Macrium Reflect – Free Edition (V7.1)

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When Woody moved us to MS-DEFCON 3, he eventually linked to his latest post in Computerworld. Among his ProTips, #3 was: “Make a full system image backup before you install the January patches”. Scary, but very good advice concerning the craziness in January. Among the free products he mentioned to do the backup was Macrium Reflect. Since I’m still on Windows 8.1, I decided to go with Macrium.

This process showed me I’m not the techie I thought I was. Downloading & installing Macrium 7.1, not a problem. Preparing to do the backup, a minor problem that seemed major at 1st. My first step, according to Macrium, was to create bootable rescue media. I have an external Toshiba Canvio USB flash drive with 1TB total storage. Other than software that came on it, I used it for occasional File History backups. I figured I still had more than enough left for everything. So, I clicked on “Create bootable Rescue media”.

Surprise! I got an Error Code 6; “No Free Space Available”. DANG, What the Heck? I learned that my 1TB was all in one partition. I needed free space in a different partition to create my rescue media. Macrium also says that if my PC boots in UEFI mode (which it does; my ASUS X55A came with that & Win 8, which has been “updated” to Win 8.1), “then your [sic] must format your rescue media using the FAT32 file system.” I had to shrink my existing partition to create free space for a new FAT32 partition.

“Hello Disk Manager, my new friend” (sung to “The Sound of Silence”, Simon & Garfunkel). Win 8.1 is smart enough to find “Create and format hard disk partitions” when I type “disk partition” on the Start screen. Disk Manager wasn’t that hard at all, especially when ‘Action>All Tasks’ gave me options to ‘Expand Volume’, ‘Shrink Volume’ & ‘Delete Volume”. I shrunk the partition to provide more than enough free space. “Create bootable Rescue media” -Done.

Next, clicked on “Add a boot menu option to start the Reflect recovery environment”. Easier to do than the rescue media. At the end, I was instructed to boot from the recovery environment (to be sure it works, of course). Closed everything & shut down. Turned on my trusty ASUS again & saw “Choose an operating system”. My choices were Windows 8.1 & Macrium Reflect System Recovery. Huzzah! Clicked on the Macrium choice &… black screen. Not the infamous Blue Screen of Death… just a black screen with a white cursor.

After swirling the cursor around the black screen, doing Ctrl+Alt+Delete a few times (spoiler: nothing happened), & pressing the power button twice (same spoiler), I used my last resort… removing the laptop’s battery, waiting, & re-inserting it. Once inserted (can’t remember if I pressed the power button or now), the Macrium Recovery screen appeared! Hope that issue with the black screen doesn’t reoccur. Shut down, rebooted in Windows. “Add a boot menu option to start the Reflect recovery environment”-Done.

Thanks to Cybertooth, who talked me through the Main Event, the actual “Image this disk”. Since he has Version 5.1, some things were new in Version 7.1, but the process of creating the image was the same. Hope this helps others; remember, we’re all a n00b at Something!

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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Also, I thought I’d add Cybertooth’s original post to here, so you can see his advice first-hand:

@wildbill: I use Macrium Reflect. The version is 5.1; I remember long ago making a conscious decision not to update it because newer versions dropped some feature that I considered important, although now I can’t remember what that was…

Anyway, what you (probably) want to do is to select all the partitions on your system drive: go to the Disk Image tab and select the “Create a Backup” tab there. Make sure that all the partitions on the physical disk that contains your OS are checked off. (I always include the “factory image” D: drive for good measure.)

If you have more than one physical disk on the PC, you will see more than one row of disk partitions. They will be identified as “MBR Disk 1,” “MBR Disk 2,” etc. followed by the disk’s model number and size so that you can verify you’re looking at the disk you want.

Now see below the row of partitions for the desired disk, where you have a choice to “clone this disk” or “image this disk.” Click on “image this disk.” A new smaller window will pop up, showing you the disk you’ve selected to image (the “source”) and asking where you want the image to be stored (the “destination”). Find the location where you want the image to go and give it the name you want (I just go with Macrium’s recommendation for the name).

Now click on the “Next” button. The window will change to show you what you are about to do. After verifying the backup source and destination, you can click on “Advanced Options” in the lower left corner to see your compression and other options, and to add a description of what you’re doing. (I write something like “full uncompressed backup done February 6, 2018” as it minimizes the chances for confusion later on if I need to restore a backup.) When you’re done, click OK and then click “Finish” in the smaller window.

Now you will get a further set of options, this time to save the instructions for making the image to an XML file that you can reuse later. Your choice. Make sure that “run this backup now” is checked and then click OK. The backup process will begin.

Let me know if you need more information, but this really should be enough to get you going.

As I said before, I’m using an older version of Reflect so what you see on your screen may not match exactly what I see, but the concepts should be basically the same.

Good luck.

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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@ WildBill

Fyi,(mostly in reference to Win 7)

Macrium Reflect Free’s bootable System Rescue media is very similar to the bootable Windows System Repair disc (= CD) or media created from the internal hard-drive’s Windows Recovery partition by using the built-in Windows Backup Tool. The Windows Recovery partition gives the options for System Refresh or Reset, Troubleshoot, Advanced options, Startup repair, Restore from system image, System Restore, Command Prompt, etc, eg during startup. The Recovery partition for Win 10 is about 400MB in size = the System Repair media can be a CD.(= 700MB)
https://www.howtogeek.com/131907/how-to-create-and-use-a-recovery-drive-or-system-repair-disc-in-windows-8/
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3140449/windows/everything-you-need-to-know-about-windows-10-recovery-drives.html

So, Windows users normally create the bootable Windows or Macrium Reflect System Rescue/Repair media on CD’s, which is needed to be booted, in order to restore the stored system image to a borked Windows computer system.

