Macrium Reflect Free vs Windows System Image

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  1. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #21

    BuckSkin said:

    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 ?
    What is on the disk should not matter at all. Whatever is on it will be wiped out by the image restoration process, so be sure to use a drive that has nothing of value to you on it.

    Confirm that the drive will boot from the restored image and that it appears to be identical in functionality as the original drive.
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  2. Posts : 513
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       #22

    I won't be able to do this in the very near future as I have about fifty other things going on, but I am definitely going to play around with this experiment as soon as time allows.
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  3. Posts : 16,132
    7 X64
       #23

    If you didn't back up the system partition, make sure the restored windows partition is marked active.
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  4. Posts : 513
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       #24

    SIW2 said:
    If you didn't back up the system partition, make sure the restored windows partition is marked active.
    And how do I know if it is marked active ?

    Thanks.
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  5. mjf
    Posts : 5,969
    Windows 7x64 Home Premium SP1
       #25

    It appears you are using a Dell PC that has recovery partitions etc. It may be best that you provide a system disk management screenshot (full screen) of your PC. It may be that you should image not only
    "Create an image of the partition(s) required required to backup and restore windows" under Macrium
    but recovery partitions as well initially
    Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

    If you want a complete copy of your original drive then you probably need a disk the same size as your original. You can do this by cloning the whole drive or imagining each partition.
    For on going imaging you just select "Create an image of the partition(s) required required to backup and restore windows". You could just try this option first on a test drive and see if you can boot. It may not give you the recovery partitions. This will include the active/system partition.

    Give it a go as long as your test HDD has no valuable info on it.
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  6. Posts : 513
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       #26

    Macrium Reflect Free vs Windows System Image-d-dell_dskmgt-2016-10-18.png

    This is a shot of the DELL that I have made both Windows and AOMEI images of.

    I had a look at the other identical DELL and the information is almost word-for-word the same.

    That Transcend (I: ) is an external hard drive that I dis-connected prior to creating the images.

    There are a few sections below those pictured that said no media or no data or somesuch, so I left them out of the shot.


    On EDIT: If it is not including the restore partition in the images, would I not need to provide that volume with a letter?


    EDIT again: I was wondering where all those smilies were coming from; when I typed (C-colon-) I was getting (C:)
    Last edited by BuckSkin; 18 Oct 2016 at 00:18.
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  7. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #27

    I doubt if recovery partitions should have a drive letter.

    The only thing I see wrong is that the external I drive is marked active. The only drive that should be marked active in your case would be C. You might be able to remove the active flag in Windows Disk Management--I can't recall.

    You may have to use Diskpart to remove the active flag.

    Here are instructions:

    [How to] Make partition Active or Inactive using DISKPART › Knowledge Base

    I'm not sure if the recovery partition should show as having 100% free space as it does in your pic.

    You don't need to include the recovery partition in your image file UNLESS you want to be able to use that recovery partition after any image restoration--in other words, it's not needed for general operation. Any home built PC will not have a recovery partition. If you are satisfied with using Aomei for recovery, then the recovery partition is kind of superfluous.

    However--maybe Dell would demand that the drive be in original condition for any warranty claim??

    Or maybe there is some other reason you might want to restore to "factory" condition as opposed to some later date?

    If either of those things is a possibility, then you would need to include the recovery partition. If you wanted, you could make a one-time image containing ONLY the recovery partition and thereafter just make an image of C alone.
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  8. Posts : 513
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       #28

    Concerning the external hard-drive, it is plugged into the same USB port that it always has been and was always letter (H: ) prior to me using EasyBCD to relocate the boot manager.
    Relocating the boot manager provided the letter (E: ) to the previously unlettered System Reserve, and the external hard-drive then became (I: ) which has caused me a bit of confusion in my image editing and organizing programs.

    I have no idea how or when it became marked as active; I try to always remember to disconnect it whenever poking around within the brains of this thing.


    I am glad that you guys seem to know about all of this stuff as, the more I learn, the less I realize that I know....

    Thanks.

    On Edit: What is the significance of that drive being flagged as active ?


    EDIT again: I just had a look at disk management on the other DELL and the external hard-drive connected to it is also flagged as active.
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  9. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #29

    The active partition is normally the one from which the PC boots. I'm not sure how the external became active in your case--possibly because the backups you made with Windows Backup were stored there?
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  10. Posts : 513
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       #30

    ignatzatsonic said:
    The active partition is normally the one from which the PC boots. I'm not sure how the external became active in your case--possibly because the backups you made with Windows Backup were stored there?
    No; the system images are stored on a separate NTSF-formatted external drive that is currently dis-connected.

    On EDIT: Tomorrow, I will connect one of these drives to the other two computers, both HPs, and see whether they show as active or not.
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