I lost everything.....

if I buy the pay version of macrium could I try to restore the images made with the free version?

From my experience, the backup/restore engine used in the free version is essentially the same as that used in the paid versions. What varies in each version is extra features.

Have used both the free and paid versions of MR for years and have not encountered the problems you're having. With the paid version, you can post on their forums to get help.

Also, with MR, you can "mount" a saved image -- which assigns it a drive letter so you can access it like any other partition. Don't know if this is available in the free version or not, sorry.

The only way to know for sure is to make a backup image, then boot the bootable media with the restore program, then restore it and boot the PC.

Needless to say it's best to do this experiment before you've made a lot of customizations. In fact, since you are installing Windows now, before adding a bunch of programs is the ideal time to test imaging programs. Just install one or two programs that don't come with the PC, that have a bunch of options that you can check after you restore the image. I would try EaseUS ToDo Backup Free. Also you can find other free imaging and cloning software on thefreecountry.com: Free Programmers' Resources, Free Webmasters' Resources, Free Security Resources

By the way, I was in a similar situation using Paragon Drive Backup. My machine had a funky raid controller. When I tried to restore I could not see the HD. But I set the restore program to use "compatibility mode." A 45 minute restore took 9 hours overnight. But it went on and the machine booted fine. Now that I knew I could get it back, albeit at the cost of another 9 hour session, I decided to do an image backup and actually go through with the restore. Coincidentally that was Macrium that worked on that PC.

There's so many different hardware setups that no imaging software is guaranteed to work on everything. Best is to find one where the Linux boot CD boots and restores with no problems. That way you don't have to mess around configuring your own driver disks and all that. That's fine if you do it all the time as in you are a PC technician. But for the casual user you won't do it often enough to get good at it. Just often enough to pull your hair out. :)

Hi :)

Stop the press!
Please see my post "I Lost everything...!".

I thought so because after I click restore aparentely nothing happened and then I cancelled (after 3 or so minutes of no HDD and SSD activity!). WRONG move!
It took 32+ hours to successful restore a 100GB partition from my USB3.0 external HDD to my Plextor M5Pro 512GB SSD! Yes...but 100% success! Everything it is exactly how I left it the last time I imaged my system


So, do not cancel it! And Forget the Macrium vídeo when they say "go take a cup of tea"! You should go for a whole weekend and then you will have it done

I'm very pleased with the result despite all that time! But now I know it works not only for the backup but for the restore too!

Cheers,
paulo

yuppp. it took me 10 hrs to restore a 30GB image. i accidently hit cancel before and wrecked my whole system. good thing i di dtho, cause that was 300GB image! lol it would have taken a year!

There is something wrong with those restore timings you guys post.

1. It takes me appr. 20 minutes to restore a 40GB image - that is the Windows 7 OS and a couple of embedded folders of Linux virtual partitions.

2. If you get images beyond that size, you left your user data on C - bad move. Your user data should be on a seperate data partition. Then the C partition image will be less than 30GBs and will restore fast.

3. 32 hours for a restore from a USB3 drive to a SSD is not normal. Something else is wrong - even if the image is 100GB.

4. Here are my typical restore times for the C partition without the virtual partitions.

paulobao said:

Yes, I can image (bckup) the whole system in less that 20 mins! But the restore (and I don't keep much data in my lap, only sw...) took more that 32 hours! If it is wrong please let me know how to fix it!

Cheers,
paulo

32 hours is definitely wrong. The restore should not take much more time than the imaging.

Download the recovery .iso from my Skydrive and burn that to CD. Use that CD next time you recover.