Extracting files from Clonezilla images

Question

Is there a way to browse Clonezilla images and extract individual files from them without restoring the whole image?

Important note: Bounty is for providing a working method for extracting files from WINDOWS - as the *nix version below seems to work well already — Mark Henderson, Jan 16 '11 at 00:23
@Mark Henderson, is firing up a Linux VM an option? Do you have cygwin on your Windows box? — Zoredache, Jan 21 '11 at 00:46
@Zoredache - A Linux VM is an option, but not an ideal one. Does cygwin include "mount"? If it does then that's always worth a shot. FWIW this time around I simply restored the image into a VM and extracted them from there, but that seemed like a round-about kind of way of getting a single file. — Mark Henderson, Jan 21 '11 at 00:59
None of the answers actually provide a way to extract files without restoring the whole image to somewhere, but it doesn't have to be a real disk partition which is used, as an image file will work OK. I don't think it's possible to extract files without mounting, unless there is some filesystem-specific tool which can do this (e.g. debugfs for ext*fs) and partclone can't restore to stdout to pipe data to such a command. So you'll need to extract the whole image and mount it. — David Gardner, Aug 22 '19 at 10:10
@DavidGardner partclone docs says that partclone can not restore to pipe, it can Sending data to pipe line is also supported ONLY for back-up . I think it is because random access write operations on restore target in partclone code — user1742529, Dec 25 '19 at 08:01

score 39 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 08 '23 at 12:30

39

Better use the partclone utility instead:

cd /home/partimag/YOURIMAGE/
Depending on compression method used:
- If the image is compressed with gzip: cat dir/hda2.ntfs-ptcl-img.gz.* | gunzip | partclone.restore --restore_raw_file -C -s - -o hda2.img
- If the image is compressed with zstd: zstdcat dir/hda2.ntfs-ptcl-img.zst.* | partclone.restore --restore_raw_file -C -s - -o hda2.img
mount -o loop hda2.img /mnt -t ntfs -o ro

Note: This needs to be done as root, since partclone requires root permissions to write the image, and the mount command will likely only work as root. For zst images you'll need to install zstd (e.g. apt install zstd)

See also CloneZilla FAQ Entry: "How can I restore those *-ptcl-img.* images into a file manually?"

edited Apr 08 '23 at 12:30

ticky

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answered Jun 24 '12 at 17:37

hal

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how can I unencrypt it before ungzipping? I know the passphrase, but the command. – antivirtel May 02 '17 at 16:09
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as of may 2017, partclone.restore needs --restore_raw_file flag to write to .img file. – biocyberman May 27 '17 at 12:51
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In-case anyone else has the same problem: I needed to use ntfs-3g -o loop hda2.img /mnt instead of mount – ashleysmithgpu Apr 25 '18 at 10:25
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@biocyberman I've edited the answer (pending review) to include this option, as I just hit the very same problem! :) – David Gardner Aug 22 '19 at 09:58
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I don't think zcat is the best choice, as it expects each file to be individually gzipped, while it's really just one long gzip stream split into separate files (at least in my old backups, maybe this is no longer the case). This can result in a "gzip: unexpected end of file" error. cat | gunzip works. – hcs Oct 07 '19 at 15:58

score 21 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 30 '21 at 14:37

21

You should be able to mount your CloneZilla image to extract files from it. See instructions here.

Prepare a large disk in Linux
Say if your image is /home/partimag/YOURIMAGE/, and the image is /home/partimag/YOURIMAGE/hda1.ntfs-img.aa, hda1.ntfs-img.ab... run
 file /home/partimag/YOURIMAGE/hda1.ntfs-img.aa
to see it's gzip, bzip or lzop image. Say it's gzip, then you can run
 cat /home/partimag/YOURIMAGE/hda1.ntfs-img.* | gzip -d -c | ntfsclone --restore-image -o hda1.img -
Then you will have a "hda1.img" which you can mount it by
 mount -o loop -t ntfs hda1.img /mnt
Then all the files are in /mnt/

Note: For lzo images, replace gzip -d -c with lzop -d -c

edited Nov 30 '21 at 14:37

Uzumaki D. Ichigo

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answered Jul 03 '09 at 17:50

