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When I tried to backup the Windows 10 partition with Clonezilla I saw the error:

"The image repository directory is read-only, not writalbe: /home/partimag "

There are related questions to this, like Clonezilla creating disk image read/write issue, but nothing works.

Gustaw Solski
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  • Clonezilla asks you where you'd like to store backups, what did you pick? – gronostaj Mar 12 '20 at 14:32
  • The message from Clonezilla is misleading. The problem is related to Windows 10 - if you will have enabled "Fast startup" (not fast boot) and setting in "sign-in options" "automatically reopen my apps", clonezilla will give you that error. – Gustaw Solski Mar 12 '20 at 14:35
  • Your problem is that you are trying to backup Windows with a Linux utility that doesn't work well on Windows. Use a Windows utility such as AOMEI Backupper Freeware to avoid later problems. – harrymc Mar 12 '20 at 16:28

1 Answers1

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The solution was:

  1. Boot Windows 10 again.

  2. Open cmd as an Administrator - type

    powercfg -h off

  3. Go to the Windows 10 settings and look for the "Sign-in options" - Change the checkbox to off on "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device and reopen my apps after an update or restart."

  4. Power off the Windows from previously opened CMD window by writing a command:

    shutdown -p

    or by powering it down from start menu while holding the shift button.

If you don't want to use Windows UI to turn it off, paste those commands to the elaveted CMD:

powercfg -h off
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" /v DisableAutomaticRestartSignOn /t reg_dword /d 1 /f
shutdown -p

After that you will be able to make a backup copy of your Windows 10 using Clonezilla. Gus

Gustaw Solski
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    Congrats on figuring it out. "Reopen my apps" feature is probably unrelated, Clonezilla shouldn't care about it. Fast startup is the culprit, it actually hibernates Windows when shutting down and marks the partition as hibernated. – gronostaj Mar 12 '20 at 14:41
  • @gronostaj, thank you very much. I don't know why "reopen my apps" feature is interfering with the partitions. Unfortunately it's default on in Windows 10 version 1903, so anybody who want to use Clonezilla with Windows 10 ver. 1903 or greater will be affected. – Gustaw Solski Mar 12 '20 at 14:49
  • @gronostaj "marks the partition as hibernated" ah, and since the partition is in hibernated state, it can't be writable to Clonezilla. Got it. – Gustaw Solski Mar 12 '20 at 14:57
  • Yeah, exactly. Modifying hibernated partitions is unsafe because there might be writes in progress, unflushed buffers etc. Only if the system is shut down completely you can be sure that no filesystem operations are pending. Actually fast startup guarantees it too, but from NTFS's point of view it's no different than hibernation. – gronostaj Mar 12 '20 at 19:40