Bootcamp – a way to run Windows XP/Vista on a Mac
Recently I started using bootcamp and needed a way to backup that partition. I thought this would be an easy process because it is just backing up a single partition. The problem I faced was so many options and whether or not they supported Windows partition (NTFS) as I was going to be taking the backup from the Mac OS X side.
Then I discovered Winclone. It does exactly what I want it to do: take a complete backup of my Windows partition. This software can be used if you are switching Macs, deploying a bootcamp image to multiple Macs, want to resize your bootcamp partition, or you just want to take a backup. The image file can be saved anywhere (on the mac, on an external hard drive, etc) and will automatically open with Winclone when clicked.
To take an image of your Windows partition select the bootcamp parition in the source, write an image description if you wish, then click Image – done!
When you need to restore your Windows partition all you need to do is go to the Restore tab, select the image, choose the destination partition and click Restore. If you added an image description, that will appear as well.
Remember – Always check you are restoring to the right partition, don’t restore to your Mac partition.
Resizing a bootcamp partition
If you are resizing your bootcamp partition follow these instructions (taken from the Winclone FAQs).
Backup your data on the windows partition. You can do this by dragging files onto an external drive, running a windows backup program, or copying stuff off to an network volume. Cloning is inherently risky operation, as it involves copying at the block level, and not the file level. You’ll also be changing the partition table, so make sure you backup critical files on your Mac OS X partition as well.
You need a place to save your disk image. Since the image will be large (about the size of the used space in Windows), you’ll need to save it someplace that has the space. You can save it to your Mac OS X partition (if you have the space), but that will reduce the space that you are going need to use to resize the Windows partition. The most common scenario is a USB or Firewire drive. However, make sure it is formatted for Mac (HFS+), and not FAT32 or NTFS. FAT32 does not handle large files well, and you’ll run into errors.
Run Winclone, select the “Backup” tab, and select your bootcamp partition in the drop down menu.
Select the following options:
Prepare for restoring on a different partition: If the new partition is going to be the exact same size or larger, you do NOT need to select this option. If it is going to be smaller, you need to select it.
Make self extracting: This adds some extra binaries to the image that allows you to restore it on the command line without the Winclone application. If that sentence didn’t make sense to you, don’t select it. However, if you do select it and don’t need it, it won’t make any difference (aside from the image being a bit larger than it would without it).
Remove Pagefile.sys: Windows writes a file that is the size of your memory. It is recreated on reboot, so it just takes up lots of space. By selecting this option, it’ll save you 512 MB to 2 GB of space in the image. However, it deletes it from the source, so it makes changes to your source Windows partition. If you are not sure, uncheck this box.
Add Generic BCD: If this is a Windows Vista partition, and you are going to be restoring it onto a drive that has a different configuration, select this option or else Vista will not boot. An example would be if you wanted to move your bootcamp partition from your startup drive to its own drive on a Mac Pro. If you are not sure, don’t select this option.
Click “Image”, and select the destination mentioned above.
It should take a while to run (at least 1 minute per Gigabyte). If it finishes after a few seconds, it did not work. Review the log. Get info on the resulting image to make sure it is a reasonable size (it should be about 75% of the used space of the Windows partition).
Run Boot Camp Assistant. Select “Create or remove a Window partition”. Click Restore. Reboot if prompted.
Run Boot Camp Assistant again. Create the size of boot camp partition you want. Reboot again if prompted.
Double click on the image file that you created with Winclone. Winclone should open and go to the restore tab. Select your bootcamp partition in the drop down menu, and click Restore. After a few minutes (or maybe a bit more), you bootcamp partition should now be back.
If you have any other questions about Winclone, check out the FAQs
