Back up and cloning microSD cards

borghead · November 23, 2017 at 4:00 PM

Hiya all....

I've spent an inordinate amount of time setting up and configuring my Beelink mini mxIII. I've got it to the state I want (all addons, skins setup). Now here are the two questions:

1. I have multiple Beelink mioni mxIII boxes, so my thought is I should be able to clone the microSD card and install them in each box. Then all I have to do, is change the system name. I don't have a Linux box, so using Clonezilla isn't an option (if need be, I guess I could setup vmware and setup a Linux repo). I'm thinking of using WinImage to clone the microSD card. Does anybody know of another Windows based cloning software (preferably free)?

2. To update (from Kodi 17.5 to 17.6), it would mean just placing the image file and the dtb file in the update folder and rebooting. However, from what I have been reading, that wont work if I need to upgrade to Kodi 18. What would be my best option to save all my settings (installed addons, sources in File Manager, skin settings etc) to a file so that I can import it all back once I create a new image with Kodi 18? Will the Kodi Backup and Recovery save all the necessary settings? Or is there another utility that will do a better job?

Any help/input would be greatly appreciated.

Greg

bubblegum57 · November 23, 2017 at 4:53 PM

I used to clone my NUC usb stick to another usb, using a bootable usb stick with clonezilla, this works on my windows pc,

A useful tool to create a bootable usb stick is, Yumi

YUMI - Multiboot USB Creator | USB Pen Drive Linux

**Klojum** · November 23, 2017 at 6:14 PM Official Post

Cloning is one way, making a backup via LE's internal Backup&Restore tool, and restoring that backup is another.

Using Win32diskimager for cloning is another.

**vpeter** · November 23, 2017 at 6:18 PM

When cloning with Win32diskimager then created image sometimes can't fit new sd card. That's because different cards has different size.

When I'm dealing with such situation I shrink second (storage) partition in disk image with gparted on linux.

One useful link for this: Shrinking images on Linux - Softwarebakery

bubblegum57 · November 23, 2017 at 6:29 PM

The tool I posted can create several useful tools on a usb stick, gparted & clonezilla are just two.

personally, I have not had any luck using the Libreelec backup.

I find cloning works for me, although if the disks are different, you do need to resize them using gparted.

borghead · November 24, 2017 at 2:59 PM

Well, installed Yumi. Created a bootable USB key with Ubuntu and Clonzilla. Unfortunately, I get size errors when reading the source microSD. I will keep working at it. Still not sure how I can keep my settings for when I have to upgrade Kodi17.6 to Kodi 18.x. Spent a LONG time creating this image, really don't want to have to do it all over again for Kodi 18.

bubblegum57 · November 24, 2017 at 7:43 PM

Quote from borghead

Well, installed Yumi. Created a bootable USB key with Ubuntu and Clonzilla. Unfortunately, I get size errors when reading the source microSD. I will keep working at it. Still not sure how I can keep my settings for when I have to upgrade Kodi17.6 to Kodi 18.x. Spent a LONG time creating this image, really don't want to have to do it all over again for Kodi 18.

So what you need to do, is use Gparted, to make the sizes of the two partitions, the same. on both usb's

Then use clonezilla

**chewitt** · November 25, 2017 at 4:57 AM Official Post

Use the backup function in the LE settings add-on, it exists for a several good reasons:

a) backup up the contents of the /storage partition is always faster than making an image of the entire partition

b) restoring the contents is always faster too

c) no partition size shenanigans to deal with

There is a time/place in the LE ecosystem for cloning tools. Backup is never it.