Image your system with free Macrium


  1. Posts : 10,455
    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 1
       #1391

    What is the spec of the laptop. is it powerful enough for Windows 7?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 16,132
    7 X64
       #1392

    Not sure if I should start a new thread for this, but the thread title is entirely relevant.

    Quite a few of you using macrium.

    Why?

    Some of you have the free version. What is it you like about it - more to the point, what do you expect from a free imaging program ?

    Some of you have the paid version. Why? Is it because you used it for a while and just felt you ought to buy the thing? If you bought it for extra features, which features ?

    I am curious because I am interested in this disk management stuff. It seems odd that , for exampple the paid Paragons offer a huge number of features some of them not available anywhere else, yet there aren't many paragon users here.

    I also recall paragon used to include file&folder backup in their free version. That didn't seem to create a great impression here either. File and folder backup is not something I do a great deal of. But as far as I tell it is the only kind of backup Joe public does. Most users have no idea what imaging is.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 10,455
    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 1
       #1393

    At the time Si Macrium was the only decent free imaging program. I bought the paid version for the incremental/differential imaging which I do daily. I think on a future machine I might use AOMEI which has those features.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 9,600
    Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit
       #1394

    I initially bought the paid version of MR because I needed differential and incremental backups at the time. I no longer need those features but the Pro version does have some other features I do use now, such as recovery from Windows boot menu (very handy), free support, etc. (I'm not sure anymore which features I use are not in the free version). An additional feature the Pro version has is restore to dissimilar hardware which may come in handy someday should my MOBO, etc. die.
      My Computer


  5. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
    Thread Starter
       #1395

    what do you expect from a free imaging program ?
    All I need is reliability and that is very good with Macrium. I never had an image fail (and I made a lot of recoveries when I was teaching a Macrium class at the computer club).

    I have no need for any fancy functions. I always make full images because they are easiest to manage and disk spcae is not my issue.

    Keith, I was trying AOMEI. It worked well on my desktop with 64bit Windows 7 for imaging and recovery. But on my Asus Transformer with 32bit Windows 8.1, the recovery part did not work. From the installed program I could not find the partitions - it was just a gobble and it also did not produce a workable recovery stick.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 16,132
    7 X64
       #1396

    At the time Si Macrium was the only decent free imaging program.
    Yes, good move by macrium. I think they realised the only way for them get among the established players was to offer a free version better than the others. Partition Wiz took a similar approach.

    restore to dissimilar hardware
    How does that work - have you tried it . What is the process? Does it adjust a macrium image during the restore?

    That is of course different from "make os bootable on different hardware" or "physical to physical adjust" as Paragon call it.

    The latter is independent of the image restore process. It can be pointed an OS that has been restored from any other imaging program, or an OS on an HD that has been moved form another machine.
      My Computers


  7. Posts : 9,600
    Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit
       #1397

    SIW2 said:
    ...
    restore to dissimilar hardware
    How does that work - have you tried it . What is the process? Does it adjust a macrium image during the restore?

    That is of course different from "make os bootable on different hardware" or "physical to physical adjust" as Paragon call it.

    The latter is independent of the image restore process. It can be pointed an OS that has been restored from any other imaging program, or an OS on an HD that has been moved form another machine.
    I've never had cause to use it but it's supposed to allow one to restore an image to hardware other that what was used to make the image, such as restore an image to a system that had the MOBO replaced after the image was made. This is how Macrium explains it on their website:

    Restore to new hardware

    Includes Macrium ReDeploy™ to move Windows to a new or virtual PC.
    Including Windows Server!
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 10,455
    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 1
       #1398

    whs said:
    what do you expect from a free imaging program ?
    All I need is reliability and that is very good with Macrium. I never had an image fail (and I made a lot of recoveries when I was teaching a Macrium class at the computer club).

    I have no need for any fancy functions. I always make full images because they are easiest to manage and disk spcae is not my issue.

    Keith, I was trying AOMEI. It worked well on my desktop with 64bit Windows 7 for imaging and recovery. But on my Asus Transformer with 32bit Windows 8.1, the recovery part did not work. From the installed program I could not find the partitions - it was just a gobble and it also did not produce a workable recovery stick.
    I have restored with it but only on a 64bit system.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 10,455
    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 1
       #1399

    Lady Fitzgerald said:
    SIW2 said:
    ...
    restore to dissimilar hardware
    How does that work - have you tried it . What is the process? Does it adjust a macrium image during the restore?

    That is of course different from "make os bootable on different hardware" or "physical to physical adjust" as Paragon call it.

    The latter is independent of the image restore process. It can be pointed an OS that has been restored from any other imaging program, or an OS on an HD that has been moved form another machine.
    I've never had cause to use it but it's supposed to allow one to restore an image to hardware other that what was used to make the image, such as restore an image to a system that had the MOBO replaced after the image was made. This is how Macrium explains it on their website:

    Restore to new hardware

    Includes Macrium ReDeploy™ to move Windows to a new or virtual PC.
    Including Windows Server!
    Restore to dissimilar hardware requires the PRO or sever versions (expensive).
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 16,132
    7 X64
       #1400

    Keith,

    Does it adjust the image during restore - or is it independent of the image?
      My Computers


 

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