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The Bottom Line

Winclone provides basic backup capabilities for Mac users who have one or more Boot Camp partitions. Because Winclone creates image files you can store on a Mac volume, you don’t need a separate Windows hard drive or partition to store the backups. Instead, you can perform everything, including the backup, from the Mac environment you know and love.

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Pros

• Backs up a Boot Camp volume

• Creates a bootable image
• Works with XP or Vista
• Works with NTSF or FAT partitions
• Free

Cons

• No scheduling capabilities
• Cannot copy directly to a new partition
• initial search for mounted drives can take a while

Description

• Requires Intel-based Macs
• Requires Leopard OS (OS X 10.5.x) or later
• Supports FAT Boot Camp partitions
• Supports NTFS Boot Camp Partitions
• Currently free

Guide Review - Winclone 2.0.10

When Apple introduced Boot Camp for Intel-based Macs, it was like lifting a curtain between two worlds. You could now, with great ease, use an Intel Mac to run multiple operating systems. Running Windows natively had some great advantages, speed and native graphics performance being chief among them. But it also had a few disadvantages, one of which was the lack of an easy way to back up a Boot Camp partition.

Along came twocanoes software, maker of Winclone, a backup utility that can create a bootable clone of a Boot Camp partition. Because Winclone creates image files, you can store the backups on your existing Mac hard drive(s).

Using Winclone

Despite its name, Winclone is a Mac application. It has a basic interface with two functions: Image, the backup process, and Restore. Winclone creates image files in a compressed format, which saves tons of space. For example, it can turn a 30 GB Boot Camp partition into an 880 MB Winclone image file. Of course, the amount of compression will depend on how full the original Boot Camp partition is. You can store the image file anywhere on your Mac volume(s).

Restoring is a simple matter of selecting the image file to use as the source and specifying the Boot Camp partition to restore to.

An obvious use for Winclone is to back up Windows partitions by creating fully bootable images. While creating backups may be its primary use, you can also use Winclone to move your existing Boot Camp partition to a new Mac or a new hard drive.

Winclone lacks a help system or any documentation, but the twocanoes web site has a Winclone FAQ, which I suggest reading before using the program.

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