Foxclone - linux image backup, restore & clone

[AndyMH]

Foxclone is now available at https://foxclone.com/.

Foxclone is a simple point and click linux image backup, restore and clone utility.

It will backup & restore:

• GPT and MBR/legacy/MSDOS partition tables.

• FAT, NTFS and ext4 partitions.

• Swap partitions.

• Extended partitions (MBR only).

• Unknown partition types*.

• Encrypted partitions*.

It will clone:

• Direct disk to disk.

• To disk from a full backup.

• From a larger drive to a smaller drive (with limitations).

On the website you can find:

• An iso (around 600MB) that can be downloaded and burnt to USB stick or CD. It will boot in both legacy and UEFI modes.

• A comprehensive user manual (PDF).

• A deb for installing into existing ubuntu/debian systems. This is not for installation in your main system, there are notes on its use on the website.

The major limitation is that it is 64 bit only. If there is enough interest (there is an email form on the website) I will consider doing a 32 bit legacy boot version. It is also local drives only. If you want SSH over a network, I think you know enough to work out how to use clonezilla!

Why foxclone?

When I started with mint back in 2016 I looked for a linux image backup utility. I found clonezilla. As a newbie I found the user interface intimidating. It's reasonable to say that it is not a friendly UI. Then I found redo, GUI and simple to use. The problem was that it is abandonware, last update 2012, won't boot on a lot of modern hardware, might not boot from usb. So about a year ago I decided to do my own. Unbeknown to me, someone else was thinking the same thing. If you want a simple to use 32 bit image backup solution, redo has been reborn as rescuezilla, you can find it here https://rescuezilla.com/. We are talking

Thanks

To the small band of beta testers, who since January have been trying (and succeeding) to break foxclone, they know who they are. And especial thanks to Larry78723, without whom there would be no UEFI boot or website.

Andy


* as foxclone cannot determine the used blocks it does a byte by byte copy and will take longer.

[hans123]

Thank you very much for your efforts! I was using Macrium Reflect for the same purpose, but a true Linux free software solution is very welcome.
update april 1st: Cloned boot disk succesfully!

[pbear]

Congratulations, been wondering how this was coming along.

FYI, in case you don't know, you can do EFI testing with VBox. There's an option for installing in EFI mode (on the System > Motherboard tab). Booting the Foxclone ISO after installing the test system is a little tricky, as the virtual firmware places the optical drive below the internal drive in boot order, but there are a two ways to fix that.

[rickNS]

I took a look at your .pdf a day or two ago,
Really nice job on that. Quite an effort right there.

[pbear]

Agreed. Imagine that, a Linux app with a proper manual. Next, we'll get that free beer I keep hearing about ...

[AndyMH]

Agreed. Imagine that, a Linux app with a proper manual. Next, we'll get that free beer I keep hearing about ...

Given that my target was newbies I had to do a decent job on the user guide - the Achilles heel of most linux software.

[dm999]

Thanks AndyMH, this looks like a useful and user-friendly tool, I look forward to trying it out soon.

Cheers, DM.

[farkas]

A great big thanks to AndyMH for freeing me from clonezilla hell.

A clear, easy to follow manual, included on his down load page.
https://www.foxclone.com/

Replaced my current 256GB SSD with a 1TB SSD in my desktop PC.
It took less than 2 hrs. Including reboots to make sure the clone is working, and transplant surgery on my desktop.
I made appropriate backups before attempting the above, timeshift, data backups and etc. I didn't include those times because I do that routinely.

[rossdv8]

Thanks AndyMH
I looked through the PDF. Looks like you've thought carefully about newbies as well as giving us old folks a nice simple way to set up a new drive

It's not unusual for me to have bootable external drives hanging off my system, but still accessing my main drive for documents, video and more.
Foxclone means I can quickly drop my whole bootable system onto another drive and do stuff that might otherwise break my main system. Then 'if' it works, I can clone that experiment back to my original drive.
I can do it with Clonezilla or Disk Destroyer, but Foxclone looks like it might be less easy to make a disastrous mistake..

[AndyMH]

It's not unusual for me to have bootable external drives hanging off my system

Obviously it will install okay into LM19.3 (tried it with cinnamon), kester has been trying it with a few other distros for me: ubuntu 18.04 - okay, bionic pup - fail, xubuntu - fail. There are too many problems with bionic pup that I'm not going to try and fix it (and in comparison with LM I think it looks crude), but will fix it for xubuntu and try a few other distros.

[AndyMH]

Sorry, found a bug - if you are dual booting with win10 in UEFI mode off a pcie nvme drive you might have this problem:
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=316879&p=1793906#p1793906
If the MS reserved partition shows as an unknown filesystem in foxclone, you are okay. If it shows as ext4, it won't back it up and will hang.

This will be fixed in V0.36 (current version V0.35).

EDIT - fixed the bug in the deb, still won't work with bionic pup, but should work with most other 'buntus.

[sanmig]

Hi,
I’d like to try foxclone but have issues with the download / md5sum.
The website version always reads 35-02, download OK, but I can’t verify the md5sum.
Yesterday the website stated “cbcbcc367….” but I got “3462b9c8…”.
Today the website is “d3e3da7a…” but I get “bf450e523…”
Take care, n00b here: In Terminal I type

Code: Select all

md5sum

and drag the file from Nemo into Terminal, enter, … ???
What am I missing?

[AndyMH]

No, that was an issue yesterday - my fault and is now fixed.

EDIT - still have an issue, just downloaded and

Code: Select all

andy@T432 ~/Downloads $ md5sum foxclone35-02.iso
2ded7910b8be071b93119ce57ed157ef  foxclone35-02.iso

The website is displaying d3e3da7a0ed71dfc13d60c02359ac914

The md5sum shown on the website is calculated automatically from the iso, so when we upload a newer version it should reflect the md5sum for the latest iso. It's obviously not working correctly. Will get back...

[sanmig]

OK, now it seems my IP addy isn’t written into the iso anymore, so I think the d3e3da7 is the correct version?

[cliffcoggin]

I was having the same problem with checksum as Sanmig until the latest download 20 minutes ago. The checksum now matches his and the website.

[AndyMH]

We're working on it and I think now fixed, apologies, 99.9% of the time the download will be okay, the md5sum is there as a final check, just in case.

[sanmig]

@AndyMH: The d3e3da7... (actual download) iso is corrupted.
I had to delete some bytes from the top of the file before I could create a bootable USB,
otherwise the resulting stick can't be recognized.

To delete:

Code: Select all

herestring(14) "xx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
string(17) "foxclone35-02.iso"

(xx.xx denotes your IP)
Probably your upload adds these very first Bytes?

[AndyMH]

Don't know quite what has happened, Larry has made some code changes. I've uploaded another copy of foxclone35-02.iso then downloaded it. Checked the md5sum before upload and after download and getting the same result:

Code: Select all

cbcbcc367a4a5e1159aca9fe9dba55fc

Also seeing the same md5sum on the website (if different try reloading the page, I was showing different until I did this).

Loaded the iso in VB booting in UEFI mode and it booted okay.

EDIT - burnt the downloaded iso to usb stick and booted in legacy mode and all was okay.

[sanmig]

The connection was very slow now, but finally the new cbcbcc... iso was confirmed and the file is OK, the USB booted immediately.
I've tried a small partition and FoxClone works great now, even for a n00b, thank you!

Tomorrow I'll take a deeper dive.
Questions here or in extra thread?
A mod could clean up this one or will you start another 'Image Back Up with FoxClone'?

[AndyMH]

I'm happy to continue here as long as the mods are happy.