Sam Cogan

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Any way to do this in Windows? – Pretzel Apr 19 '10 at 01:06
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The commands look sane, but when I try them I get an ERROR: Input file is not an image! (invalid magic). What could cause it? – PetaspeedBeaver Oct 03 '15 at 09:13
If you used CloneZilla with parclone it will not recoved using ntfsclone. Use the command from hal below. – Mendes Dec 12 '15 at 21:58
Sidenotes: for a gzip archive, one could replace gzip -d -c from your command with zcat. Likewise, for a bzip2 archive, one could use bzip -d -c, or bzcat. – cp.engr Jan 20 '18 at 21:09
As a practical matter I have found that using partclone – holdenweb Oct 31 '18 at 23:51
Step 1 is very unclear. What does it mean to "prepare a large disk in Linux"? Or do they simply mean to make sure you have enough free space for the hda1.img file? – Jon Bentley Apr 25 '20 at 20:02

Fidel · Answer 3 · 2022-01-15T13:10:11.080

10

I've written a program called clonezilla-util which can mount Clonezilla archives in Windows.

You can mount to a drive letter using this command (requires the Dokan driver):

clonezilla-util.exe mount --input <clonzilla folder> --mount L:\

Then you can access the files in explorer:

Alternate approach

If you don't want to use the Dokan driver, you can extract the partition images using this command:

clonezilla-util.exe extract-partition-image --input <clonzilla folder> --output <folder to extract to>

That creates a file for each partition in the Clonezilla archive.

You can then use 7-Zip to inspect the contents:

edited Jan 15 '22 at 13:10

answered Jan 15 '22 at 06:30

Fidel

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This should be the accepted answer. Thanks a lot @Fidel! – AlexS Aug 28 '22 at 15:11
Thanks Alex :) I'm very happy it's of use to you – Fidel Aug 29 '22 at 22:44
clonezilla-util version 2.0.4 failed to open my dd (savedisk) image of a Windows OS drive (NTFS). I must admit that the possibility to mount the Clonezilla image without having to unpack it looks very attractive, though... – Igor Nov 13 '23 at 14:29
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Thanks for the raising the issue over on Github Igor! I'll look into it.
https://github.com/fiddyschmitt/clonezilla-util/issues/49
– Fidel Nov 14 '23 at 08:46
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I can confirm that clonezilla-util version 2.1.0 worked for my dd image. Thanks Fidel! – Igor Jan 19 '24 at 12:16

Pedro Moreira · Answer 4 · 2013-11-11T11:27:09.703

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I've made a video that demonstrates how to restore the full disk backup into a virtual machine. Hope it helps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainjV3X6wqQ

Basically, what you need to do is:

Create a VM in VirtualBox (free)
Create a virtual disk image for the VM with at least the same size of the backed up disk
Store your clonezilla backup in an external HDD or something which can be accessed from the VM
Run your VM with the clonezilla ISO in its virtual drive
Restore the backup like you would in a real machine

edited Nov 11 '13 at 11:27

answered Nov 05 '13 at 22:51

Pedro Moreira

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How do instructions for restoring a full disk backup answer the question of extracting individual files without restoring the whole image? – squillman Nov 06 '13 at 01:17
He might need to access stuff that isn't browsable through the filesystem. For example, I had to access my clonezilla backup to export an .SQL file from phpMyAdmin. This was the best way I found to do it. – Pedro Moreira Dec 10 '13 at 15:04

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 21 '11 at 18:14

Taken from this article:

There are some limitations. As pointed out earlier, Clonezilla can't restore an image to a drive that is smaller than the original drive. It also doesn't allow for retrieving specific files in an image, it's the whole partition or nothing.

Since the Linux way is pretty much a lucky hack, I'd wait until this feature is officially developed for Windows.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 13 '23 at 15:45

7-Zip can unpack most images (which looks much like unpacking a regular .zip archive). It supports almost all common filesystems (FAT, NTFS, ext3, ext4,...).

Note that for compressed multi-part images (those like sdb2.dd-ptcl-img.gz.aa .. sdb2.dd-ptcl-img.gz.ck) you would need enough empty space on your disk to unpack the image from the archive first.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 17 '11 at 21:57

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Try this software:

http://www.mountimage.com/

It looks like it could do it. 14 day trial.

answered Jan 17 '11 at 21:57

SLY

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Thanks for the answer, unfortuntately I've already tried this software. The problem is that the clonezilla images are compressed with GZip. I was able to uncompress the GZipped files, but mountimage didn't know what to do with them. – Mark Henderson Jan 17 '11 at 22:28
What was the extension that you have after you uncompress the GZ files? – JohnThePro Jan 21 '11 at 18:14
One issue is that clonezilla created multiple compressed files. Decompressing them individually is no good, they need to be combined – Gogowitsch Aug 29 '21 at 15:40

Extracting files from Clonezilla images

7 Answers7