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Macrium Reflect for netbook users (recovery on a USB stick!)


marmite

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The penderivelinux method in the first post uses different USB formating (FAT32) and it may be a different linux flavour (although really I doubt that's a factor) ... could be worth a go ;)

 

Incidentally I've actually restored my system volume from a USB boot - so I now have complete confidence in USB boot as a recovery mechanism :)

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Incidentally I've actually restored my system volume from a USB boot - so I now have complete confidence in USB boot as a recovery mechanism :)

 

I have restored several machines using the USB flash to boot from. I no longer bother with the CD/DVD I only use the flash drive. I do this because some PC's I maintain for friends and relatives are net books with no optical drives and because Macrium updates the rescue CD periodically and it's no problem to reformat the flash drive and put the updated ISO on it. With the CD/DVD you either have to scrap it and use a new one or use a CD-RW/DVD-RW and they can be flaky to boot from which is why regular CD-R is recommended. Also Flash drives are so cheap now days and so small and boot faster than CD/DVD I see no reason to use discs any more for this type of thing.

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Well I did try all available ports, disconnected all other USB devices and still no good. Even though a careful study of the MB documentation where under Integrated Peripherals - Legacy USB storage detect, which states "determines whether to detect USB storage devices, including USB flash drives, and USB hard drives during POST. (default: enabled). I have checked that this is enabled, still no go. I have to assume there is something amiss with the 2.0gig USB flash drive, what I am not sure as I can use it as one would normally do without any issues. I can only assume it is a MB issue (still under warranty) I shall look to updating the BIOS to see if that sheds any light on the subject. Thank you Anomaly for your input. :(

 

IS the Macrium ISO the only thing on the flash drive? Is the ISO installed to the root of the drive?

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I have restored several machines using the USB flash to boot from. I no longer bother with the CD/DVD I only use the flash drive. I do this because some PC's I maintain for friends and relatives are net books with no optical drives and because Macrium updates the rescue CD periodically and it's no problem to reformat the flash drive and put the updated ISO on it. With the CD/DVD you either have to scrap it and use a new one or use a CD-RW/DVD-RW and they can be flaky to boot from which is why regular CD-R is recommended. Also Flash drives are so cheap now days and so small and boot faster than CD/DVD I see no reason to use discs any more for this type of thing.

My restore was just a test, not out of necessity - so I was rather glad to see it go without hitch.

 

Agreed about the USB advantages - particularly the ease of update. Also it's nice to be able to launch other isos from the same drive - becomes a recovery toolkit on a stick.

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Agreed about the USB advantages - particularly the ease of update. Also it's nice to be able to launch other isos from the same drive - becomes a recovery toolkit on a stick.

 

Haven't tried that yet. I assume you are using the program you linked in the first post to do this. I will reading up on that and making use of it. It will definitely give me more options with my flash drives.

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You're a star marmite.

 

I should have posted this straight back yesterday when we "talked" about it, but I got sidetracked.

 

I would never have thought to go down the Macrium Rescue Flash Drive road. So a pat on the back for starting the topic, which seems to have generated quite some interest.

 

I don't have anything in my BIOS enabling me to boot from a USB, but the MEMTest "Test" bootloader confirmed that all of my USB's are picked up and displayed in the "Boot Options" menu if the Flash Drive has a BootLoader installed.

 

I wasn't keen on the PenDriveLinux, although it did work fine, and I ended up yesterday using UNetbootin to do the job, found at this link:

 

http://www.macrium.com/blog/CommentView,gu...18c3050bc6.aspx

 

It's an oldish link, and I will point out that although it says to format the Flash Drive to FAT16, it actually works fine for me with FAT32 as well, which I found out from here:

 

http://tipsfor.us/2009/06/07/create-a-boot...ith-unetbootin/

 

The UNetbootin software from both links is the same version.

 

Thanks again for starting the topic marmite, it's a really useful addition to anyones recovery arsenal.

 

EDIT: Just for info, the Esc key accesses the boot option screen on my HP Desktop.

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I assume you are using the program you linked in the first post to do this.

Yup.

 

Next step is to unload one iso and load another without rebooting. That may depend on a combination of how the iso program terminates and your linux skills - not currently my forte.

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Thanks again for starting the topic marmite, it's a really useful addition to anyones recovery arsenal.

Cheers Dennis. Anomaly came out with the Macrium link earlier; I've now added that to the first post since that may be quite sufficient for most users.

 

I've learned quite a lot from various posters' feedback and it's been a pretty constructive exercise :)

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I don't have anything in my BIOS enabling me to boot from a USB, but the MEMTest "Test" bootloader confirmed that all of my USB's are picked up and displayed in the "Boot Options" menu if the Flash Drive has a BootLoader installed.

Which is why I posted what I did. I figured many people would look in the BIOS and not see the option for the flash drive. They would need to use th boot menu instead.

 

I wasn't keen on the PenDriveLinux, although it did work fine, and I ended up yesterday using UNetbootin to do the job, found at this link:

 

http://www.macrium.com/blog/CommentView,gu...18c3050bc6.aspx

 

That link was posted way back in the thread by me.

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That link was posted way back in the thread by me.

 

Good for you Anomaly.

 

I had those links, information, and a reply for marmite ready to post around 2.00pm yesterday, until something else came up.

 

So I posted the links I found yesterday, and the reply to marmite I didn't have time to post, as it wouldn't have been true to say I found the info from yours.

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I'm sorry you feel that way, but my reply to marmite was just that. A reply to marmite.

 

It was relevant to what we discussed yesterday, it was composed yesterday, and I didn't see any reason to do a complete edit of it simply because one of the links had been posted in the meantime by someone else.

 

Your reply was completely unnecessary, and you shouldn't be surprised to get a negative response.

