Image your system with free Macrium

whs said:

I don't know what you guys are doing. But your problems can be remedied easily - see picture.

I never thought about using Details instead of List inside a folder (I usually use List to reduce the amount of screen real estate used). Good point! However, that doesn't take care of the problem of associating images with XML files when making a differential/incremental image or when cleaning out older images with their associated XML files, especially since I have so many redundancies; I keep boot images on three "external" HDDs and a folder on my main data drive in my desktop (yes, I'm anal; I'm also a coward). The XML files get all lumped together and, since I make three images whenever I run a back up of my boot drive, the three XML files would have the same date and I wouldn't be able to sort them out unless I put them in their own folders. Since one of the "external" HDDs is kept offsite and gets rotated out with one of the other two at least once a month, I never have exactly the same files on all HDDs.

However, since I no longer need to use XML files (I only used them for making differential/incremental images and I no longer make those), I will have to take a hard look at not making them anymore and just using the Details function to ID which image I want to use. The only possible problem I can think of would be when using a recovery CD/USB to recover the image; I don't remember if I could read folder details when using the Rescue Disk since I haven't used it much (I have a good memory; it's just...ah...short).

kado897 said:

Macrium will normally present you with the last image made when you go to restore, but there is a facility to browse to the desired image.

Ok, maybe I'm being denser than usual but are you able to see a details view that shows the creation date within a folder, partition, or disk when using the rescue disk?

kado897 said:

If I remember correctly, yes.

Thanks! I'd rep you but the forum won't let me (mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble).

kado897 said:

You could of course boot from the recovery disk and check that. In fact you should do that anyway to make sure the disk works correctly.

True that but I'm too lazy at the moment since it takes so long to do a reboot (the LSI HBA card has its own BIOS that takes longer to boot than the MOBO's UEFI plus I have to wait a few seconds for the Marvel chip to boot its own little BIOS; I infrequently reboot so I normally don't worry about it).

I've already tested the disk and have used it a couple of times since to restore my boot drive so I have a sneaking suspicion it just might work (I wasn't kidding about the short memory). Good tip, though!