Macrium Reflect Free vs Windows System Image

SIW2 · 17 Oct 2016

Strange. The dvd might be ok, you can check by seeing if it will boot.

Otherwise, you could create an iso file first. Then rt click the iso and use windows disc burner to burn it to dvd.

Alternatively, you can use my boot disc.

BuckSkin said:

SIW2 said:

It creates bootable recovery media for you in a few seconds.

Since the progress bar is at 99% and the DVD burner seems to finished, would it be safe to assume that my bootable media disc is good to go ?

Thanks for reading.

BuckSkin · 17 Oct 2016

ignatzatsonic said:

you need to test the recovery media by confirming that it will in fact boot your PC.

SIW2 said:

you can check by seeing if it will boot.

Thanks for your patience and understanding with me and all of your help; it is greatly appreciated.

On a computer that is booting itself fine, what are the steps I need to follow to test these discs ?

RolandJS · 17 Oct 2016

Just pretend your computer doesn't boot, boot the DVD or USB stick you made. If you reach the first menu, you're very likely good to go :)

BuckSkin · 17 Oct 2016

RolandJS said:

Just pretend your computer doesn't boot, boot the DVD or USB stick you made. If you reach the first menu, you're very likely good to go :)

Thanks and forgive me as I am not very quick yet.

I shut down the computer; with the computer off, I cannot open the DVD tray; when I press the power button, the computer immediately boots itself.

What am I missing ?

ignatzatsonic · 17 Oct 2016

You need to find out what F key will cause a menu to come up that will allow you to choose the DVD drive as the first boot device.

It might be F2, F8, F12, or something else on a Dell; you can experiment till you find it. Look for the a menu choice about your DVD drive. You'll also see a choice for your hard drive.

After you discover that key, then:

Start the PC normally.

After it's running, put your recovery media in the DVD drive.

Reboot and hit that F key, tapping it repeatedly as the PC reboots. That should bring up the menu.

It might be touchy about the tapping and not give you the menu; keep trying, maybe hold the F key down throughout the boot process.

Choose the DVD choice as the boot device.

If the recovery media was made properly, the PC should boot from it and bring up your Aomei or Macrium interface, whichever you used.

SIW2 · 17 Oct 2016

Restart the computer, and at the Dell logo screen tap the <F12> key multiple times to invoke the One-Time Boot Menu.

Select the Boot from DVD option ( it might say Boot from CDROM ). The dvd drive should be operational at his point, so if the dvd is already in, press Enter. Otherwise open the tray put in the dvd, close the tray , then press enter.

BuckSkin · 17 Oct 2016

Thanks so much everyone.

I tested both of the questionable discs.

At first it said "Windows is loading files"; then, it digested that a bit and brought up the AOMEI window, at which point I X-ed away the AOMEI window and it went straight into Windows.

For what it is worth, if the DVD is not already in the tray and I then insert it, pressing ENTER does not respond; at this point it says to retry boot press F1, which I did and everything then worked.

I appreciate you guys.

After I get more confident in my new-found abilities, I will install the Macrium and see which of the two I prefer; one thing is for certain, if I can manage to use the AOMEI, just about anyone can.

mjf · 17 Oct 2016

Which ever system imaging program you use the sure fire test is to attempt a system restore to a spare HDD/SSD with all other drives disconnected (not DVD obviously). If you can boot to the "new" HDD then you should be very confident that you are covered. For Macrium the HDD/SSD only needs to be able to fit the amount of data you actually image. A major limitation of Windows inbuilt is the replacement drive needs to be at least as large as the physical drive the image was made from - eg if the source drive was say 1TB and you only used say 50GB then you would ned to restore to at least a 1TB drive when using Windows inbuilt imaging!

BuckSkin · 17 Oct 2016

mjf said:

Which ever system imaging program you use the sure fire test is to attempt a system restore to a spare HDD/SSD with all other drives disconnected (not DVD obviously).

Do I understand correctly; open my case, disconnect the hard-drive, connect a guinea-pig hard-drive as if it were the original, and see if it will load the system image to that ?

I have four hard-drives from some old dead computers, mostly XP units, possibly one may be a Win 7; does it matter what OS had originally been on the disc ?

A major limitation of Windows inbuilt is the replacement drive needs to be at least as large as the physical drive the image was made from

That is good information to know.

mjf · 17 Oct 2016

With Macrium provided it is a sata drive with sufficient capacity to store the original data you should be fine. Disconnect all other drives - data drives etc leaving just you "guinea-pig" HDD.
Macrium also has a "drag & drop" capability - look up the user guide.
I haven't used Aomei so I can't comment on it.