 

Your other comments are your prerogative, but I'm afraid I have no intention of placing any restrictions on where and when I post.

 

What you do is entirely your own choice of course.

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IS the Macrium ISO the only thing on the flash drive? Is the ISO installed to the root of the drive?

Yes Anomaly Macrium associated files only on dics, and the process performed on the same PC that was used to format @ FAT16.

On flash drive: 9 months old @ 2.0GIG (used about 5 times since a 16.0GIG unit purchase)

Folder isolinux conatins: boot.cat, initrd.bin, isolinux.bin, isolinux.cfg, linux26, menu.txt & version

Files in root: idinux.sys, syslinux.cfg, ubnfilel.txt, ubnint, usbkern, ubpathl.txt & vesamenu.c32

 

I shall try another USB flash drive at a later date. :(

Always With Kind Regards

Tasgandy

"one is never too old to listen & learn"

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Hey, DennisD, do I remember correctly that you use an HP machine? I ask because I do, mine is about 4, 5 years old, and when I start w/ the escape key, I get the BIOS boot menu (not the BIOS editor) and whatever usb sticks were plugged when the machine started are shown as bootable devices. I have booted up SLAX from usb that way.

 

Does this not work for you? :-(

 

Sorry cannot put up a screen shot. Will use a camera if it would help and if I can figure out how. :P

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

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Hey login.

 

Thanks for the heads up, and don't be offended when I say I already mentioned this in post 31 above: :rolleyes:

 

I don't have anything in my BIOS enabling me to boot from a USB, but the MEMTest "Test" bootloader confirmed that all of my USB's are picked up and displayed in the "Boot Options" menu if the Flash Drive has a BootLoader installed.

 

EDIT: Just for info, the Esc key accesses the boot option screen on my HP Desktop.

 

But if I hadn't found that out I would be thanking you most profusely. :lol:

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No offense taken, of course. I had read that, but it just seems odd...in my vast experience (I've fixed 3 computers, :P ) there was always some way to boot from a usb. I didn't doubt your statement for a second, but wasn't sure what it meant.

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

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It surprises me that my BIOS contains the option to boot from Floppy Disk first.

 

I have no floppy drive, and 7 USB sockets.

 

As mentioned earlier in the thread, an update to the BIOS would probably fix that, but that isn't something I'm keen on doing, and it works anyway, so I'll leave well alone.

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I want to restore an image without the cd and usbstick. The recovery software will be stored in a separate partition. I try to create the usb data of the disk to copy to the hdd, which is active partion but he can not boot. someone has a solution?

 

P.S.

TrueImage needs to use the secure zone

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It surprises me that my BIOS contains the option to boot from Floppy Disk first.

 

I have no floppy drive, and 7 USB sockets.

 

As mentioned earlier in the thread, an update to the BIOS would probably fix that, but that isn't something I'm keen on doing, and it works anyway, so I'll leave well alone.

Well that's it I reckon I've tested all I can now, I have even updated the BIOS, safe for me as this PC has Dual BIOS + can be done via the web. I have even tried another USB stick (brand new) formatted FAT 16 and FAT 32, made sure that "Legacy USB storage detect" was enabled in the BIOS, NBG.

 

Sent a query to Gigabyte (yeah like I'll hold my breath for an answer NOT).

 

So I shall stick to the good "OL rescues CD". With this particular PC (my main unit) it has no FDD or CD installed, just 2 USB HD backup units and a heap of SATA HD's. It only takes 5 minutes to remove a CD from another Unit and fit to this PC.

 

So many thanks to those that sent in comments, advice etc. :rolleyes:

Always With Kind Regards

Tasgandy

"one is never too old to listen & learn"

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I want to restore an image without the cd and usbstick. The recovery software will be stored in a separate partition. I try to create the usb data of the disk to copy to the hdd, which is active partion but he can not boot. someone has a solution?

 

P.S.

TrueImage needs to use the secure zone

 

Hi xixus, and welcome to Piriform.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by your questions, as you can't restore without the Rescue CD or USB.

 

Are you wanting to store the Rescue CD "data" onto a hard drive, to be later installed when needed, to a CD or USB stick?

 

In other words you don't want to keep it on a CD or USB.

 

And then, are you trying to get that data installed onto a bootable USB, but not able to do it?

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... you can't restore without the Rescue CD or USB.

If you use the paid-for version of Reflect it gives you a Reflect recovery boot option using WinPE ... http://www.macrium.com/webhelp/Windows_Boot_Menu.asp ... http://support.macrium.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2155

 

My desktop PC is configured in this way - something I'd completely forgotten about since I've not had access to that desktop for a while! :blink:

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There's also a Macrium PlugIn for BartPE if you ever go down that road.

 

You make the plugin from within Macrium: (Free Edition)

 

jCuaDs.jpg

 

There's also a DriveImage XML plugin for BartPE if anyone uses DriveImage XML for backups.

 

So now I can grab the Rescue CD, or the Rescue Flash Drive, or chuck in my BartPE. Choices. :lol:

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When you upgrade to Windows 7 you will find that there is a recovery program built right in. You make an image of your system and store it some where safe like an external HDD. You make a recovery disk (the recovery disk image to make the bootable disk is provided right inside windows 7) to boot from and then restore the image you saved. You can also just back up folders or files. It's very easy to use and built right in.

 

Another thing with Windows 7 is that system restore is a whole different thing compared to XP. In Windows 7 it literally makes a snap shot of your system and you will roll back to the way your system was when you created a restore point. As you know XP system restore can cause more problems than it causes since it doesn't really image your system when you create a restore point.

 

Point is recovering your system is much easier in Windows 7 than XP. If you want to use Macrium still than you will have plenty of options.

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