Winclone

What does Winclone do?

Winclone allows you to create an exact image of your bootcamp partition so that it can be restored back to this exact state.

Where can I find detailed instructions on installing Winclone?

See the tutorial: "Installation of Winclone".

Is this backup software?

No. Winclone creates an exact image of the filesystem, and does not have all the features of backup software (incremental backups, scheduling, etc). It works great to use Winclone in tandem with backup software, so you can quickly get back to a known good state and then restore files from your backup that have changed since the image was created. Regardless of what backup software you use, you should never only have single backup of your data.

I see that a new update is out, yet there is no link to download it! How do I get this new software goodness?

Software updates are built into the application. In the application menu, select "Check for Updates?" and the update process will begin. For example, in Winclone you would go to the Winclone menu and select "Check for Updates..."

How do I know that the image was created successfully?

The only way to really know if the image was created perfectly is to restore it and verify all the data is there. DO NOT RESTORE IT TO THE SOURCE PARTITION UNLESS YOU HAVE A GOOD BACKUP OF THE DATA OR ARE SURE YOU CAN LOSE ALL THE CURRENT DATA ON THE BOOTCAMP PARTITION. You can also restore the Winclone image to a disk image to verify all the data was imaged correctly, but that does not prove that the image will be bootable.

Can I use Winclone to move a bootcamp partition from one Mac to another and have it boot correctly?

It is possible under some circumstances. The main hurdle in moving to different hardware is that Windows may refuse to boot due to incompatible drivers among different processors or other hardware. Moving an image between similar or exact same models of Macs works fine, but if you are moving between processor families, Windows may not boot. Using a Windows tool like Sysprep can mitigate these issues in many cases. See the tutorial "Migrating a Bootcamp Partition with Winclone" for more details.

Does Winclone support both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows?

Winclone images the filesystem and sets it up to boot correctly, and doesn't matter if it is 32 or 64 bit version of Windows. However, the Mac that you restore the bootcamp partition to may not support that version of Windows, and Windows may not boot. Check Apple support documents for which Macs support which version of Windows.

Does Winclone support FAT32 filesystems with Windows XP?

No. Only Windows 7 and Vista are supported. Windows XP is supported if it is using the NTFS filesystem.

How do I restore Windows to a disk image to verify the filesystem was backed up correctly?

See the tutorial: "Restore a Winclone Image to a Disk Image to Verify Image".

I want to upgrade to a Fusion Drive. Can I use Winclone to migrate my Boot Camp partition?

Yes. Disk Utility will allow only two partitions to be created on the Fusion Drive so you will have one OS X partition and one Boot Camp partition.

I want to restore a Winclone image onto a partition that was smaller than the original partition. How do I do it?

If you have not created an image yet (or the source partition is still available), shrink the source partition by selecting it as a source in Winclone, and then select the Tools->Shrink Windows (NTFS) Filesystem. After it has done shrinking the filesystem, create a Winclone image of the shrunk source. The image can then be restored on a partition that is greater than or equal to the size of the shrunken filesystem.

If you have already created an image and no longer have access to the source volume, you can restore the image to a sparse image, shrink the NTFS filesystem on the sparse image, and then create a Wincone image of the sparse image. This new Winclone image can then be restored onto a partition that is greater than or equal to the size of the shrunken filesystem on the sparse disk image. See instructions in the tutorial: "Shrinking an Existing Winclone Image".

My bootcamp partition doesn't show up even though I have installed Windows on to a bootcamp partition. How can I image it?

Winclone limits partitions that are displayed to NTFS and MSDOS labeled filesystems. If you are using a 3rd party NTFS driver (like Paragon or Tuxera), Winclone does not recognize it. To workaround this issue, simply disable the 3rd party filesystem in System Preferences, unmount and remount the disk in Disk Utiilty, then Winclone should see the partition. In future updates, this issue may be resolved.

To determine if you are running a 3rd party driver, open up Terminal and run these commands:

1. Discover what disk number your bootcamp partition is:

diskutil list

from this, you can see that the BOOTCAMP partition is disk0s4.

2. Run the following command to see information on this partition:

diskutil info disk0s4

If your bootcamp partition was something else from step 1, change disk0s4 above to whatever was discovered from the diskutil list command.

This will show you information about the partition. If you are not running any 3rd party drivers, you'll see:

If you see something different, it means that your 3rd party driver is still active and you bootcamp partition may not show up.

I am having issues imaging or restoring a Winclone image. How do view and send logs?

See the tutorial: "Viewing and Sending Winclone Logs".

I am getting an error about setting permissions on the helper tool. How do I resolve this issue?

See the tutorial: "Installation of Winclone". in the troubleshooting section.

The keyboard and mouse is not recognized after restoring on to a new Mac. How do I resolve?

You can use an external USB keyboard and mouse to uninstall and reinstall the bootcamp drivers. See this posting in the forums for details:

I have an encrypted Mac partition on 10.8 and I am getting a "not enough free blocks" error when resizing. How do I resize it?

Turn off Filevault, let the volume decrypt fully, reboot, then try again to resize the partition.

I got an error about not being able to restore to partition id 5. What is the issue?

The Mac firmware only allows Windows booting from partitions 1, 2, 3, or 4. On OS X 10.7 "Lion" and 10.8 "Mountain Lion", the first 3 partitions are used by OS X (EFI partition, then the main Mac partion, and then the restore partition). This leaves only the Windows partition on partition 4 (most likely disk0s4). If you created a data partition, this would push the Windows partition past the 4th partition and Windows would not boot. Winclone prevents this by refusing to restore to a partition greater than 4. This error can also be caused by Disk Utility when creating the a Windows partition if the restore partition needs to be relocated. The disk numbering will push the Windows partition to number 5, but will return to 4 after a reboot. You can see if this is the case by doing a "diskutil list" in terminal and looking at the output.