Replies

Just want to pass on a top-notch resource, the Wilders Security Forums thread for using Macrium Reflect.  Note well: it’s a long standing, running discussion that currently has 278 pages

Yes, a lot to read… BUT if you have any trouble with Macrium, it’s a great place to get actual help since over a dozen imaging experts  regularly post, share tips and answer questions.

In fact, there’s a entire Subforum dedicated to “Backup, Imaging and Disk Mgmt” which contains various threads about other imagining programs such as Aoemi, Drive Snapshot, and Terabyte’s Image for Windows/DOS/Linux suite.

5 users thanked author for this post.

JohnW, SueW, jburk07, cesmart4125, rc primak

+1 for the Brian Krebs article.

cesmart4125 wrote:

What is DD-WRT? Thanks.

There is a  DD-WRT homepage you can check out. But a recent Lifehacker article, The 7 Best DD-WRT Routers to Buy in 2018, answered your question well:

With DD-WRT firmware installed on a router, you have access to a variety of features such as the ability to prioritize connections, maximize quality-of-service over the network, as well as the ability to use hardware not connected to your network. Ultimately, DD-WRT-compatible routers are all about giving you more control, power and flexibility.

@Garbo

Thank you for sharing your experiences with AOMEI. I’ve read a lot of very good things about their Partition Manager and their imager, Backupper, especially in the last 2 yrs.

BTW, I too used to only do “cold” system imaging (system-independent boot from live CD or USB.) Decisively more reliable. In last few years I’ve started doing “hot-imaging” (while in Windows itself) due to the extreme reliability (IMHO) of the two programs I routinely use now: Image For Windows and Drive Snapshot. But that’s a convenience_vs_risk choice every user has to make for themselves.

anonymous wrote:

PS: From memory the EaseUS partition master programs from a few years ago used Linux in the bootable CD versions.

Indeed! That’s why I lack experience with Aomei. I’ve been using EaseUS PM (lifetime license) since back when they used Linux for bootable CDs. Later, they offered a WinPE version that you could download from them. Then Microsoft changed their licensing policies for WinPE. 🙁

@JohnW

Smart move. I also use 2 imaging programs — Image For Windows and Drive Snapshot* — just in case.

* Note: Drive Snapshot isn’t well known — earned about it here on Wilders — but it’s super reliable, extremely fast and… wait for it…. it’s portable: just a single 400 KB file! A big plus is that any WinPE disc or stick will work as the Recovery environment… even a Windows Repair CD will do (just get to command line)

 

jburk07 wrote:

I’m wondering about one thing, though; could you explain this statement a bit?

> jelson wrote:
> But no, you can’t mix images made by different programs.

Do you mean that you can’t store Macrium Reflect images on the same external hard drive with a Windows Backup image?

@jburk07

You’re quite right… of course, you can. As I mentioned in a reply a minute ago to him, I totally misunderstood what he meant by “mixing.”

Naturally, you can have files made by different programs co-existing peacefully on a drive — even in the same folder! Of course, it would be a much better practice if the image files made by different programs had their separate folders.

Macrium Reflect will simply save its image files to the location and with the name that you choose. Likewise, to restore an image, you have to tell it image file’s name and where it’s located.

1 user thanked author for this post.

jburk07

anonymous wrote:

I’m not concerned about losing data files, they are on a second external drive. I use another external WD HDD Drive reserved only for System Images of my C: drive (It takes about 30-60 minutes if I do it every month, because I have only USB 2.0 and no SSD, just HDD)

Perfect! And yeah, that’s about right for USB 2.0 speeds

Because I will lose all full System Images made with the built-in Windows 7 funtion if I use the same drive, I can’t use Macrium Reflect (or any others) for making new System Images yet because you said “mixing” on the same external drive isn’t possible.

OOPS! Sorry, I completely misunderstood what you meant by “mixing.” Other imaging programs don’t hide their image files the one built-in Windows 7 does (all in the name of ‘idiot-proofing’….? don’t get me started.)

Anyway, sure you can do system images with Macrium: just create a folder for its images on your external drive. And as far as the W7 built-in imaging program is concerned, those Macrium images will be just files that don’t pertain to it, just like any other files you put on your external.

Sessh wrote:

Terabyte is one of the ones I plan on using and potentially purchasing, but I was not aware that it could do the scheduled backup thing from within Linux.

Terabyte’s Image For Linux will do what you want. Note that it comes in both GUI and Command Line (CUI) versions. (Comes with Image For DOS & OSD Tool Suite, powerful scripting tools; for $20 more, the Bundle includes Image For Windows & BootIt Bare Metal too.)

