Clonezilla

Free open source alternative to Norton Ghost.

Clonezilla is a tool to clone disks and disk partitions that is similar to Norton Ghost, but with the difference that it is open source and completely free.

  All the information that it copies is an exact images of the hard drive and the state of the operating system at that given moment, in such a way that we can use it as a backup copy to return to the systems original point, or to clone the same system on various computers.

  The program works like a Live CD and comes in .iso format. To use it we will have to create a CD or DVD with the .iso image and use it as bootable CD, something that may have to be configured in the BIOS of some computers.

  During the cloning process Clonezilla will ask us various questions, that are the options that the application has available: what kind of cloning we want, from where to where and if we want to compress the disk image.

  Unfortunately it is a lot more complex to use than the program by Symantec, but it has manuals that will help us to get an idea of what we have to do.

  The fact that it is free make it an appealing alternative to other paying solutions.