". It didn't recognize the archive I had made on the external hard drive no matter what I did. I had to give up after a few tries.
So I went to the Paragon website to look for answers in the support section.
They do not respond to emailed support questions for up to three days after you send in the question even if you are a new customer.
I am tempted to ask for a refund because they have false advertising claiming that their product works when it doesn't.
The steps are not that hard to follow if you use their Wizard and the Wizard told me that I had done everything right and that I had created an archive and I named it and everything.
When I went to restore it, nothing. I couldn't even eject the volume. Very strange.
Their FAQ on Support site is unhelpful and full of technical terminology. Nothing pertains to my problem.
I really don't want the headache. Besides if all I wanted was to do a backup I could have used the free back up and restore utility in Windows 7 which is meant to be excellent.
Another Apple Support Discussion member said they had a similar problem, a problem with the archives, and that even after working with Paragon for seven months, it was still not resolved.
After a certain period of time after you've bought the product, you have to pay $50 to get support. It's not worth the bother.
It's a German company and German companies in general are not big into service. I can tell that this is true with this company.
So having been burned, I really do not want to keep going down this path. I really just want my money back.

How do you backup and restore Boot Camp?

I thought I'd drop by and ask my perenial question: How do you backup and restore Boot Camp?
I'm running Windows 7 if it matters, on a MBPn 17 2010 core-i7 and my daughter will soon be running on a MBP 13 2011 core-i7.
I'm currently using SuperDuper! and Time Machine for the Mac side, and am backing up using Disk Utility capturing the entire Win7 partition but have no confidence that it will work if I restore it.
What does everyone here use, and have you successfully restored your Windows 7 environment?

For me, Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 2011.
It contains Clone OS and other tools, for $49.
I'm not sure Paragon Backup is "Apple Boot Camp" friendly or not.
All available Paragon Hard Disk Management technologies are available in onesuite.
Hard Disk Manager Suite 2011
While lack of mention of Apple Boot Camp in System Backup may not be an issue, I have never used it. Paragon also has volume snapshot and other Mac OS tools - but then they are not all offered in a Suite to provide NTFS, HFS, Mac repair, etc.
System Backup PARAGON
Top 10 Apple Articles| Paragon Software Blog Apple Tips and Tricks
Lion will have to modify the partition tables to add its own Windows 7-ish system recovery partition, so I would definitely get a good backup strategy in place - and tested - ahead of time. Contrary to the "shouldn't have any impact" I always see an impact, and also re-initialize drives when a new OS comes out (though maybe wait for the .2 release).

How do I restore data to a new mac with windows boot camp partition?

Hi
I have a new iMac and an old MBP, I'd like to copy all of the data of my old MBP to the iMac.Would doing that affect the windows boot camp partition?
and how do I do it?
right now im backing everything up on my MBP using super duper
both the MBP and the iMac are running on Lion

I am assuming the Boot Camp partition is on the old MBP and that the SuperDuper clone is on an external drive and is bootable. The Super Duper clone does not include the Boot Camp Partition.
To get the Mac Data moved you can use Migration Assistant and if you want to transfer the Boot Camp partition you would need Winclone to move/copy it to a newly created Boot Camp partition on the iMac. The SD Clone ( and a Winclone backup) is your insurance policy if some kind of difficulty arises.
Links to more detailed info.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6025
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11275
http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html
http://twocanoes.com/support/winclone/migrating-a-bootcamp-partition-with-winclo ne
http://twocanoes.com/support/winclone/using-sysprep-when-migrating-boot-camp

Backup/Restore Boot Camp Partition

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for