If you want to be totally sure it will do everything you want, then simply post to the Terabyte Forums (link) or to the “IFW” thread on Wilders Security Forums (link).

FYI, I did a quick search on Terabyte Forums and found a discussion (link) where a user was wanting to do scheduled system imaging in Linux

@Garbo

anonymous wrote:

I see that there is some enthusiasm for the built-in Windows backup mechanism in earlier comments, so here is my cautionary tale ….

[horror story elided]

So I now use a bootable “partition manager” program on a CD to start the PC completely separately from the system partition to be backed up. This program is used to “copy” the system partition ….

[lots of details elided] .

It is possible to create a bootable “partition manager” on a USB stick and boot from that?

I think I understand your question. I’m amazed by all the loops you’ve had to jump through. (I never have used the imaging program built into Win 7 since started doing system imaging on XP.)

You’re totally right, a “bare-metal restore” IS the most reliable way to restore a system image. Back in the XP days, imaging programs typically created a either Linux-based or BartPE recovery CD which allowed you to boot the machine and then restore the system back to the original boot drive or a new drive (if the original failed).

This represents the truly difficult step for most users when it comes to system imaging. Most people can simply understand how to click on a short-cut to start an imaging program and saving a “system image” it to a different drive (burn-able DVDs, secondary internal drive, external USB drive, etc.)

One of the main reasons I recommend Macrium Reflect to friends and family is that they make so EASY to create the Recovery Media (on CD/ DVD or USB flash drive) needed to 1st boot the machine and then run the system imaging program. Nowadays, the Recovery Media of most imaging programs are based on WinPE* (Windows Preinstallation Environment)

*Due to changes in Microsoft licensing restrictions, developers can no longer provide pre-built, WinPE-based recovery media that end-users can download. They have to be built on client’s machines.

With Macrium, it will go out and download from Microsoft the needed WinPE files for you — so you don’t have to download and install one of the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kits yourself — and then create the Recovery Media for you.

So, yes Garbo, you can create a Macrium Reflect Recovery Media on a bootable USB stick (which does offer partition information). In the Recovery Media creation process (as shown in this article) you have choices of using “CD/DVD burner” or “USB Device” There’s also an option under “burner” to “Create ISO image file”:  a file that can be later burned to CD/DVD using ImgBurn or can be used to write a bootable USB stick using a program like Rufus.)

Another reason I recommend Macrium Reflect is because it has an option to include extra drivers from your machine that might be welcome in the Recovery environment (For instance, WinPE 3 (Windows 7-based) doesn’t natively support USB 3 ports.

As you can read and see in the article below, Macrium really does make it easy:

How to Create a Full-Disk Backup of Your PC with Macrium Reflect

An advanced technique* that you might interested in, is to use EasyBCD** to provide a Boot Manager choice between a).  a normal Win7 boot or; b). to boot a Macrium Reflect WinPE ISO image that loads in and runs from RAM.*** (It boots much, much faster than it does from USB or CD, plus I don’t have to go hunt for the stick or CD) Of course, this is only an option if your Windows 7 system is booting properly — otherwise,  then a bootable CD or USB Reflect Recovery Media will be required.

Note Well:

* Only recommended for end-users who are knowledgeable enough to comfortably do things like editing the registry and running scripts like the ones that abbodi86 sometimes offers.

** Free “Only for personal, non-commercial use”

*** You need to set it to boot from RAM instead of disk (since during the restore you will be overwriting the location of the Reflect ISO on drive C:)

Plus, a solid introduction to system images (written in 2014; doesn’t mention Macrium):

What You Need to Know About Creating System Image Backups

2 users thanked author for this post.

amraybt, JohnW

anonymous wrote:

Yes, so 3x 2Tb might be more practical than 1x 8Tb

Yes, the Rule of Three, indeed! but instead of buying 3 external USB drives, I got an USB 3.1 hard drive dock and 3 bare SATA drives.

• I can just plug a drive in, copy over my data to it, and pop it out.
• Repeat twice.
• Then I have 3 drives containing all the data files that I feel are important:

Two drives on-site to guard against ransomware, surges, hardware failure, etc.; and

One drive  off-site to guard against fire, theft, etc.

P.S. using an hard drive dock also makes it easier to keep the drives running cool (external USB drives tend to run really hot after a bit: the lack of air circulation)

Grond wrote:

I use an external USB BD burner for my backups, Verbatim BD-R 25GB blanks, and ImgBurn as my software.

