Exactly how does Winclone utility work?

Question

Exactly how does Winclone utility work?

I have a 2012 Macbook Pro running Mavericks, and I have partitioned my hard drive with Bootcamp, and have installed windows 7 on the partition. Lately, like many bootcamp users, I have ran into some space issues with underestimating how much storage I would need for my partition. Thus, I have been researching ways to safely and effectively re-partition my hard drive while managing to save my Windows data.

With this in mind, I have found Winclone, and thought it would be able to solve my problems. However, before I dive into re-partitioning with Winclone, which I quickly found on the internet, I would like to make sure I know what it does and if it will allow me to waste minimal time in re-installing software on my windows partition.

Basically my questions are :

- Winclone creates a Disk Image of my Windows Partition. What does this mean?

- When restoring onto a larger partition, will I be required to reinstall anything like drivers, system programs, etc. ?

- Does anyone know of any potentially negative consequences of utilizing Winclone to effectively increase the size of my windows partition?

Thanks in advance for anyone who chooses to help

Also- When answering these questions, note that I will have already backed up my entire windows OS onto an external hard drive prior to proceeding with the Winclone utility. Which begs the question:

- Is it even necessary for me to use the Winclone utility if I am already planning on backing up my entire windows OS onto an external hard drive?

I apologize in advance if this is posted in the wrong section. First time posting on the forum.

Posted on Jun 30, 2014 8:12 AM

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Answer 1

rscheil

Level 1

21 points

Jul 1, 2014 10:31 AM in response to carmichael1198

Boot Camp is installed as a hybrid partition table, so the OS X table (GPT) needs to stay in sync with the Windows (MBR) partition table. Not all utilities that resize the Boot Camp partition dynamically handle correctly keeping the partition tables in sync. iPartition is well-implemented for dynamically resizing the Boot Camp partition.

The advantage of creating an image file is that it can be restored intact with files, accounts, settings and functional applications, saving time required to set up a system from scratch. A good practice is to use Winclone in conjunction with scheduled file-based back-ups as part of a disaster recovery plan.

Feel free to get in touch if we can answer any questions

Regards,

Russell Scheil

Twocanoes Software, Inc.

support@twocanoes.com

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Answer 2

Csound1

Level 9

60,045 points

Jun 30, 2014 8:24 AM in response to carmichael1198

First I will question why go to all this trouble, Camp Tune can resize the Windows partition in situ, but I would have a backup. It's a fast and reliable utility in the majority of cases.

But if you want to do it with Winclone, you should not need to reinstall anything when restoring Winclone to a larger partition, and you can never have too much backup 🙂

How did you make the backup (OSX and Windows)

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Answer 3

Jun 30, 2014 10:49 AM in response to Csound1

I remember reading on another thread that Camptune could possibly be linked to issues of unallocated space when upgrading a Mac OS after using it. For example, say I used Camptune to make my windows partition larger, the OP stated that when he then proceeded to upgrade to mavericks, there was unallocated space on his hard drive that was unrecognizable/unusable by both windows and mac os partitions. He then had to restore completely and reinstall both mac os and windows partition after reformatting the HD etc.

I don't know if there is any truth to this or not, but I'm adamantly trying to do this the right way with minimal risk at losing data and what not. If you know that camptune does not provide any negative consequences like the ones I mentioned, and there aren't any other underlying risks associated with using Camptune, other than the obvious and inevitable risks of losing data regardless by some kind of freak error, than I'd gladly use it over Winclone for convenience.

As far as how I have chosen to back up my OS's, I use time machine for Mavericks, and I haven't planned on how I'm backing up my windows OS quite yet.

Thanks for your reply.

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Answer 4

Csound1

Level 9

60,045 points

Jun 30, 2014 10:56 AM in response to carmichael1198

Is there any truth in the tale that he could not re-allocate space? maybe, I never claimed that it's 100% perfect, but if you search this forum you will find very few catastrophes with it, but a lot of successes.

The choice is yours, I know what I would (and have) done. Just backup everything and data loss becomes extremely unlikely.

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Answer 5

Jun 30, 2014 11:17 AM in response to Csound1

I mean it just sounds too good to be true. I might end up taking the camptune route anyways.

As far as Winclone goes, do you by chance understand the whole disk image process? From what it sounds like, and i'm not very educated in this area, it creates the disk image, you repartition, then you restore the disk image. Does the restoration process mean that once i restore the disk image, I am immediately able to boot up my windows OS as if nothing ever changed and Windows happens to recognize the new and extra space?

I'm just trying to make sure I don't get bit in the butt here as far as understanding and implementation goes. Too many mess ups. ugh

I do like the camptune option though.

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Answer 6

Csound1

Level 9

60,045 points

Jun 30, 2014 11:24 AM in response to carmichael1198

Yup that's about how it works.

Winclone makes the image (which will be roughly the size of the internal used space, so not small), stores it on the OSX partition so that you can restore it. In your case you'll need to move to off that partition to be safe. You'll need enough space on OSX to temporarily store it (unless Winclone has changed that) Be warned, Winclone has a long history of failure, reportedly it is better now but I have not tested it for a year or so (when it was truly awful)

You will need a Mac formatted external drive to store the Winclone image on if there is not enough space on your internal drive.

Just so you know, I used it twice, It failed both times (version 2) and that was enough for me.

Good luck

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Exactly how does Winclone utility work?