A little help with Macrium, please

[kenC]

I want to do a system image with Macrium. Could someone help with what I need to image. The 'c' drive or something else with it - the 100mb partion ??
The aim is to get back to a working system in case of failure.
I'm adding Macrium pic and disk management.

Please note: my c drive is Logical - does this make any difference?

 

[fireberd]

I use Acronis for backups, and I do full hard drive backups of all partitions, not just the "C" partition. If you have, for example, a recovery partition and a diagnostic partition (as Dell and some other PC's vendors do) those need to be backed up too. If you just backup the "C" drive partition and have a hard drive failure and have to replace the drive with a new hard drive, you can restore the "C" partition to the new hard drive but you have lost any other partition.

I would do the same with this program, backup all partitions with this program to the separate hard drive (D) that I assume you will be using for backups.

 

[DirtRider]

I agree do a full HD image if you can

 

[SIW2]

Hi ken,

It is ok to have your boot drive as a logical drive, only the system partition needs to be a primary.

As you have the 100mb system partition, image it as well.

Make 2 separate images , one of your C partition and the other of your 100mb partition.

Or you can image them both at once - up to you.

You can make a new image of your C partition every week or so to keep it up to date.

No need to keep making new images of the 100 mb partition.

The other 2 are oem partitions put there by the manufacturer essentially to manage and recover your system to factory state.

If you have the time, the space and the inclination you can image those as well if you like. I wouldn't bother because I would have no interest in restoring to factory state. You may feel differently. If you do , then again you only need to image those once - they shouldn't change.

Making your own images with Macrium is much better than using the manufacturer restore program.

Hope it helps.

 

[whs]

As SIW2 says, it is prudent to image C and the System Reserved partition which contains the MBR. Usually, nothing should happen to the system reserved partition, but one never knows. Pay attention the day you recover. For the recovery of C, you must not restore the MBR nor must you mark that partition as active. That is what you would do for the system reserved partition which you have to recover independently in case it is damaged - but in most cases that will not be neccessary.
You might want to have a look at my Macrium Tutorial ( http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I ) which explains some of those things in more detail.

 

[kenC]

Thanks to everyone for the advice. Much appreciated.

WHS: I've watched your video tutorial twice and it was the warning at the top of that page that prompted this thread.

I'm still a little confused over the restoration of C with regard to the MBR.

I understand that I should not restore the MBR when restoring C, but would I get the option since it isn't on C ?

Or are you referring to a situation where I would have to restore both?

I realize it would probably become clear if I had to do it - hope I don't have to!

 

[whs]

1, If you watch the part of the video that describes the restoration, you will come to this picture (see below) where it says: "Do not replace". If you chose this option, the MBR will not be replaced. This is a generic Macrium option regardless whether the MBR is or is not in the image.

2. You will only have to restore the active partition (the small partition with the MBR), if you cannot boot after you restored C. Then you get a message like "Bootmgr missing". But that would be the rare case and should only happen if you have a physical damage on your drive.

 

[pparks1]

There really isn't going to be an issue if you restore the MBR. Most of the time, it would be an unnecessary step. However, for somebody like me, I like to occassionally switch back and forth between Windows and Linux on the box. Therefore, since the MBR is replaced with each OS, it's necessary for me to restore than 100MB active system partition as well as the C drive in order for my box to ever boot again.

But if I were just imaging my C drive and one day after an update Windows would not boot...it would most likely only require me to restore the C drive to get the box working again.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[whs]

There really isn't going to be an issue if you restore the MBR. Most of the time, it would be an unnecessary step

Unfortunately that is not my experience. I learned the hard way that the restored system will not boot if you try to restore the MBR from a C image where there is no MBR. In that case you have to restore the small active partition - but this is really not neccessary in practically all cases.

 

[pparks1]

Unfortunately that is not my experience. I learned the hard way that the restored system will not boot if you try to restore the MBR from a C image where there is no MBR. In that case you have to restore the small active partition - but this is really not neccessary in practically all cases.

I think we are talking about 2 slightly different things. In your case, you tried to restore the MBR from a backup that didn't contain an MBR....and that is simply user error and would never work.

What I am saying is that restoring your MBR is not really an issue if you do it and you don't need to. Obviously, you would be restoring it from a backup which contained it.

edit: on second thought...why not just always back up the 100MB partition. I mean it's tiny and with compression it takes no space.

 

[whs]

edit: on second thought...why not just always back up the 100MB partition. I mean it's tiny and with compression it takes no space

That is what I also recommend for a worst case scenario.

PS: sorry if I misunderstood your earlier post. In the context of my previous discussion with the OP it appeared to me as if you meant to restore from an image that has no MBR. As I said, in my early Macrium days I tried that too. You live and learn.

 

[kenC]

I thought I had this clear after post 7 but now it's clouded over again

So, as SIW2 said: I make 2 separate images, one of my C partition and the other of my 100mb partition.

When (if) I have to restore C, I choose 'Do Not Replace' for the MBR

Right?

If so - how do I image the 100mb? It doesn't show up in Macrium.
Do I have to give it a drive letter? If so, will any not in use do and how do I do it?

Sorry for all the q's and thanks for all help.

 

[whs]

Yes, the 100MB partition needs a letter. Either you assign it with Disk Management or Partition Wizard.

 

[kenC]

OK - all done! I spent a while moving photos - videos, etc. off C to make it smaller (that stuff is all backed up regularly anyway)
I took an image which seemed to go well (took 18 mins.) and now I've moved the extra stuff back again.

Thanks to everyone.

 

[whs]

moving photos - videos, etc. off C to make it smaller

If you moved that to a data partition, you can image that partition too. I do this all the time since I have a data partition which is shared between my Vista and Win7 systems.

 

[kenC]

Wolfgang - I did think of that having seen your other tutorial. I wanted to get the system image done though.

Can I make more partitions? It seems Acer have already made a few - isn't there a limit? 3 or 4?
Please see my first post for disk management.

 

[whs]

Yeah, there is a problem. It looks like thosae Acer people stuffed your system with 4 primaries already - and 4 is the maximum. You have to get rid of one of those first to get to a total of 3 primaries and then add an extended partition to which you can add many additional basic partitions.
Do in no case try to add a partition as it is now. That will automatically convert all your paetitions into dynamic partitions and that is a mess which is not all that easy to correct.

 

[kenC]

I'll leave it 'as is' at the moment - everything's fine - don't want to screw things up

Thanks again for the help.

 

[whs]

OK Ken, we'll tackle the partition problem another day. Keep the Disk Management snip around. We'll need it for that.

 

[kenC]

I just realized that the E that's showing is my DVD drive and the F is my ISP (the dongle sticking in the side of my laptop)

Is it usual for these to show up as Primary partitions? Are they in fact PP's

I scrolled down a bit in the disk management window.