There is also the non-similar or different OEM Recovery partition (= about 12GB in size) included by the OEMs in the internal hard-drives of new OEM Win 8.x/10 computers. This partition is actually a Factory system image, ie it is different from the Windows Recovery partition. Buyers are to immediately create an OEM System Recovery USB flash-drive (= 16GB) by using the built-in OEM Recovery Backup Tool.
Previously (= pre-2012), for new OEM Win 7 computers, the OEMs provided the buyers with free OEM System Recovery DVD’s = the OEMs saved costs by providing only OEM Recovery partitions on the internal hard-drives.
https://www.disk-partition.com/windows-10/recovery-partition-after-upgrading-to-windows-10-4348.html

Win 7 has a built-in System image creation tool but it can only store the system images on an external HDD or a set of (4 to 5) DVDs, ie not on USB flash-drives. Macrium Reflect Free can also store system images on USB flash-drives.

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Thanks for the links, anon, especially for the How-To Geek on Windows 8. I remember from Woody’s Windows 8 All-In-One for Dummies that Win 8 had done away with Win 7’s Backup tool. Backups on 8/8.1 are through File History, but they’re limited. File History only backups files in Libraries, as well as the Desktop, Contacts, Favorites, & OneDrive files when they’re offline. Great to know how to do these things, especially to create a recovery drive on a separate USB stick/drive. Since I don’t want to wipe a 1 TB drive just to create a recovery drive, I’ll stick with Macrium for now.

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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I’m wondering if my current ways of making “full system images” aren’t adequate? I make them 2-3x/year, (and for the pre-January WU). I don’t use Macrium Reflect, but was considering it.

On my W7 64-bit Home Ed. desktop, I use a WD My Book external drive (2 TB). I don’t use the drive’s included software (“WD Smartware”) for the image itself, just for occasional file backup. I make the image thru Windows Backup and restore: “Create a system image”. The drive does show Windows Image Backup’s stored on it. I made a 2nd set of system repair discs recently.

I don’t have a USB flash drive image, though, which it sounds like Macrium does. Would Macrium also create a “repair disc”, but on a flash drive? Is Macrium better than what I do now, or would it just give me a second backup option? Should I do disk cleanup and defragmentation on my external drives?

On my W8.1, home, 64-bit laptop:  I thought I was making full system images on a Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB external drive (not using the drive’s software either); but after reading this article, I’m not sure. I go to backup and restore, and click on “create a system image” in the bottom left corner. It says it makes an image of the EFI partition, (C:) System and System. (I see “images” stored on the drive.)

Are these not “full” images, capable of restoring my pc? I don’t get a “repair disc” option. All I have for that is a recovery item on a flash drive, made when the pc was first purchased. Would Macrium give me a more complete system image, and would it also act as “repair disc” on a flash drive?

If I use Macrium Reflect, free version, do I need to know how to set up partitions to use it? I don’t think I’ll do more WU until I know if my images are adequate. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

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@ Lori

For your Win 7 Home desktop, since you are storing the System Images on an external USB Hard-drive, you can just rely on the built-in Windows Recovery and Backup Tool, ie no need to use Macrium Reflect Free.
___ To restore the Win 7 Home System Image after a system failure, you need to boot the Win 7 System Repair CD = you need to also create this CD beforehand by using the built-in Windows CD/DVD burner or download the Imgburn program.

For your Win 8.1 Home laptop, you can still use the above built-in but hidden Win 7-era Recovery and Backup Tool to store the System Image on an external USB hard-drive, as per …
http://ccm.net/faq/29239-windows-8-1-how-to-create-a-system-image

The built-in Tool to create a Win 8.1/10 Recovery USB Flash-drive is just something extra. The users are given the option to create a plain USB Recovery drive or one with the Factory System Image included. The disadvantage of a USB Factory System Image recovery is that there will be a lot of updates that need to be installed, ie since the date of purchase. So, better to use the built-in but hidden Win 7-era Recovery and Backup Tool, ie can create a recent System Image.

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Lori

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I tried to use the Windows 7 system backup tool when I ran Windows 7, but it could not handle my >2 GB GPT volume.  If you have a large volume as such, the Windows 7 tool (which I do not believe was ever updated) won’t work with it.  I haven’t tried it since moving to 8.1, as the aftermarket tools offer many more features anyway (like the ability to back up and restore Linux partitions, differential or incremental backups, encryption, etc).  Still, it is already there, it’s effective, and it’s free, so if it does what you want, why not use it?

I just tried out the Win7 backup tool in a VM to re-familiarize myself with it.  It asked first where to save the backup, then what to backup… giving a choice of “let Windows decide” and “Let me choose.”  I always, always want to choose for myself, in any given situation… this would be no exception.  If the choices it gives you for what to back up includes all of the drives you expected to see, then you should be good.

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@ Ascaris

https://www.howtogeek.com/245610/how-to-check-if-a-disk-uses-gpt-or-mbr-and-how-to-convert-between-the-two/

Normally, or by default, Win 7 is installed in Legacy BIOS mode using ms-dos/MBR disks, not GPT disks. GPT disks are normally used by UEFI default systems, eg Win 8.x/10 64bit.
___ So, to create and store Win 7 System Images on an external USB hard-drive, the drive/disk has to be in ms-dos/MBR mode. ms-dos/MBR disks are limited to 2TB in size and 4 Primary partitions.

To convert a GPT disk to ms-dos/MBR disk or vice versa, you may need to use a bootable DVD/USB Disk Partitioning Tool/program, eg GParted, Aomei, etc.

Win 7 64bit can also be installed in UEFI mode using GPT disks.

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Quite right, Anon, but it doesn’t change that the backup program in Windows 7 (x64) was not able to image my >2 TB GPT disk!  It’s one of the reasons I chose to use something other than the included backup program, which IMO really should have been compatible with all the disks that Windows 7 itself was able to use.  The backup program is deprecated in 8.1, so has it been updated to use GPT?  That’s a good question, but not one I can answer.  I started using Linux (which I also want to back up) before I migrated to 8.1 on the Windows side, so I was already looking for backup programs that could handle non-Windows partitions.

I only wish there were more Linux backup programs.  I’m only aware of one that is anything like the wide variety of Windows offerings… that is, online, full-featured full disk imaging programs.  Maybe someday.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
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@ Ascaris, Thanks! Congrats on becoming a MVP!