Anyone see any holes in this approach?

I agree with Noel on this; the reliability Blu-ray discs (unlike archive-grade DVD+R discs) is very questionable. Likewise, I’d suggest using external mechanical hard drives.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Grond

anonymous wrote:

Because the article is about a WD drive, there is also “Acronis True Image WD Edition Software” only for WD drives, on this page: ….

If someone has tested this, I would like to hear it. (I don’t know if i can mix the System Copy’s made with the built-in Windows 7 function with the backups made with the WD Acronis Software on my only backup drive, and can’t risk losing months of backups)

You might not have seen my earlier reply about the “WD Edition” here. Short version: ditch Acronis… use Macrium Reflect Free.

But no, you can’t mix images made by different programs. What I suspect you’re concerned with are the data files in your “backups.” I’ve changed “imaging programs” several times over the years — currently I use 2 programs so all my eggs are not in one basket — and simply kept the old images made with other programs along with their Recovery Media, just in case.

In these days of SSDs, I keep my “Windows drive” rather lean by regularly moving  my data files over to a big internal mechanical drive. Typically, my “Windows system drive” (C:) uses less 90 GB of space. This makes it very easy and fast (typically about 10 min) to make a full system image — which contains  the “system reserved,” the “C:” and any other partitions needed for a bare-metal restore — which is saved to an internal mechanical drive: my “Data drive” (E:).

BUT I don’t use “imaging programs” to back-up data. Currently, I use SyncFolders (portable and free) to routinely copy my data files to a couple of external archive drives (so I have multiple copies of the same data). And if you have any super important data files, it’s a simple matter to have an additional archive drive that you keep off-site, like in a safety deposit box.

Since my data is kept on another drive, a bad Windows Update or a bad printer install means that my system can be fully restored in about 15 mins. MUCH faster than having to do a fresh install of Win7… installing programs… getting current with Win Updates… and getting it set back up the way I like it.

I just have to periodically move stuff from My Documents, My Pictures, etc over to my data drive (E:). And then I “back-up” it to my archive drives. Actually, I “sync” my Data drive with an archive data (only new and updated files are copied over.) Note that SyncFolders, like many “Back-up” programs, allows you save ‘older versions’ of data files too, aka “versioning”.)

anonymous wrote:

Because you’re talking about a WD drive, there is also “Acronis True Image WD Edition Software” only for WD drives, on this page:
https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx

If someone has tested this, if would like to hear it!

I’ve tried the WD edition of Acronis. I bought new versions of Acronis for 4 years… got sick of the buggy updates and all the bloat. There’s much, much better imaging programs.

Hands down, I recommend Macrium Reflect to everyone but the super geeky. It’s simple, well designed and reliable. Plus, they make it extremely easy for to create the Recovery Media (something that many users found difficult.)

RetiredGeek wrote:

While we’re on the subject of backups: Image Backups for the Non-Technical User’s Tech Support Person.

Very nice job… great choice of using Macrium Reflect Free… thanks. Just 2 “Heads Up” items:

1. You’ll need to register for a free account on Windows Secrets Forum in order to download the package. Not a biggie.
2. Macrium Reflect Free 6.3 is required since ver 7 will not return control to the script. This in turn presents the issues of

• where to find a copy (at least I don’t know how to download old versions directly from Macrium)
• and making sure it’s unaltered by checking the file size and the hashes (MD5 and SHA-1)

I found a site offering the 64-bit  6.3.1745 version here and I verified the file size and the MD5 & SHA1 hashes against a copy I had archived in March 2017 when it was the version directly available from Macrium:

filename:reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
file size: 46,599,824 bytes

MD5: 15A97BDC0FE1C79A74DBC3EA3C218438
SHA-1: E8FB2D23F6DD1ABECA3AC2534670C34573A3CA75

1 user thanked author for this post.

RetiredGeek

TonyC wrote:

…. I still suspect that the pci.sys on my system is not used …. I’ve looked at the properties of the pci.sys (6.1.7601.24056) that was installed by KB4088878 (the March 2018 security only update) and it was last accessed on the 8 April 2018, which was the very day that I installed KB4088878. So it doesn’t seem that it has been used since then.

I’ve wondered about that “Accessed” time-date stamp too.  Just checked win32k.sys (since it gets used a lot):

• Created: Dec 7, 2017
• Modified: Oct 16, 2017
• Accessed: Dec 7, 2017