Getting the hang of Macrium Reflect

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On the advice of a number of you good hearted souls I have downloaded and begun doing image backups with Macrium Reflect. I have done this on several of my PCs now and also created the Recovery CD for each one. Thanks for the advice.

I also use Norton GoBack which has saved my butt countless times over the years. However Norton has eliminated GoBack from it’s product line and now is incorporating some form of it in Norton Ghost…..I think. I don’t know anything about how it matches up to the old version of GoBack though.

It is my understanding though that Norton Ghost does a similar job to Macrium Reflect. Correct?

My main question here is whether there is a way to do GoBack style system backups with Macrium Reflect. If Macrium could automatically create SAVE POINTS like GoBack then I would get rid of GoBack once an for all.

Thanks for any explanations you can provide.

BH

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Acronis claims to have nonstop backup, except it DOESN’T WORK. A problem with GoBack is that it affects the MBR, thus has to be removed before defragging or altering disk/partition structure. Genie TimeLine and Rollback Rx are 2 similar programs, but I haven’t tried them & don’t know about the MBR issue, nor how well they work.
Although others have said that GoBack can potentially cause MAJOR problems by altering the MBR, it has nonetheless saved my bacon on several occasions, but died with XP; this is another example of Symantec buying a competing technology, not continuing its development, then abandoning it (see Partition Magic).

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By the way you should not need a separate Rescue Media for each PC you are Imaging. One copy would work on all PC’s. The Rescue Media simply has all files necessary to boot to the media and access the Macrium Reflect Image file to restor from the Image.

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Thanks Ted. I was wondering about that.
BH

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I know with Acronis TIH I use both the 2010 and 2011 versions. With different versions I did have to create a separate Rescue Media. If I had actually bought the CD rather than download the files to install, I would not need a Rescue Media because it is on the CD, but alas the ease and quickness of obtaining software by download does have it’s drawbacks in that you do not then have the CD for this purpose. I would have to believe that Macrium Reflect is similar in that different versions would require a new Rescue Media, but PC’s using the same version, one Rescue Media will suffice for all PC’s.

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For Macrium Reflect there are two forms of Rescue CD: a Linux version, and one based on BART PE, which is a pig to create since it needs the files from the Windows Setup CD including whichever Service Packs apply…

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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For me, the Macrium Reflect Rescue CD – Linux version – has saved my bacon multiple times.
Unfortunately for me – based on the number of hours spent trying to get Acronis to be able to
“rescue” me – neither T10 nor T11 could do the same. A lot of those hours were spent creating various
dumps and snapshots that multiple levels of Acronis support engineers said they needed to try to resolve
the issue.
As I’ve detailed elsewhere on this site, out of frustration, I tried Macrium Free and it worked out-of-the box,
including the Rescue CD, on my system. I then gladly bought the paid version because of it’s added features.
Dick

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I have been using Rollback Rx for a number of years. It has worked reliably, and has saved me a number of times. It saves disk snapshots, and allows you to revert to a previous snapshot by essentially just doing a reboot (therefore, it’s very fast). In normal operation, it almost doesn’t interfere with the use of the computer. However, since it stores the snapshots on the same disk, it offers no protection against disk failure. Furthermore, as noted by previous posters, it works with the disk at a low level. Therefore, if you want to defrag the disk or to resize partitions, you have to uninstall it before that operation, and to reinstall it after the operation (not a hard thing to do).

Macrium Reflect is kind of complementary to that: it stores disk images on a separate disk. Therefore, it offers protection against disk failure. However, to return the disk to a previous state, you have to perform a restore from a backup, which is a much more time-consuming operation that what you get with Rollback Rx.

As far as I know, Acronis Backup and Recovery supposedly incorporates both technologies. However, when I tried version 10 (the current version), it was very buggy. I was not able to make it work reliably. I searched a bit on the net and found many people making similar complaints, and also complaining that their tech support wasn’t able to resolve the issues, as a previous poster also mentioned. Therefore, before deciding to buy it be sure to try it extensively.

Luis

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Comodo Time Machine will do what you need. I have used for a year on several machines for my clients and it is great! So far. It is free.

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Re comments above…

Remember too, that you can use a totally different computer to restore an backup image to your target drive.

As long as the version of MR that is installed on the system is the same as the version used to create the backup data…you can simply run MR and use “Restore Tasks” on the target drive, then install the drive to the appropriate system.

I keep a system that has all installation versions of MR that I have ever used. If I need to change for a particular backup I simply uninstall the current MR version and install the appropriate version.

By the way, I also ensure that the version of MR under which a backup set was created is stored either in the name of the file(s) or a note file.

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I have been using MAGICURE for some time now. It functions very much like ROXIO GOBACK did, but in a more efficient way. However it does install itself into the MBR by necessity, as recovery snapshots are selected at the pre Windows start up.

One word of warning …. DO NOT Uninstall Magicure from the MBR boot-up screen, as this caused me restarting problems. It is recommended to uninstall Magicure from the Control Panel, per the instruction manual.

To see a full demonstration on YouTube go to ….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1HQozZXtk0

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I tried Macrfum and it would not even get to “first base,” It complained about the Volume Shadow and told me to go into the registry to correct a VSS error. The instructions were somewhat ambigous. But in any event, I do not want to have to do a registry hack for a program right out of the box. As for Acronis, I have had both good and mediocre experience with it, but at least it works as is without any programming.

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I tried Macrfum and it would not even get to “first base,” It complained about the Volume Shadow and told me to go into the registry to correct a

elikam,
Hello… It could be that your VSC is switched off.:cheers: Regards Fred

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Hey everyone, thanks for this thread, it’s very helpful. I too used to run GoBack on all my PCs and it too saved my bacon more times than I can count over many years. I still run WinXP Pro, SP3, and I have a question that hopefully someone can answer. I don’t want to purchase Norton’s Ghost nor any other typical “backup” software.

I’m very happy with my current backup solutions on 5 PCs. But I’d still like something in the genre of GoBack, which worked fine and dandy on all PCs, including my work horse that has two SCSI drives and a RAID controller. However, the controller is only due to the SCSI, and not because the drives are mirrored, striped or any of that sort. They’re SCSI because of their speed. They work and look like regular drives. I just discovered that Comodo Time Machine won’t install because it recognizes a RAID controller, nor will Rollback Rx — I tried both and they failed to install. Their FAQs also said they don’t support RAID. Now I have a question sent to support for Magicure, since I saw nothing in their FAQs about RAID.

But just in case, are there any products like GoBack that support RAID controllers and SCSI disks? I’m getting so desperate I might re-install GoBack on my main PC, although GoBack really slowed down my system.

Anyone? Please help???!!!

Thanks —
Carole

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I had the same VSS error with Macrium, and after many e:mails to Macrium support it turned out that my EVENT LOG was not running in SERVICES … check this out, (run services.msc), it may solve your problem.

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GoBack also objected during install if it believed it detected a RAID controller, but would allow you to bypass the warning if it wasn’t used for a RAID array.

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Hmmm, I never experienced that with GoBack. It always happily installed with every version on my SCSI drives, nary a hiccup. I got my reply from Magicure — no dice, no support for RAID-controlled drives. Bah. Don’t know what to do now except sniffle. Waaaaah!

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