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Ascaris

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Thanks! I’m so relieved! When I read WildBill’s comment, “Backups on 8/8.1 are through File History, but they’re limited. File History only backups files in Libraries, as well as the Desktop, Contacts, Favorites…”, I worried my Win 8.1 system images were incomplete. I’ve never done an image restoration before.

Also, I couldn’t follow all the discussion on partitions; so I wanted to be sure I was ok. Both external drives came pre-formatted in a single partition for NTFS. On my Win 8.1 pc, as I wouldn’t want to use the factory USB flash drive for recovery and there are no “repair discs” like in Win 7, is the media necessary to re-boot my pc stored within the system image?

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@ Lori

Win 7 is usually installed in Legacy BIOS mode using ms-dos/MBR disks, whereas Win 8.x/10 are usually installed in UEFI mode using GPT disks and 64bit architecture.
___ I’m not sure that running Win 8.1 in UEFI mode with GPT disks can use the built-in Win 7-era Recovery Tool to create and restore a Win 8.1 System Image.
___ I’m sure that running Win 8.1 in Legacy BIOS mode with ms-dos/MBR disks can.

If cannot(= you are running Win 8.1 in UEFI mode), then you will need to use the built-in USB Win 8.1 Recovery Tool to create the Win 8.1 System Image on a 16GB USB Flash-drive.

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Lori

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@ Lori

For the built-in Win 7-era Recovery and Backup Tool, to recover with the Win 7/8.1 System Image, you need to boot pre-created Windows System Repair CD.

The Windows System Repair CD is created from an image of the 200+MB Recovery partition that is found on the internal hard-drive. This Recovery partition is auto-created when Win 7/8.1 was installed. It would be a waste to create the System Repair/Recovery Environment on a 4GB USB Flash-drive.

A correction – afaik, the built-in USB Win 8.1/10 Recovery Tool can create and store a recent System Image on a 16GB USB Flash-drive, including the System Repair/Recovery Environment. In a sense, this USB Flash-drive Recovery Tool is better than the Win 7 external USB hard-drive Tool.
___ Only the built-in OEM USB Win 8.1/10 Recovery Tool can create a Factory System Image, including the System Repair/Recovery Environment on a 16GB USB Flash-drive.

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Lori

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I will try to answer your concerns inline, Lori.

Lori wrote:

I’m wondering if my current ways of making “full system images” aren’t adequate?

The Windows backup utility is fully capable of creating very adequate system images.  Wild Bill was talking about something else with the “file history” thing, I think, but that’s not the same as the Windows backup program that can make system images.  The only similarity in Windows 8 is that the way you start the Windows backup program is by first selecting the File History applet in the Control Panel.  Otherwise, file history has nothing to do with Windows backup or system images.

When you select the “create a system image” link, it first asks where you want to save the backup, then it asks, “Which drives do you want to include in the backup?”, right?

As long as all of the drives you want backed up are checked, you should be in great shape.  If you only have a C: drive and everything is stored on that, then you have nothing else to select here, as the C: drive is automatically checked, along with things like the EFI system partition, if you are using EFI.

If you have a D: hard drive that you want to back up in addition to C:, you will have to manually check that in the “Which drives do you want to include in the backup?” dialog.  That’s only if the D: drive is something that also needs to be backed up– if D: is a DVD drive or if it is your external hard drive that you use for backups, then you would not want to add that to the backup.  It shouldn’t even give you the option for those.

I don’t have a USB flash drive image, though, which it sounds like Macrium does. Would Macrium also create a “repair disc”, but on a flash drive?

I am not sure what you are asking.  If you are asking about the ability to save backups to a USB flash drive, I would not recommend this.  Flash drives are not intended for long-term storage; this is best left to a regular external hard drive.

If you mean the ability to create a rescue USB flash drive… Yes, Macrium Reflect and all of the other Windows backup programs I’ve seen will allow this, but you can also create a recovery drive in Windows, or use a Windows install DVD/USB.

The Macrium USB flash drive won’t be a “repair” drive.  It simply lets you boot into Macrium Reflect, which gives you the ability to restore from backup if Windows can’t start. In contrast, WinRE does have the options to try to automatically fix startup problems, start Windows system restore, or to use the command line to try to repair Windows manually, in addition to the ability to restore your Windows backup.

Is Macrium better than what I do now, or would it just give me a second backup option?

It’s better for some people because it has features that the Windows backup program does not have, but that only makes it better if you want to use those features.  It sounds like the built-in program is doing what you want, so switching to Macrium would just end up making things more complicated. Reflect has a more complicated user interface that is not as easy to use as the built-in Windows program.

Should I do disk cleanup and defragmentation on my external drives?

You could have the Windows defragmenter analyze them to see if they are fragmented, but my guess would be that they probably won’t need it.  The kind of writing that a backup program does is not the kind that typically causes a lot of fragmentation.  If it concerns you, though, it won’t hurt to check.

On my W8.1, home, 64-bit laptop: I thought I was making full system images on a Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB external drive (not using the drive’s software either); but after reading this article, I’m not sure. I go to backup and restore, and click on “create a system image” in the bottom left corner. It says it makes an image of the EFI partition, (C:) System and System. (I see “images” stored on the drive.) Are these not “full” images, capable of restoring my pc?

If those are all the drives installed on the system, then yes, they are full images, capable of restoring the PC.

I don’t get a “repair disc” option. All I have for that is a recovery item on a flash drive, made when the pc was first purchased.

It sounds like another name for the same thing.

If something happens to your PC and you need to restore from your Windows backup, you need what is called the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).  There are several ways to get into WinRE… the first is simply to insert a Windows install DVD or USB flash drive and boot from it.  When the boot is complete, it will show you the option to install Windows, but down in the lower left corner is a link “Repair your PC.”  That link takes you to WinRE.

If you use the options in Windows to create a  recovery disc or drive in Windows, that will also create a bootable disc or USB drive that will start WinRE.

Once you get into WinRE, you can use that to start restoring your backup image, and when it finishes, everything should be good again.

