Rescuezilla

Rescuezilla is a free disk imaging and cloning application that boots from a live USB drive. It is fully interoperable with Clonezilla, allows mounting backup images to extract individual files, supports partition editing, undeletes files, and provides web browsing capabilities. The tool boots on any PC or Mac from a USB stick or CD-ROM.

★★★★★

5.0(1 ratings)

• Full disk image creation. Rescuezilla generates an exact copy of the entire hard drive, including operating system, applications, configurations, and personal files. This image can be stored on an external drive, network storage, or local media, allowing the system to be restored to a previous working state after system failures, virus infections, or disk damage.
• Bare metal recovery (complete system restoration). This recovery function allows restoring a backup image to a new or empty hard drive without any prior operating system installation. After a catastrophic disk failure, Rescuezilla returns the computer to the exact state it was in when the image was created.
• Total interoperability with Clonezilla. Rescuezilla is 100 percent compatible with the Clonezilla image format, an industry standard. Backups created with Clonezilla can be restored using Rescuezilla and vice versa, offering flexibility for technicians and administrators working with different cloning tools.
• Mounting and exploring backup images. The software allows mounting a disk image as if it were another drive on the system, enabling navigation through its folder structure and extraction of individual files (documents, photos, videos) without restoring the entire image. This capability is critical when only a few files from an old backup are needed.
• Partition editing. Rescuezilla includes tools to resize, create, delete, or format disk partitions directly from the rescue environment. This function prepares the destination drive before restoration, optimizes space on existing drives, or corrects partitioning errors without booting the main operating system.
• Undelete files (data recovery). The application integrates data recovery utilities capable of restoring accidentally deleted files, even after emptying the recycle bin or formatting a partition. It scans the drive for recoverable fragments of documents, images, videos, and other file types that have not yet been overwritten.
• Virtual machine image support. Rescuezilla works directly with virtual disk formats such as VirtualBox (VDI), VMware (VMDK), Hyper-V (VHDx), QEMU (QCOW2), and raw images (.dd, .img). This allows cloning virtual machines to physical hardware, migrating systems between different virtualization platforms, or backing up complete environments without prior conversion.
• Access files without being able to log in. When the operating system fails to boot due to forgotten passwords, corrupted system files, or blue screen errors, Rescuezilla provides direct access to all files on the disk. The user can copy personal documents, photos, or projects to an external drive before proceeding with a reinstallation or full restoration.
• Integrated web browser for downloading drivers. The live environment includes a functional browser that allows downloading hardware drivers, firmware updates, or additional tools directly from the internet. This feature is essential when a network or storage driver is needed after booting the rescue system.
• Bootable USB creation without installation. Rescuezilla runs entirely from a USB stick or CD-ROM without modifying the internal hard drive or requiring any installation. Writing the ISO image to removable media (using applications like balenaEtcher) and restarting the computer with boot from USB selected provides a complete rescue environment within seconds.
• Cross-platform compatibility (Windows, Mac, Linux). Backup images created with Rescuezilla can be saved and restored on computers with different operating systems. An image created from a Windows computer can be restored on a Mac or a Linux machine, provided the hardware is compatible, facilitating migrations and recoveries in heterogeneous environments.
• RAM memory test before loading the system. During boot, Rescuezilla offers the option to run exhaustive RAM memory tests to detect defective modules. This pre-check prevents failed restorations or data corruption caused by memory failures, diagnosing hardware problems before any backup or recovery operation begins.

Rescuezilla originated as a fork of Redo Backup and Recovery in 2019, following a long period of inactivity of the original project since 2012. In 2020, the original project was resumed under the shorter name Redo Rescue. Current development is led by a team of independent contributors and volunteers, with central focus on maintaining compatibility with the latest Ubuntu versions and the Clonezilla format. Rescuezilla is written primarily in C++ for the cloning utilities (partclone) and uses Python along with GTK for the graphical interface and boot environment.

Alternatives to Rescuezilla:

ReclaiMe

ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery is software for recovering RAID configuration parameters such as disk order, block size, and start offset.

Price: Free   Size: 2.4 MB   Version: 5831   OS: Windows

BackupAssist

BackupAssist is a backup software product created for Microsoft Windows environments, developed by the Australian company Cortex I.

Price: Free   Size: 61.7 MB   Version: 15.0.2   OS: Windows

System Reinstaller Pro

System Reinstaller Pro is a software utility developed by Kingshiper that automates the process of reinstalling Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Price: Free   Size: 51.8 MB   Version: 0.3.1   OS: Windows

Ease Data Recovery

Ease Data Recovery is a software application dedicated to the recovery of deleted, lost, or inaccessible files.

Price: $79   Size: 60.3 MB   Version: 7.3.1   OS: Windows

Aomei FastRecovery

AOMEI FastRecovery is a data recovery program for Windows.

Price: Free   Size: 137 MB   Version: 7.20   OS: Windows

Aomei Cloner

AOMEI Cloner is a hard disk and partition cloning application.

Price: Free   Size: 77.8 MB   Version: 1.0   OS: Windows

Abelssoft EasyBackup

EasyBackup is a backup application for Windows.

Price: $29.95   Size: 9.1 MB   Version: 2026.16.01   OS: Windows