Sorry, Partition Image is not a high level program, as Ghost. Ghost makes a file copy, and we obtain a file near a tar.gz archive, with other details (as the boot sector). But PI works in a low level, as Drive Image: it copy used blocks of the disk. Then, it doesn't know where files are written, and cannot allow to see files in the image without restoring. But maybe it will be possible in next vesrions. We will try to make partimage image files mountable: a driver, as the loop one, could allow to make an image file be a block device. If you know how to write block device drivers, please write us.
The current version can only read/write from/to a partition. PI doesn't use the partition table at all. (The linux kernel read it, and PI can directly use hda1, hda2, ...). But I d'like to implement this in the future, to allow users to select partition to save/restore from a list (with name, size, filesys, usage, ...), and PI would be able to create the partition if need at restore, or resize it...
You can't restore to a smaller partition (you will have an error), but it's possible to restore to a lager one. In this case, some space will be lost (I suppose the OS cannot use all the size). PI don't have a resize feature. I d'like to add this in the future too. It will allow to restore into a smaller or larger partition. In deed, PI is low level. It uses data blocks. Then resizing is possible, but that's a complex feature to implement. With some File Systems made to be easily resizable (as NTFS, ext2, ReiserFS), it may be easy, but with FAT, it's hard to do. For example, when resizing from 1,5 GB to 3 GB, you must change FAT16 into FAT32... You can use GNU Parted to do it.
NTFS write support, as UFS write support are dangerous. It can damage partitions, and corrupt data. That's why it's not enabled in partimage-bootdisk. Users who don't know this problem could lose their data if the support was enabled.
If you need the write support, you will have to use another bootdisk. Plese, have a look at the question in this FAQ which explains how to build your own bootdisk.
Many users write us because they can't use the newtork (or another device). In most cases, the problem comes from the bootdisk/bootcd which does not support all drivers.
Space is missing in both partimage-bootdisk and partimage-rootdisk. We can't include all drivers that exists in the kernel sources. That's why only the most common NE2000 newtork cards, and the most common AIC7xxx SCSI drivers are supported. It provides support for a lot of devices, but some of them need another driver. For example, 3COM newtork cards are not supported. There are many ways to solve this problem:
I'm having a problem with booting from the bootdisk.
I've created the disk from the partimage-0.3.5-bootdisk-1.raw file, and when booting, all I see is
090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090 0090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900090 0090009000900090009000900090009000900090009000900
all over the screen.
This is a problem when you download the file with Netscape, and the ascii mode. Try using FTP, or another tool: type wget AdressOfTheFileToDownload
First: run
Then, put partimaged.key and partimaged.cert into apropriate directory and chmod them 0600
If partimaged --chroot {your directory} does'nt fail, you'll be able to run partimaged as daemon into chrooted environnement with `partimaged -D --chroot {your directory}'