Would Macrium give me a more complete system image, and would it also act as “repair disc” on a flash drive?

No, it won’t give a more complete system image.  There are some advantages, but completeness of the image (as long as you only have Windows on the PC, and not also something else like Linux) won’t be one of them.

If I use Macrium Reflect, free version, do I need to know how to set up partitions to use it?

It’s a good idea to have a basic understanding of what partitions are so that you can know what to back up and such, but you won’t need to know how to set them up.  If you do have a disaster and need to recover all your data from a backup, the program will redo the partitions exactly as they were before unless you specify otherwise (and it doesn’t sound like you will be!).

I don’t think I’ll do more WU until I know if my images are adequate. ? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

It sounds to me like your images are very adequate.  Other backup programs may give you different advantages as far as creating the backups, but the backups they create will not be any more useful than the ones created by Windows backup if disaster strikes.

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@ Ascaris,
Thanks for such a thorough, detailed explanation. You’ve been so patient. I now see there’s more than plugging in a backup drive, following steps, and making an image. A valuable lesson to keep my current pc’s running.

“As long as all of the drives you want backed up are checked, you should be in great shape…”

On my Win 7 pc, I back up what’s presented: “System (System); OS (C:) System; and HP Recovery (D:) System”. No, my D: drive is not an external or DVD drive.

I should’ve studied before asking my question, though I didn’t know so much was involved. My apologies! Yours, and others, replies have pointed me in good directions. Do you have a link to where it explains what the different drives do, which to back up, etc.?

“I don’t have a USB flash drive image, though, which it sounds like Macrium does. Would Macrium also create a “repair disc”, but on a flash drive?”

I was asking about both. As recommended, I’ll continue my images on external drive.

I was also asking about a rescue drive. My Win 7 pc offered me to make “system repair discs” in addition to system image, to enable boot and restore, if pc has problems. Win 8.1 didn’t. So, my initial “recovery” flash drive would act the same as the Win 7 repair discs? This could re-install windows, assist a boot.

Another question: The “recovery” flash drive says its file format is FAT32, but my pc’s local disk is NTFS. Is this a problem? The external drive I back up to is NTFS.

Thanks again! I’ve had 3 critical events at boot on the Win 8.1 pc (Event 41, Kernel-power) since 2-22-2018. Still looking for the cause.

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Ascaris

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Lori,

The recovery media created by Windows will allow you to do all of the WinRE things, like attempt to automatically repair system startup issues, start a restore using your Windows backup images, use System Restore, or go to the command line.  It won’t allow you to reinstall Windows.  For that, you will need a Windows DVD/USB drive.  If you don’t have one, though, don’t worry; Microsoft will allow you to download the .iso to create one if you plug in your product key.

As for the format of the USB drive… as long as it works, you’re good.  The file system type on the disk itself doesn’t make any difference.  The program you’re using to create the rescue media will normally take care of all of that… just have it create the rescue media, then test it to make sure it works by attempting to boot with it.

FAT32 and NTFS are formats or filesystem types.  GPT and MBR are partition system types.  When you ask about partitioning, are you talking about the filesystem types?  You don’t need to change the partitions to reformat them, if reformatting is what you want.

As far as the varying formats, it’s mostly something that the backup programs themselves will handle.  As long as the backup gets written and the backup process completes normally, you’re in good shape; it will be restored the way it was should you ever need to recover.

In general, with Windows you should be using NTFS-formatted storage media; they are more forgiving of disk errors than FAT32.  Otherwise, don’t worry about the difference in format type between the source and the backup, if there is any.  I make backups of my EXT4 format Linux volumes on my Windows PC all the time, saving to a drive that uses NTFS, and the backups work fine when I restore them, even though Windows doesn’t even know what an EXT4 disk is. Backup programs are pretty robust in such matters, and if not, it should certainly inform you of that so you know that something has not gone according to plan.  If the program says the backup was completed, it should be fine!

 

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Lori

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@ Lori

During initial install of Win 7, users may opt to create 2 or 3 partitions, eg the C:/ and D:/ drives. Otherwise, only a C:/ drive will be auto-created by default.

In the former case, the C:/ drive contains the Win 7 operating system and the D:/ drive should be used for Data storage, eg movies, music, photos, files, etc.
___ The built-in Win 7 Recovery and Backup Tool allows you to create System Images of either the C:/ drive alone or of both the C:/ and D:/ drives together. To save on disk space, users often only create System Images of the C:/ drive or System drive.

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Lori

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@ anonymous
My C:/ drive has all the files I’m using. The D:/ drive contains a “HP recovery partition”, which says it has files to do a system recovery. I can’t see or access the files. “Properties” of the partition shows it has 1 file with 3 folders. Shouldn’t I contain this in each system image then?

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@ Lori
In your case, you should only create System Images of the C:/ drive.

You can reduce the size of the C:/ drive by moving all your data to the D:/ drive and backing-up your data elsewhere.

The HP Recovery partition(= usually about 12GB in size) allows the Windows user to enter into the Windows RE(= to do a Refresh or Factory Reset, Repair Windows, Restore System Image, System Restore, Command Prompt, etc) or to create a Factory System Image on a USB flash-drive with the built-in HP Recovery Manager Tool.

In comparison, a Win 8.1 Recovery partition is only about 300MB in size. It also allows the user to enter into the Windows RE and create a recent System Image on a USB flash-drive.

https://support.hp.com/my-en/document/c03481733 (HP PCs – Creating a Recovery Image on Discs or Saving a Recovery Image to a USB Flash Drive (Windows 8))
https://support.hp.com/sg-en/document/c03489643 (HP PCs – Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 8))

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Lori

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Ascaris wrote:

I will try to answer your concerns inline,

… ..
Hi Ascaris – With the Sept patches more or less ready/safe to install I was reviewing my back-up practice and have been wading through your detailed contributions from last year on the basics. So I am hoping you can throw some light on a few questions.

