My recollection of using clonezilla to clone partition to partition is that the partition you are cloning TO needs to be at least as large, preferably larger than the one you are cloning FROM. You should be able to get this info from documentation. If you are cloning a partition from one drive to another drive that will NOT include the master boot record so the drive you clone TO will NOT be bootable without some manual intervention. You might try cloning drive to drive instead of partition to partition as this will include the mbr. As I believe I indicated earlier, the mbr is NOT on any partition.

Clonezilla has the option to clone a drive or partition to an image file. In my minimal use of Clonezilla, I never used this method. When you refer to the "C drive" above, are you talking about the "C" partition or the whole drive. I know windows refers to partitions as drives because it assumes it gets the whole disk but...?

This doesn't really have anything to do with your problem but, when you use Norton Ghost, is it a program on your windows computer? When it is cloning the partition/drive, does it copy itself while it's running?

Is your 76GB hard drive in your Dell Dimension3000? Are you attaching the external 500GB drive to the Dell Dimension to do the cloning? Can you boot from an external drive with the Dell Dimension?

The simplest way to do what you want, basically to have a cloned backup, is to clone drive to drive so your master boot record is included.

You could create the partition and format it (80GB) on the external drive, clone the partition to the external and then install Grub to the mbr of the external drive so that it can boot on its own. Installing Grub is a very simple thing.

I'll see if I can find my Clonezilla CD and look at some of the documentation. Post back if you have more questions.

I just looked at your SuperDuper link. That's similar to cloning an image on Clonezilla.

Thanks again Yancek! Really appreciate your help.I back up my wife's C drive so I am assuming that is the main drive. Regarding my Dell dimension 3000. I have an 80GB drive in it, which ends up being 76GB in size. I have an external 500GB USB drive hooked up to the Dell. I'm not sure if I can boot from an external drive with the Dell. If I clone drive to drive like you mention, will the external drive only use up the 76GB from the Dell drive and then I will have the remainder of the space as free space?

I think I will need some step by step help regarding this, if I decide to do this.

You could create the partition and format it (80GB) on the external drive, clone the partition to the external and then install Grub to the mbr of the external drive so that it can boot on its own. Installing Grub is a very simple thing.

When I use Ghost on my wife's PC, I am running the application from her PC and not from a CD. It works fine.

That's my understanding. You might check the FAQ or Docs at clonezilla.org for more info.

If you want to clone to the Dell and use it as a backup, you should check your BIOS to see if you can boot from an external or you will need to have a boot disk or Live CD to access the files. Or are you planning to hook the external to a different computer which can boot from external.

In Clonezilla, you should have an option of cloning methods, select "device-device" to copy the entire drive.

I would also suggest you check all the options before selecting any and make sure you understand what it will do.