Hi,
as far as clonezilla is concerned you´re basically right. It clones/backs up the whole drive although you can do the same with partitions only.
It´s also correct that it doesn´t provide means to restore specific files/folders natively.
Yet there´s a workaround for achieving this. Example:
sudo cat /path_to_clonezilla_backup_img/sdd2.ext2-ptcl-img.gz.* | sudo gzip -d -c | sudo partclone.ext2 -C -r -W -s - -O path_to_output_file_sdd2.img
This produces a mountable .img-file of the respective partition (e.g. /home).
Then:
sudo mount -o loop ./sdd2.img /mnt
for mounting it. From this place you can copy whatever file you want to wherever you want. After that unmounting with
sudo umount sdd2.img
I already tried it out and it worked perfectly. So clonezilla remains my backup-choice No 1.
P.S:
If anbody is interested what the particular options in the command mean:
Here´s some info:
sdd2.ext2-ptcl-img.gz.* # covers all image segments of the respective partition, here: /home
gzip -d # the same as --decompress, equals gunzip
gzip -c # the same as --stdout, redirects result to stdout
partclone.ext2 -C # free space is not checked
partclone.ext2 -r # restore partition from the special image format
partclone.ext2 -W # Create a file that you can embed as a loop device
partclone.ext2 -s # source FILE
partclone.ext2 -O # Overwrite FILE, overwriting if it exists
Further info: https://drbl.org/faq/fine-print.php?path=./2_System/68_manually_partclone_restore.faq#68_manually_partclone_restore.faq
Cheers.
Rosika 