Macrium Reflect Free, AHCI, IDE system backup & restore

ignatzatsonic said:

MrJWilson said:

My windows 7 SSD installation has two partitions to it - the normal primary and a 100mb EFI system. Is there anything I need to look out for when creating and restoring image of this SSD drive?

I mark as Primary as normal then simply restore to that drive right?

Thanks for your help guys.

You need to image that EFI partition if it is marked as "active" in Windows Disk Management. I suspect it contains your boot files. An image of C alone would not be bootable if restored.

You can include C and EFI in the same image file or in separate image files. If separate, you'd need to image EFI only once and you'd have to restore it separately when the time comes. If combined, just include EFI and C in the same image file each time you want to make a new backup.

If the SSD is properly aligned now, any restored image of it should also be properly aligned, but you can check it and correct it.

You don't need to mark anything as primary. If C is already primary, any restoration of its image will already be primary.

Think of imaging in terms of partitions not drives.

You need to be careful to restore to the right location. If you choose the wrong destination, you could over-write a data partition. As I recall, you can't rely on drive letters to indicate proper locations in Linux environment---you'd have to be able to ID partitions on some other basis, such as size. I don't think Win PE has that issue, but be careful regardless.

Cheers for the advice.

It doesn't say "active" anywhere in disk management but I would assume this is where the boot files are. It reminds me of how my dual boot worked where I had a seperate partition with the MBR and I had to be aware to backup and restore this correctly.

I'll just backup up both in one image for simplicity, and maybe an additional EFI image backup just incase.

Is there any tool to check for SSD allignement post image restore? I had read about this along with other SSD specific things to look out for.

Sorry to be cheeky as I don't want to post another topic (I tried searching) - is there a decent guide on here with reccomendations for SSD Windows 7 settings? I have heard I should turn of Windows defragging, prefetch? and other things that I don't understand. I guess this is to minimise read-write cycles and wear and tear on the drive.

Thanks

SIW2 said:

LOL. We know what Hiren's is.

Macrium and other popular imaging programs will make their own boot media. You will be ok with that.

You might be better using the little utility I made to create your winpe.

here


It will include macrium if you have it installed, as well as a number of other popular programs, so you can have them all on one bot disc/usb. It also includes the windows recovery options and a few other goodies.

My own preferred imaging program is Aomei backupper , the best free one. You can use macrium if you like, it works fine too.You may as well install a partitioning program so that can be included on your winpe.

Aomei partition assistant is good and comes in both bit versions, so it is worth having that. Partition guru is the other freebie that comes in both bit versions.You can include that as well, if you like.

FREE Backup software for Windows 7, 8 and Server 2008 R2, 2012


Free Partition Manager - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard


Recover deleted files, Partition manager and Windows backup - PartitionGuru

Cheers, i'll check that tool.

I guessed most would know what I was refering to by "xp boot environment" but didn't want to explicitly mention it. Oh well... I have now. Sorry mods.

MrJWilson said:

Is there any tool to check for SSD allignement post image restore? I had read about this along with other SSD specific things to look out for.

is there a decent guide on here with reccomendations for SSD Windows 7 settings? I have heard I should turn of Windows defragging, prefetch? and other things that I don't understand. I guess this is to minimise read-write cycles and wear and tear on the drive.

I'd guess there is more than one such tool to correct bad alignment, but Partition Wizard is the most commonly recommended, particularly an earlier 4.22 version.

If all you want to do is check for bad alignment, the SSD benchmark tools will do that. Also, I think it's revealed in Diskpart within Windows.

Guides--I'm sure there is some guide on here somewhere, but you don't have to check much. Be sure defrag is off. Should be by default. I think I've seen discussions about prefetch, possibly not everyone in agreement. You can turn off hibernation to save some space if you want to. Maybe restrict the amount of space devoted to restore points.

The read/write wear and tear thing appears to be overblown for recent generation SSDs, unless you are using them in a highly stressful situation as might be found in a corporate environment or server farm where they might be severely pounded 24/7.

MrJWilson said:

SIW2 said:

LOL. We know what Hiren's is.

Macrium and other popular imaging programs will make their own boot media. You will be ok with that.

You might be better using the little utility I made to create your winpe.

here


It will include macrium if you have it installed, as well as a number of other popular programs, so you can have them all on one bot disc/usb. It also includes the windows recovery options and a few other goodies.

My own preferred imaging program is Aomei backupper , the best free one. You can use macrium if you like, it works fine too.You may as well install a partitioning program so that can be included on your winpe.

Aomei partition assistant is good and comes in both bit versions, so it is worth having that. Partition guru is the other freebie that comes in both bit versions.You can include that as well, if you like.

FREE Backup software for Windows 7, 8 and Server 2008 R2, 2012


Free Partition Manager - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard


Recover deleted files, Partition manager and Windows backup - PartitionGuru

Cheers, i'll check that tool.

I guessed most would know what I was refering to by "xp boot environment" but didn't want to explicitly mention it. Oh well... I have now. Sorry mods.

I have downloaded the zip file. Do I have the latest 64 bit version "RE64V7"?
Am I correct in assuming this will automatically search and add the latest installed version of Macrium Reflect if its installed on my system?

Will this let me create an image of my system from WinRE/Macrium or only let me restore an image i've created beforehand?

Do I just run the script as admin and wait until WinRE.wim is created.
I'm not sure what I do with the WinRE.wim in order to boot from USB?

in any case, cheers for the tool. Looks very useful if I've understood correctly.