Supported filesystems


Since partimage copies only filesystem used block, it must know the layout of the filesystem, and cannot save unsupported filesystems. Here is the list of the filesystems currently supported:

Filesystem Description State
ext2/ext3 Old versions of the default Linux filesystem stable
xfs Primary Linux filesystem stable
ext4 Current default Linux filesystem unsupported
btrfs Primary Linux filesystem unsupported
reiserfs-3 Alternative journalized file system stable
reiserfs-4 Alternative journalized file system unsupported
fat16/fat32 DOS and old Windows file systems stable
HPFS IBM OS/2 File System stable
JFS Alternative journalized file system stable
UFS Unix File System beta
HFS Old MacOS File System beta
NTFS Windows NT, 2000 and XP experimental

The NTFS (Windows NT File System) is currently not fully supported: this means you will be able to save an NTFS partition if system files are not very fragmented, and if system files are not compressed. In this case, you will be able to save the partition into an image file, and you will be able to restore it after. If there is a problem when saving, an error message will be shown and you won’t be able to continue. If you have successfully saved an NTFS partition, you shouldn’t have problems as you restore it (except in case of bugs). Then the best way is to try to save a partition to know if it is possible. If not, try to defragment it and try to saving the partition again.