I have been using the basic Windows backup and restore utility to an external HDD with a system image included in the settings for this process. Thankfully I have never had a need to retore the system with this Acer (mfg. 2013) BIOS V2.12 Win7 64 bit. (I took Win 8 off this back in 2014 and with several house moves have no idea where the product code is for that preinstall – if I had it)

Some minor hickups with the August patch brought me on here and I will probably keep this PC offline after Microsoft stop supporting Win 7 in 2020. So checking over the folders on the HDD there are two; PC Name (the back folder) and a Windows image backup folder. With the cursor hovering over the former it indicates “empty folder” – why is this? I notice the Image Backup folder has several subfolders, from which I presume the restore runs. Do these two folders work in combination? and If I wanted to restore just files for Outlook, for example, where do I find them?

Thanks – Razz

ASUS GL702VS 24GB RAM Intel Core i7 64 bit Win 10 Home 22H2 OS Build 19045.3693
Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0
Not Win 11 eligible.

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Anon, you’re right about using the Windows Backup & Recovery Tool for Windows 7, since it’s already there & Lori’s probably using it. As for Windows 8.1, I followed your ccm.net link, but the Windows 7 File Recovery option (sub-menu?) no longer exists. To get the same result, I click “Save backup copies of your files with File History”, then at the bottom, click on “System Image Backup”.

Lori, no matter how you reach it, if you click on “System Image Backup”, you have options to save the backup on a hard (removable?) disk, 1 or more DVD’s, or a network location (if your machine is networked). As for Macrium Reflect, you can store the system image on a folder on an external drive, or burn it to CD/DVD. Those discs should be the same as your repair discs. If you choose to use Macrium Reflect & an external drive, you will have to create bootable rescue media in its own partition. Instructions for doing that with Disk Manager are in my original post & they’re pretty simple.

Bottom Line: You can continue to do things the way you’re doing them on Windows 7 & Windows 8.1. Macrium is just another option & you could use it to create images on external media or CD’s/DVD’s.

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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Lori, Elly

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Great explanations point by point, Ascaris. There’s a reason you’re an MVP! Just one little thing…

Ascaris wrote:

It’s a good idea to have a basic understanding of what partitions are so that you can know what to back up and such, but you won’t need to know how to set them up. If you do have a disaster and need to recover all your data from a backup, the program will redo the partitions exactly as they were before unless you specify otherwise (and it doesn’t sound like you will be!).

If Lori chooses to use Macrium Reflect & her external drive is setup as only 1 partition, she will have to shrink it & create a FAT32 partition for Macrium to have bootable rescue media. Disk Manager does that very well; as I explain in my initial post. You are right that WinRE gives the ability to boot into a separate environment & recover.

Bottom Line for Lori: If what you’re doing now on Windows 7 & Windows 8.1 is working fine & doing what you want (creating system images that you can use to restore your PC), you don’t need anything else. As Woody says about Windows Defender, “if your antivirus & anti-malware are built in, why would you buy or use another antivirus?”

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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Ascaris, Lori

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Lori wrote:

I worried my Win 8.1 system images were incomplete

I find the easiest way to backup Windows is to use a 3rd party backup program. This allows you to perform file backups and image backups, plus create boot disks to make the restore process easier.

There are plenty of free backup programs. these ones are listed on most features in the free version / least technical. Aomei Backupper, EaseUS ToDo, Paragon Backup, Macrium Reflect.

cheers, Paul

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Lori

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So, a 3rd party may be better for a Win 8.1 image than using the “hidden Win 7-era Recovery and Backup Tool” on an external USB hard-drive, as currently do? (I do file backups in between images using the drive’s software. For my Win 7 pc, I also have repair discs.)

There seems to be a split opinion on this. Is the biggest advantage with 3rd parties that I could make an image on an USB flash drive vs. external drive? And, it’d give me a boot option for my Win 8.1 pc? Though, having an image on both an external and a flash drive does seem like double safety, if one would fail.

Do I need to partition a flash drive? My current external drives came pre-formatted in a single partition for NTFS, and I’ve been creating the images for the various computer drives on that one partition. Is this wrong?

For a non-tech person, is one backup system easier than another to restore from an image?

Thanks, PaulT. Everyone is so generous about sharing their time and knowledge; I’ve learned so much over the last 2-3 years! Congrats on becoming a MVP!

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3rd party backup apps tend to be more flexible and easier to use. With my backup program I can create a new full backup, run an existing incremental, create an image – I even get incremental image backup – all from the main screen.
I can mount an image to get at system files I need to recover, or just restore a document from a certain date.

The 3rd party apps I’ve used allow you to create boot media on CD, USB or as an image – good for booting virtual machines.

Where you store your backup is up to you, but a single partition is all you need.

Why don’t you try one of the free products and see if you like it? I liked mine so much I paid for a copy to gain some extra functionality.

cheers, Paul

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Lori

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Lori,

As always with this type of advice YMMV! ?

I’ve been a Macrium Reflect (MR) user for years both paid and free.
I switched from Acronis when I encountered problems  ? with it resorting an image.  This only needs to happen once and that product is toast IMHO!

I’ve NEVER had a problem restoring from a MR Image and believe me I’ve done it a lot as I really like to mess with my machines.

MR allows you to do your Image backups while Windows is running or by booting from the Recovery Media to get windows completely out of the way (my currently preferred method). Although I just recently set up a machine, after recovering it from an infection, so that the computer phobic user can attach a USB drive and 2 clicks later it’s doing an Image Backup w/o having to know how to boot to a USB Key.

As I have it setup the, using the capabilities built into MR it will make new FULL Image Backups until the external hard drive is almost full then it will start delete the oldest version before attempting to make the next one. Each image is also automatically verified after creation JIC an error occurred in writing the image.

MR has so many options that it is unbelievable that is free for personal use! I do, however, use the Premium version personally as I obtained several Lifetime licenses years ago.

As to making Image Backups to a USB Key, I would advise against this as it is not only slow but USB Keys are not designed for this type of use. I’d stick with USB HDD (not SSD as they are also not really designed as backup media). Personally, and I’m a bit A-R here, I use a Disonix USB 3.0 dock and rotate drives (regular computer hard drives) from backup to backup. This is not only cheaper than buying integrated solutions like WD MyBooks but it also adds protection against drive failure.

