Macrium Reflect

[nenny]

Dell computer with Intel Celeron cpu, 2.0 GHz and 3.0 gb memory.

Prior to installing Windows 7 Pro I had Vista Home Premium (came preinstalled on the pc, and had not be partitioned). I had made the rescue disks was prepared to restore to factory conditions. I even had Macrium Reflect image.

Try as I might, after Vista became very unstable, I could not get factory conditions restored. Macrium image from an external hard drive took over 24 hrs to restore the image (which would not boot either).

Finally I decided to install Windows 7 Pro. That went very well and has been activated. I then partitioned the hard drive as shown below.



I have installed the latest version of the free Macrium and created a new restore disk (and checked it). I then made an image and placed that image on drive J. I am not going to put that image on an external HDD. BTW when I booted up from the restore disk Macrium does not see drive J, it sees it as drive F.

This my question: why did it take so long to restore the Macrium image (with vista) and can anyone give me an idea why after it was restored it did not actually work.

Can I reasonally expect Macrium to work since installing Win 7?

Thanks in advance

 

[SIW2]

Which restore disc?

Linux or pe?

Dunno about the Linux disc , but the pe disc should show you the same drive letters you see when you are booted into windows.

Macrium is unique in doing that.

Quite useful for the average punter who only has one o/s - bit of a pain for everyone else.

 

[speedgamer01]

I have never use that software, so far the only one worked for me was the minitool partition wizzard. While the famous Paragon and some others were quite unreliable.
The other soft that i use is Todo backup, its a very basic backingup software but it works...
I am not sure why the restoration took so long, the reason for this might have been the lack of free space on the disk which really slows down copying data from one side to another. It took much less time to restore windows 7 because it was a clean install and there was headroom on the disk to use.

Cheers!

 

[oneextraid]

I have used Macrium on W7 and have had no trouble restoring on a multi partition system. Restores as fast as Acronis.

If your Vista system had the same factory partitions it is possible that your MBR (Boot) was on a separate partition and may not have been backed up by Macrium?? Also, Macrium does incremental backups so you may have restored only a portion of files. Many variables and uncertain of the cause.

Macrium works fine on W7.

 

[hawkeye62]

Dell computer with Intel Celeron cpu, 2.0 GHz and 3.0 gb memory.

Prior to installing Windows 7 Pro I had Vista Home Premium (came preinstalled on the pc, and had not be partitioned). I had made the rescue disks was prepared to restore to factory conditions. I even had Macrium Reflect image.

Try as I might, after Vista became very unstable, I could not get factory conditions restored. Macrium image from an external hard drive took over 24 hrs to restore the image (which would not boot either).

Finally I decided to install Windows 7 Pro. That went very well and has been activated. I then partitioned the hard drive as shown below.

View attachment 178666

I have installed the latest version of the free Macrium and created a new restore disk (and checked it). I then made an image and placed that image on drive J. I am not going to put that image on an external HDD. BTW when I booted up from the restore disk Macrium does not see drive J, it sees it as drive F.

This my question: why did it take so long to restore the Macrium image (with vista) and can anyone give me an idea why after it was restored it did not actually work.

Can I reasonally expect Macrium to work since installing Win 7?

Thanks in advance

I used Macrium 5.0 to clone my system disk on a Windows 7 Professional 64 bit PC. It worked perfectly. Drive letter remained the same. I recall something about logical partitions. Not sure, but maybe only primary partitions can be used?

Good luck, Jim

 

[alan10]

WinPE Boot CD's have better drivers than Linux.
Linux can be slower, and even be unable to perform a restore.
I found Acronis was 3 times slower using LINUX to restore a backup from an NTFS partition than a FAT32 partition on an external USB2 drive.
Under live Windows Acronis Created the backup to either NTFS or FAT32 in about the same time as LINUX took restoring from FAT32

It was common on the Wilders-Acronis forum to find posts from people that created Images that were validated,
but in the hour of need they found the Linux Boot CD had no drivers suitable for their hardware.

I learnt from their mistake and never trust a new Boot CD unless :-
I have a previous Boot CD that is proven to work with my current imaging system ;
or
I first use the Boot CD to restore to unallocated space,
and then under Windows I compare C:\ with the new restored partition using the free portable 64 bit BestSync
Download BestSync

I have just BestSync and it took 14 Seconds to compare C:\ with P:\ and identify 226 files different between them
out of 82224 files, and the changes to backup total 492.01 MB.
Those differences were not restoration errors,
but changes to file sizes and date stamps etc because Windows never stands still,
and Comodo has just updated a 200 MB Bases.cav signature database,
and I have just updated Macrium Reflect which has my full confidence.

