Well, since this is my post..... I am going to jack it. :) Got the software and made a clone of one of computers. This is in case I loose info or have a H/D problem.
I am also watching and reading about the "image" process. My question is: when one makes a backup disc...either win or Linux, I don't think it necessary to make one each time an image is made.................HUH? Or will this be necessary for each computer and each time?
Last edited by bugmeso; 07 Nov 2013 at 18:04.
Personally my back up plan is more a drive mirroring software called Memeo Auto Sync. As soon as a file is added or changed on one drive it mirrors that with another of your choice. I say don't forget to back up when you can Sync and just forget it !
I said in my above posts Macrium is simple great etc for cloning. And it was for a while now I have had bad clones...Not sure what I did or didn't do recently. It would go ahead and clone and at the end an error would come up. Why not have the error come up right off? Gee Wiz.
I must of changed a setting some were. I miss the Acronis Migrate Easy years ago. I would try that again but it won't support 7 or 64 bit I bet. It was very simple to just clone with Migrate Easy.
I have been making Macrium Images now and I hope I don't screw the settings up with that.
The only time I had a problem with cloning with Macrium Reflect was when I was running Speccy at the same time so I could monitor HDD temperatures during the cloning process. Reflect would get part way through the clone and I would get a BSOD. After that happened a couple of times, I tried running the clone with Speccy turned off and that solved the problem. Since then, I avoid running any other software while cloning and haven't had any more problems.
I wish Reflect had a provision to verify clones like it does for images. You can set MR to automatically verify an image immediately after making the image. There is a setting in Reflect when cloning, under Advanced Options, for Intelligent Sector cloning which also includes a selection to verify the original file system is error free before the clone begins. I use that and, other than the aforementioned issue, never had a problem with my clones.
I have done dozens of restores from Macrium Reflect, never a problem. Reflect and other backup software take a snapshot of the disk using shadow copying to ensure that they get a consistent point-in-time image of the disk. Once a snapshot is taken, overwrites and new data are written to new disk blocks, keeping the old data blocks at the time of the snapshot to use for the backup - the OS points to the new blocks, the backup to the old. When the backup completes, the shadow copy is deleted which frees any old obsoleted blocks kept for the backup. It works well.I have not responded to any of the posts........as of yet. Still reading a lot about back up programs. BUT at this point I can see that I will give Macrium Reflect a try (the free version first). It's just like many others, I am old school and have a hard time believing a software can work within the O/S to back up a H/D. To boot to DOS and then mirror one H/D to another was always the way. Change is hard
But thank you all for the input.
MR creates a checksum from an image file while the image is being created. Verifying an image consists of reading the whole image back to recalculate the checksum, and comparing it to the original. You can do this with an image because the file is immutable. You really can't consistently do this with a clone because the clone is a disk whose contents can be modified.
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