Again, the opinions above are my own and YMMV!

HTH

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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WScalvin2a, Lori, jburk07, Cascadian, Elly

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RetiredGeek wrote:

I use a Disonix USB 3.0 dock and rotate drives (regular computer hard drives) from backup to backup. This is not only cheaper than buying integrated solutions like WD MyBooks but it also adds protection against drive failure.

Hello, RG! Congrats on becoming an AskWoody MVP!

For a while I did a variation on the above — I purchased a long SATA data cable and a long SATA power extension cable and extended them out of the back of my case. Then, when I wanted to do a backup, I powered the computer down, hooked up my standard internal computer hard drive, and powered the computer up. I then did the backup to the “internal” drive, powered down, and unhooked the drive.

This process was more cumbersome than your method of using the HD dock (and that’s probably why I stopped doing it!); but I liked the idea of a direct SATA connection more than a USB connection.

I now have a SATA power switch, which allows me to have up to four internal SATA drives and power each one on or off as desired. So one of these days I’m going to start using the SATA switch to turn my backup drive(s) on and off.

Jim

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Jim,

I actually purchased a 9′ USB cable for the Disonix so I don’t have to move it around. My wife’s computer is in the next room but we have a pass-thru window so I just snake the cable and don’t have to move the dock & drive avoiding accidental drops, getting old you know!

I did find out that you have to be careful with these long cables. It worked fine on my wife’s laptop connecting directly to the USB 3 port. However, on my second desktop it would not work with the front mounted USB 3.0 ports. Attaching a powered Hub to the USB connector solved the problem,  just needed more juice.

Now I can backup all 4 (2 DT & 2 LT) by just moving a cable and USB Key (Macrium Software) around.

HTH ?

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Elly

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Rather than connecting the USB cable to each machine you want to back up, you could also connect it to one machine and set it up as a network share and have each computer connect to it via the network.  It sounds more complicated than it is!

I do this when I do a backup of my main (Vista-era) laptop to one of my external USB hard drives… the laptop has only USB2 ports (which are slow), so I share the USB drive from my desktop (which has USB3) and access the USB drive from the laptop via the network (whose gigabit speed is higher than USB2, and on par with the native speed of the external HDD using USB3).

My day to day backups are done using my “backup server,” which is really just a PC I built out of left-over components and equipped with a lot of hard drive space (internal drives).  It spends most of its time asleep, but any attempt to access it to create a backup wakes it up.

Using that, I can back up any PC having to connect anything other than the network, which they’re generally connected to anyway.  The backups can be performed wirelessly, but it’s much faster to use wired ethernet.

Just something to think about when you are serious about your backups.

 

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Lori wrote:

My C:/ drive has all the files I’m using. The D:/ drive contains a “HP recovery partition”…. Shouldn’t I contain this in each system image then?

Images are for entire physical disks, unless you know exactly how to recover individual partitions. If your C & D are on the same physical disk you should image the disk.
Portable hard disks are cheap, recovering lost data is not.

cheers, Paul

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Lori

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I’m thinking of giving MR-Free a try on my Windows 10 Pro ver 1803 system.

Back up programs always sound simple until you get to the making a recovery disk/usb part.

With MR-Free I note there is a need to select a MS – PE (or something like that) version at both the installation and when making the recovery disk/usb.  It appears to be about 500MB.

What is this for and why download twice?  After downloading and making the recovery disk/usb is the 500MB file retained in the program or deleted?

Does MR-Free program have to be updated with each new version of Windows 10? How about the recovery disk/usb?

Finally how good is the program at automatically selecting all the necessary drivers etc from your system without having to manually find and add them?

Thanks

Windows 10 Pro x64 v22H2 and Windows 7 Pro SP1 x64 (RIP)

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MS PE is a version of Windows that allows you to boot a device for basic build / recovery use. You need this for the bootable recovery CD/USB for Macrium (also used by other backup apps).

You do not need to update the backup app unless there is a major incompatibility.
The recovery USB never needs updating if it will boot your PC and read the backup media.

Macrium does not select any drivers, it’s just a copy program. Copy the data to backup media, copy the data back to the PC to recover.

cheers, Paul

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WildBill

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Paul T wrote:

Macrium does not select any drivers, it’s just a copy program. Copy the data to backup media, copy the data back to the PC to recover.

I though all backup programs when creating their Recovery/Emergency disk or USB included a set of drivers necessary to boot and operate a computer? Some do a better job than others of including that set of drivers?

Windows 10 Pro x64 v22H2 and Windows 7 Pro SP1 x64 (RIP)

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Macrium Reflect does well at finding existing drivers that it detects on your computer and can be instructed to add extra hardware drivers.  Macrium Reflect Rescue Environment manual section.

Macrium Reflect versions like other backup programs can be found to have some critical errors (or not) which may possibly apply to your situation sometime and do need updating for the sake of stability.

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The drivers are provided by the OS used for the recovery media, not by the backup product. WinPE uses standard MS drivers.

cheers, Paul

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[LHiggins]

I have a question about using Macrium Reflect Free V7 to backup a computer that has 2 drives – an SSD for the OS and programs, and a HDD for the data. How does one set up the backup so that both drives are backed up – in one step, or each done separately? And how is a recovery USB(?) made for both?

Thanks!!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by LHiggins.

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As you have 2 disks you should have 2 backups, because you need to image the OS, but not the data. If you only had one disk and only used image backup, you could still recover individual files.

I have a weekly incremental image for C: and a daily file backup for D:. I can recover the OS if required, but the most common thing is going back to an old data file that I changed/deleted.

Recovery USB is a once off task and it covers all your backups, because it runs the backup software from the USB.

cheers, Paul

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LHiggins

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Thanks Paul! I do have a few additional questions if you don’t mind.

First – your advice and schedule make perfect sense. So, what will I need for these backups – can each drive be done to the same external drive, or do I need a separate one for each? And how large does the Recovery USB need to be – and I’d guess both should be USB 3.

