Rescuezilla: Disk Imaging Made Easy

00:00 Intro
01:15 USB Stick Required
01:35 Where to Store Images?
01:59 Setting up the Software
03:55 Backup Image to USB Drive
07:53 Locating a Locally Connected System Image
08:41 Restore Image From USB Drive
12:16 Backup Image to Network Share
15:24 Locating a System Image on a Network Share
16:08 Restore Image From Network Share
18:31 Image Explorer (Beta)
20:16 Rescuezilla the Distro
23:38 Important Data Recovery
24:41 The End
Wouldn't it be great if, in the event of your computer crashing, getting a virus or, worse still, being hacked, you could reset the clock and put things back just the way they were before disaster struck. Well that's the purpose of a system image, to create a snapshot of when all was well, and then - following the aforementioned digital doomsday - restore everything back to normal.
In this video we'll learn how to make use of the free and open source Rescuezilla to image our system, both backing up to a USB hard drive and also to a network share. After going through the recovery process, we'll take a look at what else this easy to use software has to offer. Rescuezilla can image Windows, Mac and Linux computers. So, whatever your computing preference, protect your setup today.
Website links:
Rescuezilla
rescuezilla.com/
Etcher
www.balena.io/etcher/
Set up your own Network Attached Storage (NAS) with openmediavault (OMV)
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Back it up - Easily automate and secure your backups (for free)
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Additional credits:
Thanks to www.1001fonts.com/ for the following fonts
BlackChancery Font made by Doug Miles
Note to Self Font made by ThatDanYankee
Thank you to freesfx.co.uk/ for the 'Applause from Large Indoor Crowd', 'Automatic Camera' and 'Rocket Whoosh By' sound effects
'Success Fanfare Trumpets' by FunWithSound with thanks to freesound.org/ (Creative Commons 0 creativecommons.org/publicdom...)
Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Series i5547-3750sLV 15-Inch Gaming Laptop image (CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Ultrabook image courtesy of Intel Free Press (CC BY-SA 2.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons)
Other (original) images sourced from the superb pixabay.com/

[@rescuezilla7181]

Great job on the video. Let me know if you have any issues or have any features requests. Rescuezilla v2.2 will be released in May 2021 (next month) and will have many new and improved features!

[@bytemypi2918]

Many thanks. It's great to get feedback from the official project. Looking forward to seeing what v2.2 brings :)

[@phizz8694]

Easy to follow, straight to the point, and no fluff. Thank you for the video!!

[@bytemypi2918]

You're most welcome :)

[@phaedrus2633]

Agreed. Great tutorial video.

[@AUM_3000]

This is the best tutorial video for Rescuezilla I have ever seen.. thank you very much for your effort. It helped me a lot.👍👍👍

[@cengologin]

I think this is the best video on disk imaging. I just followed the instuctions and finished the job seamlessly. Thanks a lot!

[@mdd1963]

As a brief footnote, although *cloning* requires a destination drive equal to or larger than the source, those restrictions do not apply for *imaging*, as long as there is sufficient space on the destination drive for the compressed image folder. (Today, I imaged my 2 TB 990 Pro Win10 install, with 330 GB used, onto a 1 TB external drive, with the resultant folder about 250 GB in size...)

[@jbird5953]

Clear and concise description, along with a professional presentation. Nicely done and Thank You!

[@bytemypi2918]

Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for your feedback :)

[@paulguy5368]

I was looking for an explanatory video on Rescuezilla for a friend who was having trouble trying to image his PC. Your video ticked all the boxes and I sent him the link. Thankyou for doing all the hard work on putting this together as you saved me a ton of work trying to explain the process to my friend. You did a great job!

[@gmoneygmoney1018]

This is a great tool that I did not know existed. Will back up my systems this weekend. Thanks for the video!

[@bytemypi2918]

You're welcome. Sounds like that's your weekend taken care of!

[@mikepapahotel]

Good stuff! Clear, concise and very thorough! 😊👌🏻

[@bytemypi2918]

Thanks for your feedback :)

[@jk55.]

Great video 👍 Congrats on 1k!

[@bytemypi2918]

Thanks for your support

[@rsupp]

Thank you for making this useful video. Rescuezilla is such a versatile tool. Great job!

[@bytemypi2918]

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it helpful :)

[@rayanchandler3750]

I dont mean to be off topic but does someone know of a method to log back into an instagram account? I somehow forgot the account password. I would love any tricks you can offer me!

