[Tfug] OT: easily reloaded windows machine

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Eric,

--- On Mon, 11/9/09, Eric Gearhart <eric at nixwizard.net> wrote:

> Bexley Hall <bexley401 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > That would be a more elegant solution.  I'm looking for
> > something "easier to understand".  I.e., "When your
> > machine starts acting funny, insert this CD and reboot."
> > which is the equivalent of MS's universal solution:
> > "reinstall windows" except *quicker* (since it can simply
> > *copy* an image onto the disk instead of god-knows-what
> > MS's installer does for an hour) and that it would also
> > allow the "installed apps" to be reinstalled "as is".
> >
> > As I said, its hard to believe someone hasn't come up with a
> > canned solution to do this already...  :<
> 
> Someone's come up with a canned solution to do this :) I've
> used CloneZilla before, and it seems to work pretty well.
> Someone's made a LiveCD that does exactly what you want:
> 
> "A backup/restore system
> I have chosen Clonezilla Live for this, as it is flexible
> enough to fulfill my needs. Furthermore, it makes it possible to
> create automated restore CDs/DVDs. This way, restoring a system
> will be fast and easy enough for anyone to perform (even people with
> minimum technical knowledge)."
> 
> http://clonezilla-sysresccd.hellug.gr/intro.html

I finally had the time to spend doing this on a live system.
I copied the image to an external USB drive (easier than
shipping the bytes over the network), wiped the drive,
verified the drive *was*, in fact, wiped/unbootable/etc.,
then copied the image back from the USB drive and verified
proper operation.

I was tickled to see how well it worked!  A bit disheartened
that it really could be intimidating for The Clueless to use
but, I think with a good set of "accompanying notes", it could
work for the folks I have in mind (I have the advantage of
having the hardware that they will use at my disposal so I
can document *exactly* what things should look like instead of
simply The General Case).

I'll try it on one of my NetBSD boxen and then a Slowaris box
just to see how versatile it really is.

Thanks, Eric!
--don