Bare Metal Image and Restore Live CD
Greetings,
Does anyone know of a Linux live CD that does bare metal / restore to dissimilar hardware. I know of several programs that will do this like shadow copy but that is a very expensive option for a technicians license. I currently use Redo backup and Recovery which I really like but I can not restore to dissimilar hardware and would really like that as an option. I am not opposed to paying for a technicians license but over $1000.00 is an absolute no go.
James,
Dissimilar hardware is the feature that most vendors charge as a premium feature. I am not aware of an open source solution that does it. However, a lot of the operating systems out there have solutions that you can use without purchasing additional software. Let me know what OS and version you are trying to clone and I can give you suggestions from there.
Thanks,
Don
Perhaps I should explain further I have 3 windows 7 Pro machines (no domain, no server, just workgroup machines) I want to image into a VDI system (Citrix Xenserver). I know Citrix makes a tool for that but it always fails. I am willing to pay for a image solution that includes restore to dissimilar hardware but most that I have seen cost hundreds of dollars every year and are on a subscription basis. I am looking for something that will be affordable for a 1 man IT shop and a 1 time purchase. Looking for something in the $400.00 or below range if possible. I have looked at tools like sysprep which would actually work in this case but I am looking for a way of not modifying the original system at all. My intention is to keep the old system running and boot the new VM. It will of course immediately fail Windows validation but that is ok. I will then tweak and install the VM drivers, Change IP address, and once everything is known ok then wipe the physical system and activate windows on the VM. I should have no problems activating windows as this is a full OEM copy not tied to any manufacturer.
Have you tried Clonezilla? we use it often to transfer images to vm session without issues.