Questions about using Clonezilla to create and restore image on Windows 8.1 secure boot system

Question

I'd like to use clonezilla to create a disk image of a Windows 8.1 system with secure boot enabled and some third-party software installed, so that I can at a later time restore the system from that image to the original machine and not have to install the third-party software one by one, etc.

When I try to use clonezilla off usb I get the error: "EFI USB Device (...) has been blocked by the current security policy."

I have two questions:

• Will disabling secure boot to allow clonezilla to load, creating the disk image, and then re-enabling secure boot afterwards have any adverse effects on me being able to run the currently installed Windows 8.1 OS?

• Does it make sense to create a disk image this way in the first place? Will I be able to re-image the drive at a later time with secure boot enabled (if not during the re-imaging then at least afterwards) and startup the OS successfully? Or will re-imaging the drive make the system inoperable because (I'm assuming) the secure boot keys also get updated in the firmware as one updates windows 8.1 in the meantime and so they won't match the image?

Answer 1

You should use the Microsoft tools to do a system image - officially.

We've been trying to do this with a Samsung tablet with Secure Boot disabled but CloneZilla gets to a certain point and then doesn't begin taking the image.

We're next going to try booting to a WinPE disk and capture the image using DISM (create a WIM of the current system).