I recently had to do a clean install of my Lenovo Ideapad Z360 and after reinstalling Windows 7, Office 2010, and the prodigious updates that come along with it, I was ready to create a clean install image using Clonezilla, which has been my imaging software of choice for awhile now. In the end, I opted to use Lenovo OneKey Recovery system, the reason of which I will make clear in a bit.
Clonezilla 2.1.x
I've had a fairly dated version of the excellent Clonezilla on a small 256MB USB stick for the last couple of years. In that time, I've "cloned" openSUSE and dual-boot Windows-Ubuntu systems for workstations. I've never had issues with the Debian-based distribution and it's one of the more reliable tools I have in my Linux arsenal.The clean install of my Windows 7 was a small 40GB in total (proudly free from pirated software). This time around, I decided not to create an image of a dual-boot system like I normally did since I've always found installing Linux distributions enjoyable. I booted into Clonezilla and went through the steps. I plugged in my Seagate 2TB external desktop hard drive and the system chugged along. Unfortunately, the imaging process crashed 65% of the way. Clonezilla actually provides a helpful note before the process indicating that if imaging fails midway through, it is more likely caused by the lack of storage space available. My Seagate drive had a healthy 1.75 TB of free space so storage space was not the cause.
Clonezilla has never failed me so I was undeterred by this speed bump. I booted into openSUSE, quickly downloaded the latest version of Clonezilla 2.1.x and used Unetbootin to create a bootable USB stick.
I was severely impressed with the changes to Clonezilla, specifically the friendly progress bar added to the imaging process. Unlike the older version of Clonezilla, Clonezilla 2.1.x now had a visual cue to inform users how far along the process is. Moreover, the colors were less harsh and the instructions less intimidating. Once again, I ran the process and selected options to accelerate the process - I skipped the option to check the image (which is only recommended for NTFS) and another option for advanced users.
Again, Clonezilla crashed at more than 60% of the way. I let it run for more than hour at the same progress point to make sure it wasn't just a chunk of data that needed extra time, but Clonezilla never resumed.
There could be only a few reasons why both versions of Clonezilla could fail. It was due to the Seagate 1TB drive, which was preformatted using NTFS on purchase. My other external hard drives, such as the 500GB Toshiba portable drive and the 1TB Buffalo were both formatted using FAT (as most storage drive manufacturers do). Clonezilla notes that support for NTFS is not fully complete which could be the reason for the failed partimage procedure.
Lenovo OneKey Recovery 7.0
Most people (including me), avoid using OEM "crapware" as much as possible. However, there are exceptions. Skype, for example, was preinstalled in many machines years before Microsoft purchased the company. Lenovo's OneKey Recovery software is included on Lenovo laptops and can be optionally reinstalled after a clean install using the Drivers CD. This is a fair policy on Lenovo's part and is good for the user - Lenovo OneKey is actually software by a once well-known software company called Cyberlink (better known for their OEM video player applications). OneKey Recovery from Lenovo has been around for awhile and the OEM version which comes with Thinkpads and Ideapads are actually fat-free and useful. The version on my 2 year old Ideapad was obviously dated but worked for what it was designed for.Admittedly, I could have used Windows 7's own backup and recovery system. If you're primarily a Windows user then I highly recommend you try it. If you have used Windows 7 Backup and Restore before, then you would be very comfortable with Lenovo OneKey Recovery. Both utilities create images of the whole Windows system, which can be restored using a recovery disk that you can create using the same application. In short, after creating a system image on an external HDD (like my clean install of Windows 7), you can either run the application and restore the whole system from there or you can boot to a recovery disk.
I've never actually had to reimage my own Windows 7 laptop. Although I'm primarily a Linux user, I will admit that Windows 7 (and Windows 8 for that matter) is a stable system and requires very little maintenance when used properly. However, the inconvenience of reinstalling applications in Windows is more telling than that of Linux - so having a system image which you can turn to for a quick overall restoration is handy.
Lenovo OneKey is designed for Windows and therefore NTFS and created an image on the NTFS-formatted 2TB Seagate HDD in less than half an hour. I'm pretty sure Windows 7 Backup and Restore would have done the same.
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