Image your system with free Macrium

alan10 said:

Regardless of what you might be aware of,
You specifically ask
"should we be using "Forensic" imaging instead of "Intelligent" imaging?"
and I answered your ignorance of what you should be using by telling you that it will facilitate data recovery of what were "deleted files" at the time that you create the image.

My question wasn't related to the recovery of previously deleted files that may still be occupying "empty" sectors.
I am aware that "Forensic" imaging will allow this (hence the name). :)

It was specifically related to Macrium failing/refusing to clone my friend's SSD.

To put it another way, the question was:
"Does anyone think that using "Forensic" will overcome the problem I encountered (i.e. his broken Volume Shadow Copy Service)?"

It seems that the answer is "no" and I will need to use the PE disc to bypass this issue (assuming my friend sticks to his bizarre plan).

Maybe my friend will now accept my recommendation to partition his SSD, reinstall his OS and programs, and then image it (to avoid this issue in the future).
I'm not holding my breath, as he has a pathological fear of partitions.

Tell your friend the drive IS a partition.

The PE disc does not depend on any 'outside' service because it carries it's own Windows system.. After all it has to work when no system is present at all or when the system is completely dead.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

kado897 said:

With Macrium you need to manually do the validation before a restore. There is nothing automatic and there is no prompt to remind you. The Linux restore disk doesn't have that feature.

Attachment 289742

Actually, you can have Macrium Reflect automatically do the validation (technically, it's called verifying the image) immediately after an image has been created (it's in the Advanced Options). It takes almost as long to do as making the image in the first place but, besides providing the peace of mind that the image is valid, it also provides the opportunity to remake the image should it have gone pear shaped; finding out an image isn't valid after the original has gone south is not going to help one any.

Ah yes. I had forgotten that option.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

kado897 said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Actually, you can have Macrium Reflect automatically do the validation (technically, it's called verifying the image) immediately after an image has been created (it's in the Advanced Options). It takes almost as long to do as making the image in the first place but, besides providing the peace of mind that the image is valid, it also provides the opportunity to remake the image should it have gone pear shaped; finding out an image isn't valid after the original has gone south is not going to help one any.

Ah yes. I had forgotten that option.

No need to be embarrassed; 'tis well hidden. Fortunately for an absent minded old broad like me, it's a sticky setting; set it once and forget it (I have the forget part down pat!).

Even easier. I noticed that it was also in the Global settings.

Britton30 said:

Tell your friend the drive IS a partition.

He doesn't seem to grasp the fact that it is quicker to image a 40 GB partition than a 500 GB partition.

This should have been obvious, as we tried to image his SSD using the Macrium PE disk about a month ago (he had a profile issue).
We couldn't install a decent USB driver, so the imaging was proceeding at ~1 MB/s.
We gave up on that option, as neither of us was willing to wait ~5 days for that operation to finish.

If his SSD had at least two usable partitions, we would have had no problems imaging his OS partition.

Luckily the fix corrupted profiles tutorial solved the issue.

alan10 said:

lehnerus2000 said:

To put it another way, the question was:
"Does anyone think that using "Forensic" will overcome the problem I encountered (i.e. his broken Volume Shadow Copy Service)?"

VSS has no relevance to the "Free Space" which contains the deleted files.
VSS is only needed for ensuring a consistent snapshot that captures at one instant in time all the current live undeleted files, even though Windows may shuffle those files around during the course of creating the image backup or clone.

VSS being broken only affects the ability to capture undeleted files regardless of how Windows might shift them or prohibit access during the course of the backup.

N.B.
I believe VSS creates temporary files, I think in System Volume Information, whilst imaging or cloning is in progress.
I would guess (never tried it) that if you kept Windows very busy with downloads and installations during the course of image/clone creation, the temporary files could become excessive and stop VSS.

I didn't give a detailed explanation, so I suspect that is causing confusion.

It's not a deleted file issue; it's a corrupt file/sector issue.
The sectors that I'm concerned about aren't empty; they are corrupted.

In the "old days", floppies used a DRM scheme based on corrupt CRC information.
DOS copy functions (i.e. OS-based copying) could not copy any discs/files which had corrupt CRC information.

I have read comments that lead me to believe, "Forensic" imaging will duplicate a partition even if it contains corrupt files/sectors.
I assume that "Intelligent" imaging will fail, if it encounters corruption, because it relies on an operating system function (VSS).

Based on that assumption, I wanted to know if "Forensic" imaging would have succeeded where "Intelligent" imaging failed.