I think that I may be doing my backups on my one-drive laptop and desktop a bit wrong. Using Macrium Free, I use the “Create an image of the partitions needed to backup and restore Windows.” I make differential images each time, and each computer has its own external drive.

For the new laptop – should I be using that choice, or the “Image selected disks on this computer” for the C drive and the “create a file and folder backup” for the 1TB data drive instead of the choice I use now?

I have to admit that I do find Macrium a bit confusing, and perhaps have been using it wrong. And I am a bit confused about the clone vs. image choices as well.

I appreciate your help. I want to set this new laptop up the right way right from the start and the backup was confusing me.

Thanks again! Much appreciated!

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Macrium is confusing – it seems to be designed for advanced users, but still works for newbies.

The recovery USB can be used on USB2 or 3, whichever you have.
External backup disks are best on USB3 for speed, but anything is fine as it runs in the background.

Any external destination is good for backups, as long as you can access them for recovery.
The same destination is fine for all backups – the backup is just a file, so nothing special.

Differential will use more space than incremental, but less than full. I use incremental, but create a new image every now and then.
Any image backup before your last update is a valid backup in my book, so you don’t need to keep them for long.
Data backups on the other hand should be kept for as long as you can, just in case you need a file from last year etc.

Image/backup types I use.
C: – image only. This allows you to recover the machine – assuming you only have one drive per physical disk.
Other disks – file backup only.

Post a screen shot of your Macrium screen so we can confirm.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks – and good that I probably won’t need to buy a new external drive just yet. I have a 4TB one that I have been using.

The free version of Macrium that I have does not allow for incremental backups – just differential.

The two screenshots below are the backup options and the recovery options screens. It is from my other laptop that is not currently connected to the external drive.

Where is shows the three partitions – is that where I will see both drives on the new computers and then I’d select the C drive for the image and the other drive for the file backup?

And when you say image only – which option is that? I’ve been using the Create an image of the partition, not the Image selected disks.

Thanks for the help – and for screenshot info, too!

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I’m on the Free Edition, V7.2.4325. You’re right that Incremental is only available on the Premium Edition; you check the box for Incremental & it gives you the option to try Premium free for 30 days. I only do manual Full backups once a month anyway; if I setup a schedule, I would probably do Differential backups as well as Full.

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
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LHiggins

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I tried Macrium Free on a Win7 Pro machine and gave up, uninstalled it.  Never ran right, bsod the machine about 1/3 of the times I used it.  I’ve had good luck with Minitool products, tried the 30 day trial of Shadowmaker, then bought the Pro version.  Been happy ever since.

 

I spec’d and then installed/managed two tape autochangers and backup servers running Seagate Backup Exec back in the day, backing up 20 servers daily with offsite tape rotation, I understand how backup software is supposed to run.  Been in the Mac world for 10 years now and Time Machine has spoiled me.  This is supposed to be the most reliable piece of software in use on any given machine.

Hey look! Another Feature Update!

You mean I shouldn't click Check for Updates?

Where is the Any key?

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LHiggins

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I have the paid version so that explains why I’m seeing incrementals.

Linda, on your screen shot there are 3 partitions all on the same physical disk. To create a recoverable image you need to image at least the first 2 partitions, but as it’s MBR it’s safest to do all 3.
Other disks show up separately below the first disk. See my screen shot below.

The Macrium default is to select all partitions on each disk. Then the “Image this disk” button under the disk will do the lot.
The “Image selected disks on this computer” task on the left selects all disks and lets you remove any you don’t want – like the backup destination.
The “Create a File and Folder backup” task opens without anything selected so you can add a single folder or a drive (e.g. D:) etc.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks so much! So what I’ve been doing for my current computers is fine since everything is on one drive – great!

I have toyed with the idea of getting the upgraded version and doing incremental, but I think for now, the free version should work fine, even with the new laptop.

Your screenshot is a great help – as well as the explanation of what each choice means. Now I understand what will need to be done on the new laptop with the dual drives.

Thanks again! Much appreciated!

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I have been using Macrium Reflect Free for several years, and always do full images.

With USB3 external drives, data transfer is so fast now that I cannot see bothering with either incremental or differential backups.

I can image (or restore) my entire C: drive in about 35 minutes, using a single image file. I run daily, weekly, and monthly image jobs so I have plenty of options to roll back to any complete image file, if necessary.

Never had a problem using Macrium.

I also have scheduled image jobs for my data drives.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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FWIW, I’m still using V6 on most of my machines as I can automate it with PowerShell the way I want it to work. V7 doesn’t allow Reflect to automatically exit, at least in the free version, thus not allowing it to pass control back to PowerShell for the writing of my backup log file and restoring the machine to the pre-startup condition, I stop a lot of services including the network, MalwareBytes and Defender to make the imaging process faster.

If any one is interested in this PowerShell program I’d be glad to post it here, actually an earlier version is already here from WSL. I’ve been updating this to do a few more things and updating the documentation/user manual. Post back if interested and I’ll post a zip file when I’m finished with the testing and documentation.

BTW: I’m of the camp to only do full backups as incremental and differential backups have more potential for failure IMHO since they depend on a chain of files.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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BTW: I’m of the camp to only do full backups as incremental and differential backups have more potential for failure IMHO since they depend on a chain of files.

My thoughts exactly!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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jburk07

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Eh, situational.

Monthly or weekly full backup and daily or even more frequent incremental is a perfectly valid strategy in many situations, particularly if it can be automated.

In some other situations there’s just no reasonable way to do incremental backups and expect them to work reliably right with reasonable effort… and a Windows boot/system drive, Windows 95 or later, is one of these.

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jburk07

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I’ve restored a bunch of Windows boot volumes from incremental chains (some of them quite long!) with no more effort than from full backups, and the only difference is that it takes longer to restore.  They take less time to write than full backups, but longer to restore– and hopefully you will be doing a lot more backing up than restoring!

