New
#11
I think this statement to be false
"I realise Macrium doesn’t support “cold-imaging” so the backup has to be performed from inside the operating system."
A couple of months ago M.S. sneaked in unannounced an update that was supposed to be an enhancement to WGA.
My system had already been validated, and had the enhancement found evidence to cancel validation it was supposed to inconvenience me periodically.
Soon after Windows trashed itself - totally non-responsive to anything other than pulling the plug within 1.5 minutes of switching on - absolutely repeatable every time.
I wanted to make a backup to preserve all MY changes that I had made after the backup image of the previous week. (I ALWAYS make an image before I permit any Windows Update - but Microsoft forced the update without notice),
1.5 minutes was not long enough for a "hot-image" created under Windows.
I plugged in the Macrium P.E. Boot recovery disc and used its option to create an image.
Then I used the Boot Disc to restore from the good image.
With Windows back to normal I mounted the Macrium image of the trashed system,
and used BestSync to compare the trashed partition with the restored partition C:\,
and then within a few minutes I deselected several thousand files that Windows is always updating, and then BestSync updated my restored system C:\ with my good changes in the trashed image.
N.B. Now under Live Windows I create a total DISC "hot-image" backup of ALL partitions (the active system reserved and System C:\ and programs + data) held on the primary Disc. At any time I may select and restore any partition, and I can restore the whole drive, i.e. all partitions + Partition Table + MBR etc. I do not have to worry about which partition to restore first.
I would expect no difficulty with a Dual O.S. on the same HDD, and it should be feasible to use either O.S. to create the image, and also the O.S. used for creation should not affect which O.S. is used for restoration.
My backup files are held on the Secondary drive and also an ESATA connected external HDD.
It takes about 2.5 minutes to create a Daily Incremental backup of my entire primary drive under Live Windows, and not much longer for a weekly Differential backup.
Last edited by alan10; 29 Apr 2011 at 12:08.