[@sincereace6053]

@Rayan Chandler instablaster :)

[@JimNicholsMotorManiaGarage]

Awesome Video! You Sir, ROCK !! Thank you

[@mdd1963]

Excellent tutorial!!

[@patpopov]

Very useful and interesting.

[@kane1428]

Thank you so much great tutorial, the peace of mind from having a backup is worth all the effort lol, cheers

[@bytemypi2918]

You can never have too many backups :)

[@ivanov-sasha]

It helps me. Thank you!

[@wayne6220]

Thank you for an informative video.

[@bytemypi2918]

You're welcome. Glad you found it helpful :)

[@kevinhughes9801]

Excellent video thanks

[@bytemypi2918]

No problem. Thanks for the compliment.

[@vla2uv]

There's something though you didn't mention: can you do incremental back-ups?

[@Rood67]

*How To Backup To And Restore From Using A Single USB Drive* I posted this as a reply to a few comments, but thought to post as an independent comment so as being easier to see. 1) Insert thumb drive into Windows PC 2) Run diskpart 2.a) List disk 2.b) Select disk # (where # is the thumb drive you want to prep) 2.c) List disk (again and make sure the disk you want is preceded with an asterix) 2.d) Clean (this will wipe the disk of all data and partitions, so make sure you selected the correct drive) 2.e) Exit (to get out of diskpart) 3) In Windows, launch Disk Manager (this is easier than all the commands in diskpart) 3.a) Right-click on the drive you're wanting to use, and select Simple Volume 3.a.1) Fat32 3.a.2) 32K cluster size (I don't know exactly why this is important, but if anything else, my drives would not boot) 3.a.3) Set the size to 4096 (4Gb) 3.a.4) Name RescueZilla (same as if using Etcher / Rufus to write the ISO) 3.b) Right-click the empty space of the drive, and select Simple Volume again 3.b.1) NTFS (I'm using NTFS as I need this to be able to be read by and written to with Microsoft OS (Windows 10, Server 2019/2022, etc...) Why? Because as images are created for the various manufacturer and models of equipment, they will be store on the network, and copied to the RescueZilla drives as needed. 3.b.2) If using NTFS, default cluster size is fine 3.b.3) I use all the remaining space on the device 3.b.4) Name Images (this is what the partition is for, so why not call it by the intended purpose) 4) Windows can mount an ISO and it will appear as its own drive letter 4.a) Copy the ISO contents to the RescueZilla partition of your thumb drive 4.b) Make sure you can see all the files so you do not miss any system or hidden files Now the drive is ready to boot with, and you can mount the Images partition to save your back up to or restore from as this is not the boot partition that RescueZilla will not let you write to from within the application.

[@jim7smith]

Much Thanks!

[@bytemypi2918]

You're welcome :)

[@adiletpazylkarim7543]

THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@bytemypi2918]

No problem :)

[@sotiriossammasteas4953]

Thanks alot!!!

[@bytemypi2918]

My pleasure :)

[@oneeyedphotographer]

Might be worth installing your chosen Linux/Rescue toolset directly on the system in a small partition.

[@narayaniyer2009]

My old PC is 5 years old - if my new PC is an upgraded PC, will it be possible to restore the image and update with the latest drivers ?

[@jaka398]

Hi, I just got a new macbook m1 air and was wondering how can you backup macOs system, is it possible? I tried to boot mac and it did not recognise usb which i plugged in...

[@zugo-tg7125]

What if my main system isn’t showing up in the list of drives to restore?

[@Heliomation]

Hello, i need help. Rescuezilla is here but whwn i press start, it only says "error: bad shim signature you need to load kernel first" I don't know what to do, ive tried other tutorials they dont work

[@dani-uf1eo]

Can you automate backups with this? I was thinking about letting my pihole scheduling all my backups automatically and have them store in my nas.

[@bytemypi2918]

For that kind of functionality you want to take a look at the server edition of Clonezilla: clonezilla.org/clonezilla-SE/ Hope that helps :)

[@samuelitooooo]

1:41 Is it possible to save the image onto the same drive you're imaging (to manage later)? I don't have other storage available to me right now, only one USB to boot Rescuezilla off of …and an Android smartphone with internal storage only. 1:59 Love the visual demonstration!