Full backups take a lot more space and longer to perform, so the odds are that backups will be performed less often when using only full backups.  If that’s the case, you could lose more changes since the last backup.  If you do a full backup once a month, you can lose up to a month’s changes, but if you do a full backup once a month plus incrementals once a day, you will only be using up a little more room than if you’d only done the full backups, and you’d lose no more than a day’s worth of changes.

I have multiple backup sets for each of my PCs on my backup server.  These go back into the past for considerable time… often a year or more, while still having lots of periodic incrementals in addition to those.  If I was making only full backups, I would have only room for only a relatively few full backups, and I could not go back nearly as far in time.  If I accidentally deleted a file a month ago but I only had backups that go back two weeks, the file is gone.

If you have unlimited storage space, full backups do indeed have the potential to be more reliable.  If you have limited storage space, which is usually the case, incrementals make better use of that space and allow many more backup sets than would be possible if you had only full backups.  You can mitigate the “more points of failure” issue with incrementals or differentials by testing the backups (most backup programs have that ability), but you can’t mitigate needing a backup that isn’t there because you needed the room or because you haven’t done it yet that (week, month, whatever).

Just my 2 cents!

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mn– wrote:

Eh, situational.

Monthly or weekly full backup and daily or even more frequent incremental is a perfectly valid strategy in many situations, particularly if it can be automated.

In some other situations there’s just no reasonable way to do incremental backups and expect them to work reliably right with reasonable effort… and a Windows boot/system drive, Windows 95 or later, is one of these.

I run once every 2 weeks a full backup and between these backups I run daily incremental backup.
I backup all partitions/drives. C drive (SSD) : Recovery Partition, EFI System Partition, Windows OS Partition and D (HD data) drive.

I am using Acronis True Image.

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Well yes, you can pull incrementals just fine. It’s just that if I need to recover a non-booting system from backups, odds are I’ll need to replace hardware with whatever is available and on Windows that tends to invalidate lots of things like boot config, drivers and such… so the restore from incrementals and reconfigure tends to take longer than a reinstall, with little benefit if any.

Linux does a lot better with hardware changes. Also incrementals are a lot easier nowadays with zfs send / btrfs send … but I do remember what /etc/dumpdates is for, too.

After all, individual systems – including system software – can be replaced and this should not be too difficult; data is what should be kept.

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LHiggins

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If the cause of needing the restoration was a hardware failure (not malware, a borked update, etc.), and if the replacement hardware is different enough from that upon which the backup was performed to cause problems (a lot of things, like a new PSU, won’t, of course), and if the backup contained only a Windows installation that was relatively easily rebuildable from scratch and no important data files, it could be a better choice to reinstall, but that’s a lot of ifs.  It seems that in that case, the chain of incremental updates would be relatively small and fast for the backup software to parse, as only a configuration with a lot of change would result in larger incremental backup files and longer restore times… and that would also tend to make a bare-metal rebuild more time consuming than a simple “slap Windows and Office on it” kind of restoration.

By far, most of my restorations I’ve done  have been for reasons other than hardware failures.  It’s not hard to get Windows into a non-booting state, and it’s often quicker and easier just to restore from backup than to continue to troubleshoot it.

Even so, Windows is a lot more tolerant of hardware changes than it was in the 9x days, it would seem.  Several years ago, I had a motherboard failure in my desktop PC, and I didn’t think the manufacturer of the board (Asus) was going to warranty a part that I didn’t have the original receipt for.  Thus, I bought a new board.  I did have to call Microsoft to get Windows (7) reactivated, but after I let them know that it was a repair and not an upgrade, and that the new board had no capabilities beyond the old one, they gave me the code to allow it to reactivate.  Otherwise, it worked just fine with the new board, after a few discovering new hardware and reboot cycles.

I also found that Asus didn’t have a problem with replacing the board under warranty, so when the new one came back, I switched to that one again, since it was superior to the replacement.  I don’t believe Windows Activation had any problem with that switch, for some reason, though it’s been a few years and the details are fuzzy.  Maybe I did have to do the Microsoft thing again.  I do know I didn’t have to buy another copy of Windows, so it worked out well enough.

Back in the Windows 95 days, either of these swaps would have been a disaster, more than likely.  I’ve tried such swaps back in the day, from one board to another with the same “on paper” specs, and they did not work.  Resource conflicts, crashes, illegal operations, hangs, poor performance… you name it.

My Windows installations always had a great deal of effort put into them to get them just right, and rebuilding from scratch was something that took huge amounts of time to redo.  This has become more and more of a factor in each successive Windows version, and if I used Windows 10, that certainly would have continued, since there is so much in 10 that is just intolerable out of the box.  A lot of it can’t be fixed satisfactorily, which is why I am now in Antarctica, figuratively speaking.

In an office setting, where the user of the PC isn’t permitted to customize anything very much, the restoration from scratch may be relatively straightforward, but as a home user, I’ve put many hours into getting my UI just right, and there’s no way I would ever remember every tweak I had done to be able to redo it at will.  When I have migrated to new installations of Windows, it has taken a long time before each Windows annoyance manifests, at which time I often have to search and re-discover what registry setting or other tweak I have to use to fix the thing.  I don’t remember them all!

 

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
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I run a full image daily M-F which takes me about 35 mins in the background, and I don’t even notice it running. I keep a few full dailies.

I run a full weekly every Sat, and keep two full weeklies. If my dailies don’t go far enough back, I can always go back to the most recent weekly, which is also an option.

I run a full monthly, on the first Sat of the month, and keep two full monthlies. So at the time the latest monthly is run, it erases the oldest, so at that point I can only go back 1 month. Which for me is plenty. I don’t plan to archive images for years. I figure that I will notice something is wrong, or missing, within a month. If I am wrong about that, then it is re-install time. But at least I have greatly increased my odds of never having to go through that!

Currently, my full Macrium C: drive images take 150GB each. So I can store more than a few on my 1TB and 2TB USB drives.

I also use a file syncing service on the cloud just for any critical docs, as well as a separate external drive, so the images are mostly for OS and app recovery. It would take me about two weeks to re-install and authorize all of my stuff.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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LHiggins

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Already answered in your thread.
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/window-backup-restore-basics/

cheers, Paul

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