Macrium Image Restore?

Computer Help and Discussions Software
1

I just saw this today over at Wilders and it kind of scared me:

"Today i tried to restore a macrium reflect image and when i get to the macrium rescue wizard at boot up it will not recognise or display my external hard drive at all so i could not restore an image."

This is exactly what I do -- backup my Macrium Reflect Image(s) to a Western Digital USB external HDD. I don't believe this person mentioned which version of Macrium they were using, but their comment sure concerned me. All along, I've assumed a restore would work if it were needed, but now I'm wondering.

Anyone know anything about this or have a similar experience?

2

Do you use the paid for commercial version or the free version? If it's the paid version then you're obligated to get tech support from them!

I personally haven't had any issues, but then again I don't like newer versions so I've been sticking with version 4.2.3775.

3

Tom don't worry too much. There is always a few out of thousands for whom a certain software will misbehave. It probably won't be you :)

I know at one point some recovery programs had difficulty seeing drives attached via usb 3... probably too new for them!

4

Please post a screen shot from Windows "Disc Management" so that I can see the sizes of all partitions and Unallocated spaces on all Drives,

then I can advise how best to test WITHOUT DANGER the feasibility of restoration.

Hazel is correct that USB3 can be a problem.

I think Microsoft WinPE does not include USB3 drivers,

and at one time Macrium users needed to "inject" USB3 drivers into their Boot CD / Boot Flash drive.

I think Macrium now fix this automatically, but do not have USB3 myself.

You can easily test for yourself without actually modifying your existing Windows system.

At first I never overwrote my real C:\ until I restored a backup to unallocated spaced and then validated the result.

Paranoia is good - without it Windows will get you :angry:

5

Hi Tom.

On every drive containing a back up Image, I place a small standalone executable called "diskrestore.exe". I can then boot my pc with something like a BartPE disk, or a Linux type rescue cd, and simply browse to that drive, and run that small program.

You don't need to use a Macrium Recovery CD, and if you have USB3, I'm sure there's a Linux Rescue CD out there which will recognize that.

My BartPE already has a Macrium plugin, but it will only restore one partition at a time, and I have separate Images for my System and my Data drive. With the "diskrestore" utility, I can restore them both at the same time if I wish.

Get DiskRestore:

The "DiskRestore Executable for BartPE" is the download you want at that link. That's the 2.5mb standalone executable.

DiskRestore is a utility to quickly restore Macrium Reflect disk images. DiskRestore provides the following benefits over the conventional Macrium Reflect restore process:

Multiple partitions (whole disks) can be restored at the same time

Partition placement is exactly the same as the original imaged disk.

Disks can be restored with a few mouse clicks.

Windows PE integration enables automatic/ unattended restores.

The normal Macrium Reflect restore process is a partition based restore. This enables control over partition size and placement. This flexibility comes at a cost and the restore wizard can seem overly complex for some restore tasks, plus you are restricted to restoring a single partition at a time. With DiskRestore you simply select the partitions you want to restore and click 'Restore'.

6

Thanks for the help and reassuring comments. And, Dennis, thanks for the DiskRestore suggestion. Actually, I'll have to check, but I believe I might already have a copy of that little app. Currently, I'm running Macrium version 5 Pro. With that comes the ability to create a Windows PE rescue CD, which includes "Disk Restore" as a menu option on that bootable CD.

By the way, for anyone having concerns similar to what I expressed yesterday, I contacted Macrium support and here's what I heard back:

"Macrium Reflect itself has never had any issues when restoring from external USB hard drives. Some customers in the past have had hardware issues (such as faulty cabling, degrading hardware) which can contribute toward restore issues. Other issues have tended toward newer USB3 hardware and driver support."

7

The Macrium Boot Rescue CD can VALIDATE an image backup file without any commitment to overwrite Windows.

This should confirm whether or not the external drive can be accessed from the Rescue CD,

and regardless of success or failure you can still boot into an undamaged Windows.

I believe Macrium had USB3 problems fixed some while ago,

but as of yesterday they identified a potential problem which they expect to fix this week,

BUT it is not a significant problem - there is no problem if the USB3 drive is plugged into a USB2 port.

http://support.macri...p?TOPIC_ID=4563

8

The Macrium Boot Rescue CD can VALIDATE an image backup file without any commitment to overwrite Windows.

This should confirm whether or not the external drive can be accessed from the Rescue CD,

and regardless of success or failure you can still boot into an undamaged Windows.

Good point.