Image your system with free Macrium

I have a number of backups using macrium - but can not remember if they are windows 7 or windows 10.

(Don't ask why not)

Is there any file in the windows folder that can be used to tell which OS it is?

I can not use control panel etc without restoring the backups and obviously I do not want to do that.

briley01 said:

I have a number of backups using macrium - but can not remember if they are windows 7 or windows 10.

(Don't ask why not)

Is there any file in the windows folder that can be used to tell which OS it is?

I can not use control panel etc without restoring the backups and obviously I do not want to do that.

Well, you can open Macrium and select the RESTORE tab. Then you can click on "browse for an image file" and select each one of your backups, one at a time.

For each one selected, over on the right side one of the available links will be "browse image". If you select that you will be shown a window that contains a list of the one or more partitions contained within that image file, including its drive letter, volume LABEL, capacity/used/free for the partition, and file format (e.g. FAT32, NTFS, etc.).

Assuming you knew the characteristics of your partitions that had been imaged in these backups, you should hopefully be able to recognize what the contents of each image file consists of, and whether your Win7 or Win10 partitions are among them.

My own approach is to NOT use the "image id" in labeling these files using a BACKUP job, as there is zero human-friendly to that methodology. Instead, I un-check that option (which I know says "recommended") and instead manually enter my own human-understandable English name for the backup file. Then, when I browse my backup folder (on external USB 3.0 drive) looking for the proper image to restore (or to select one of the imbedded backed-up partitions in that image file to restore) I can select the one with the correct English file name I know I'm looking for.

That way there is probably NEVER AGAIN going to be any confusion or uncertainty in your mind when selecting an image file as to what's on it. The "image id" is simply a physical assortment of characters, having ZERO meaning to a person. Use English titles for your backups from now on. Each new generation of the same backup dataset (e.g. if your run your backups each week scheduled automatically) Macrium will add an appropriate suffix to each one to create a unique complete name, although your English text will be the fixed prefix for each file name.

dsperber:
Thanks, yes I've learnt the hard way not to follow the recommendation and to put in my own file name.

Unfortunately browsing the image file doesn't help me, they are all drive C with the same drive label etc etc - but I know some are windows 10 and some windows 7 (I had a bad experience with Windows 10)

I am wondering if there is any one file in the windows directory that is specifically windows 10, or windows 7? Then if I see that I know which OS it is.

By default Windows 10 has a C:\swapfile.sys file, Windows 7 does not have this file.
It is a Hidden System file, so you need to temporarily change your File Explorer view settings to show Hidden and Protected System files.

Another possible way to know is if you have any different programs installed in Windows 7 verses Windows 10.
You could browse the C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) folder to see what is in the Image you are browsing.

Hey forums.

My 500GB WD Blue drive containing the Win7 OS partition has stopped working completely. Luckily I made regular backups with Macrium Reflect Free version (as per the instructions in this thread - many thanks for the help) so I can avoid the Win7 updating nightmares.

I want to restore the backup to a brand new 1TB hdd. The backups are on another internal hdd and I will be using the WinPE rescue cd (also created form the iso form this thread - thanks again for the help).

Last time I had to restore from the backups I was restoring to the same hdd and I had only made backups of the C Drive and the system wouldn't boot after the restore. To get it to boot I had to create the System Reserved and C partitions using the Win7 DVD and then restore the backup.

This time I'm restoring to a brand new and larger hdd so I have a few questions:

1. Do I need to format the new drive before restoring the backup? If the format is required what would be the best way for it?

2. The image contains the System Reserved and 60GB C Drive partitions only - do I need to create these partitions on the new hdd before the restore?

3. I had 4 other partitions on the previous hdd (primary + extended). Do these need to be created before the restore?

My apologies for the long post and novice questions.

Thanks in advance.

(1) No. You don't need to do anything to pre-format your new drive in any way. Just use the WinPE "rescue media" (i.e. standalone WinPE boot with Macrium Reflect auto-started) and begin your image restores to the new drive. That restore process of the partition images you select will accomplish the formatting required.

(2) No. You select those two partitions (system reserved and C) for restore, and that accomplishes the formatting.

(3) No. After you restore these two partitions (both are required in order to boot to Windows as you've seen, because Boot Manager lives in "system reserved" which is the "active' partition that the BIOS goes to in order to begin the machine boot process) you then boot to the restored Windows are now you can create your other additional partitions on the new drive. I always use Partition Wizard Free for all of my partitioning needs, but you can do whatever you want.