[@bytemypi2918]

Thanks :) Unfortunately you can't put any images on the same drive as Rescuezilla. If it detects it as removable storage, you might be able to store an image on your Android smartphone (providing there's enough space), but a second USB stick/disk would definitely be preferable.

[@Rood67]

*EDITED:* This works, and I've been setting up thumb drives for the student workers to use to re-image hundreds of machines (No we cannot use SCCM, several of these are not connected to the network) --------------------- 1) Insert thumb drive into Windows PC 2) Run diskpart 2.a) List disk 2.b) Select disk # (where # is the thumb drive you want to prep) 2.c) List disk (again and make sure the disk you want is preceded with an asterix) 2.d) Clean (this will wipe the disk of all data and partitions, so make sure you selected the correct drive) 2.e) Exit (to get out of diskpart) 3) In Windows, launch Disk Manager (this is easier than all the commands in diskpart) 3.a) Right-click on the drive you're wanting to use, and select Simple Volume 3.a.1) Fat32 3.a.2) 32K cluster size (I don't know exactly why this is important, but if anything else, my drives would not boot) 3.a.3) Set the size to 4096 (4Gb) 3.a.4) Name RescueZilla (same as if using Etcher / Rufus to write the ISO) 3.b) Right-click the empty space of the drive, and select Simple Volume again 3.b.1) NTFS (I'm using NTFS as I need this to be able to be read by and written to with Microsoft OS (Windows 10, Server 2019/2022, etc...) Why? Because as images are created for the various manufacturer and models of equipment, they will be store on the network, and copied to the RescueZilla drives as needed. 3.b.2) If using NTFS, default cluster size is fine 3.b.3) I use all the remaining space on the device 3.b.4) Name Images (this is what the partition is for, so why not call it by the intended purpose) 4) Windows can mount an ISO and it will appear as its own drive letter 4.a) Copy the ISO contents to the RescueZilla partition of your thumb drive 4.b) Make sure you can see all the files so you do not miss any system or hidden files Now the drive is ready to boot with, and you can mount the Images partition to save your back up to or restore from as this is not the boot partition that RescueZilla will not let you write to from within the application. ===================== Originally posted, but this does not work consistently... _____________________ Create two RescueZilla boot drives: 1) can be small and really only for booting RZ, 2) a large USB with RZ installed. Now, boot with the first smaller USB Insert the second larger USB Run GParted and shrink the volume on the second USB down to around 4Gb (4096) Create a new partition in the space now freed up Format it to your desired type, I use NTFS because I want to be able to read this with Windows Now, when you boot with the large USB, the second partition will be available to write the image to / read from

[@ohnomomma]

what if I move the backup image to the stick with rescuezilla on it? would that work or does it need to be 2 usb storage sticks. thanks again for the video! really helpful!

[@bytemypi2918]

Rescuezilla will completely take over the USB stick you install it on (you can't put backup images on it as well). For this reason, I'd just use a small capacity stick - 2GB is plenty. You can then either create your backup image on a second USB stick, an external drive, or network share. Thanks for your feedback.

[@Rood67]

*EDITED:* This works, and I've been setting up thumb drives for the student workers to use to re-image hundreds of machines (No we cannot use SCCM, several of these are not connected to the network) --------------------- 1) Insert thumb drive into Windows PC 2) Run diskpart 2.a) List disk 2.b) Select disk # (where # is the thumb drive you want to prep) 2.c) List disk (again and make sure the disk you want is preceded with an asterix) 2.d) Clean (this will wipe the disk of all data and partitions, so make sure you selected the correct drive) 2.e) Exit (to get out of diskpart) 3) In Windows, launch Disk Manager (this is easier than all the commands in diskpart) 3.a) Right-click on the drive you're wanting to use, and select Simple Volume 3.a.1) Fat32 3.a.2) 32K cluster size (I don't know exactly why this is important, but if anything else, my drives would not boot) 3.a.3) Set the size to 4096 (4Gb) 3.a.4) Name RescueZilla (same as if using Etcher / Rufus to write the ISO) 3.b) Right-click the empty space of the drive, and select Simple Volume again 3.b.1) NTFS (I'm using NTFS as I need this to be able to be read by and written to with Microsoft OS (Windows 10, Server 2019/2022, etc...) Why? Because as images are created for the various manufacturer and models of equipment, they will be store on the network, and copied to the RescueZilla drives as needed. 3.b.2) If using NTFS, default cluster size is fine 3.b.3) I use all the remaining space on the device 3.b.4) Name Images (this is what the partition is for, so why not call it by the intended purpose) 4) Windows can mount an ISO and it will appear as its own drive letter 4.a) Copy the ISO contents to the RescueZilla partition of your thumb drive 4.b) Make sure you can see all the files so you do not miss any system or hidden files Now the drive is ready to boot with, and you can mount the Images partition to save your back up to or restore from as this is not the boot partition that RescueZilla will not let you write to from within the application. ===================== Originally posted, but this does not work consistently... _____________________ Create two RescueZilla boot drives: 1) can be small and really only for booting RZ, 2) a large USB with RZ installed. Now, boot with the first smaller USB Insert the second larger USB Run GParted and shrink the volume on the second USB down to around 4Gb (4096) Create a new partition in the space now freed up Format it to your desired type, I use NTFS because I want to be able to read this with Windows Now, when you boot with the large USB, the second partition will be available to write the image to / read from

