software for clone

hello i am new to linux and forum


i been using rpi for last 2 weeks i have cunstomized the rapsbian according to my need
i have st it up on 32gb card
now i want to back all that os customization in an .img file
i am using windows for backup i read that win32diskimager do the job
tried it but the main problwm is it make a image of 32gb size of which only 2.3gb is data rest is white space

so i am wondering for some solution that will back up only the files not the white space

i believe acronis true image may do the job (dont know not tried yet afraid of losing all my data )


anyother suggestion to do the same

There are lots of ways on Windows one is run:
sudo apt-get install gparted on the Pi then on the desktop run this and shrink the card down to the minimum size you want.

You now still have a 32Gb card with a ton of white space and a huge empty partition.

Windiskimager writes the whole thing so you need something a bit more complex.

For free all I could find was EaseUS Partition Master 9.1.1 Home Edition the down side to this is you need an additional card and 2 card readers. Insert both into your Windows box and choose the clone disk wizard from EaseUS cloning only the partitions on the SD Card you want.

Then take the small card with a minimal size and make an image of it.

This isn't necessarily the easiest way as in it takes extra hardware but the SD readers are so cheap and handy to have.

i didnt understand fully

you telling me to use a card reader to read the sd card in windows pc
then use esaus to clone

but why another sd card cant i just save the clone as .img in hdd so that if anything goes wrong i can format the card and restore the image

have u done it ?
is it successful ??

Have you tried simply zipping the 32gb img file? This isn't something I've tried, but it should compress extremely well.

yes tried it i compres it well

but the main problem is time taken by win32 disk imager during read and write which is unusally hign for 32 gb
i use acronis for my windows system even such big system like windows takes only 10 mins where win 32 diskimage takes abt 3 hrs for 32gb

got one s/w after googling

Hdd raw copy tool

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/

does this work have anyone tried it yet