NB One of the things I did with Windows 7 when first installed was to use its Disc Management to shrink it down to 25 GB. That left me plenty of unallocated space for experimental restorations.

It is of course possible that for some reason your restore was being done in USB1 mode instead of USB2.

 

[kado897]

I have also heard of the restore from a Linux disk hanging at 100% and when re-run restored ok.

 

[MilesAhead]

Another factor can be the driver for the HD controller in the PC. I was using Paragon Drive Backup. It worked flawlessly on my HP AMD dual core. I got an HP AMD quad core and was not as lucky. Turns out there's a Raid controller in the quad that's not set up to do anything useful. The same controller controls the optical drive. Since the boot CD could not see the HD using the normal Sata driver, it switched to "compatibility mode." Restoring from an external USB that used to take 45 minutes to an hour, became a 9 hour overnight job. Fortunately it completed successfully.

After that I bought Macrium 4.2. It worked at normal speed. But you can't assume anything. You have to boot the CD and go into the restore program. If it says something about having to use Compatibility Mode then chances are you're in for a long haul.

The Macrium 5 and also the ToDo Easus backup have USB 3.0 support. Much faster restores are possible compared to USB 2.0.

Also I wouldn't depend only on your backup being on another partition. If that drive fails there's no way to read the backup image. You should at least have a backup of the backup on a drive not connected to the machine.

 

[mjf]

I believe Macrium V5 free is now available. V4 free appears unavailable.

 

[MilesAhead]

I believe Macrium V5 free is now available. V4 free appears unavailable.

From what I read on their forum, the Linux boot CD for 5 free is available with USB 3.0 support. I haven't tried it though. I tried the USB 3.0 support in Easus ToDo Linux boot and it worked on my machine. It's probably the same Linux boot core with Macrium restore app stuck on. But that's just my guess.

 

[Corazon]

v4.2 of Macrium Reflect is still available for download.
Link here: How to download v4.2 of Macrium Reflect (Download, Installer, v4)
The page mentions the installers being for the registered version, but I think you can run them in unregistered/free mode too.

 

[mjf]

The Note: at the link says only if you have a valid license key.

 

[kado897]

You can also use the WinPE rescue environment with the free edition but you need to download the WAIK (1.5GB) to create it.

 

[nenny]

Which restore disc?
Linux or pe?

I made the Linux restore disc using Macrium. I have never used the pe. Is there any advantage using the pe restore disk?

The only time I had ever seen Macrium show partitions mislabeled was when I had more than one HDD installed on a pc.

I have used Macrium on several computers and this was the first time it had failed me. I suspect it has more to do with the computer being Dell than with Macrium. The only reason I bought the Dell (was used) I got a great deal on it.

When I installed Win 7, one mistake I may have made was NOT formatting C drive before installing Win 7. The reason I say that is because when I booted up, I had the options of loading Win 7 or Vista. That was easily corrected.

If I ever have to use Macrium to restore and it takes that long to restore the image, I would just reinstall Win 7 as that takes less than one hour.

BTW thanks for all the replys.

 

[kado897]

The PE disk can often see drives that the Linux disk fails to pick up. In addition the PE disk interface is more like the installed version of Macrium in layout and has a few more features.

You might like to read this article. http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50082.aspx

 

[mjf]

@nenny
I still consider that there is still some uncertainty that Macrium will continue to support a free version of their product. Because the only link to a free V5 is via a 3rd party I believe Macrium has been removed from the forum's free programs list. My understanding is that the Administrator will reinsert it on the list if the issue is sorted out.
So if "free" is important then you might want to look at other imaging products as well.

 

[kado897]

@nenny
I still consider that there is still some uncertainty that Macrium will continue to support a free version of their product. Because the only link to a free V5 is via a 3rd party I believe Macrium has been removed from the forum's free programs list. My understanding is that the Administrator will reinsert it on the list if the issue is sorted out.
So if "free" is important then you might want to look at other imaging products as well.

It looks more like a c**k up than something deliberate.

 

[mjf]

I hope so. As you may realize I use, have recommended and like Macrium.
(The paid version is just a bit expensive for me running a number of PCs in the home. Plus licenses tied to a specific PC is more to manage).

 

[kado897]

Yes it is a bit. I have the single licence standard version which is $45+tax and a four licence household pack costs double.

 

[marsmimar]

FWIW: Seems like Macrium Free v5 is absolutely available.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download