[@RPI_Arduinotronics]

Congrats byte my pi for 1k subs

[@bytemypi2918]

Thank you

[@husseinalmohammad262]

Hello My computer is 32bit Can work with that rescuezilla Because rescuezilla need 64 bit

[@ShopperPlug]

Does Rescuezilla literally makes a image copy of empty partition space? For example, Partition "C" drive is a 256GB hard drive which only have windows 10 which takes about 10GB of space, will Rescuezilla literally make a disk image of 256GB or disk image of 10GB? Thanks.

[@bytemypi2918]

Rescuezilla only copies the space with data on it, so if the drive has 30gb of data, it will be a 30gb image. Hope that helps :)

[@yak28]

16:20 Thanks for this awesome video. I want to use this to restore one Pop!_OS image to 15 PCs with the same hardware as the first. However, if we don't have a NAS device or server, is it possible to just put the folder with the image on a Windows public folder on the same WiFi network and then point to it on this step? If that is possible, how do I get the exact IP address for that shared folder for this step? //192.168.0.???

[@bytemypi2918]

You're welcome. Yes, that should be possible. To find the IP address of your Windows computer, open the Command Prompt and type "ipconfig" (without the quotes) and press Enter. You should see the IP address listed next to the network adapter. If possible, it would be better to connect a network cable between your router and computer as imaging could take a long time over WiFi. Hope that helps :)

[@yak28]

@@bytemypi2918 Thanks.

[@bytemypi2918]

@@yak28 No problem :)

[@realitywins9536]

I don't understand why we need to download a "flash" program to "copy" Rescuezilla to the usb drive. Is it doing more than just copy the downloaded file? Can't one just do a file copy to the usb drive, or save the download to the usb drive directly?

[@realitywins9536]

Is the flash program turning the usb drive into a bootable drive? If that's the purpose it should have been stated explicitly so as to not confuse novices like me.

[@Rood67]

A computer cannot typically boot from an ISO file. Virtual machines can, but not physical desktop / laptops. Etcher / Rufus / etc are programs that read in the ISO and copy the content to the USB. There are certain files that are copied which make the USB a bootable device the computer will recognize when the BIOS scans attached drives looking for boot devices. Granted, he did not go into detail on this; it was just heavily implied.

[@grahamnichols1416]

Right now I'm waiting for a 1TB image to complete which the system reports to be 21 hours. :(

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

DOOD!

[@RPI_Arduinotronics]

Does this work for The rpi

[@RafaCoringaProducoes]

just searched here in my manjaro arm and its not avaiable, maybe for raspbian. deja dup is working fine here for as i know

[@RPI_Arduinotronics]

@@RafaCoringaProducoes ok

[@bytemypi2918]

You can't boot the Pi from Rescuezilla directly, but if you connect the Pi's microSD card to your desktop PC/laptop and boot into Rescuezilla that way, you can then choose the microSD card as the 'Source drive' and create an image from it. Then, when you want to restore, do the same again, but this time select the microSD card as the destination drive. Just be careful that you don't select your computer's internal drive at any point, as you don't want to accidentally overwrite that! Hope that helps :)

[@RPI_Arduinotronics]

@@bytemypi2918 Ok

[@yendak]

Wrote a comment and it looks like it got deleted because I wrote an IP address as an example. Well, your loss youtube. Short version: For me, forward slashes "/" didn't work when I tried to save my image to a shared networkfolder on my Desktop PC. I had to use backslashes "\".

[@imhip510]

This is factory reset not an image backup