Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[xxxdannyxxx]

Hello alan10

Your theory is correct validation should be done when an Image is created.I'm talking about the restore though.I have checked the integrity of the image and its fine.Can you imagine if I had validated before or after the restore how long I would have been waiting lol. I did some testing overnight with Paragon, Macrium and Windows native backup feature and have come to the conclusion that - I don't know what happened.
Paragon and windows images of the same drive restore in 25-30 mins but are considerably larger in size so it may be a compression issue with my system. Can,t explain it.
I'm not putting the finger on Macrium, there are many happy users here, and thats one of the reasons I tried it in the first place but at this point its not usable for me 2 1/2 hours to restore would drive me crazy.

Danny

 

[alan10]

I have 16 GB used space in C:\
7 GB is pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys which are excluded from the Macrium image backup.
With default settings Macrium compresses the 9 GB of information into a 6 GB image file.
It is comparable to how Acronis worked.

If your backup file is less than 50% the size of the used space perhaps something vital got omitted. Windows VSS errors can give grief.

When you have created a backup you can mount it for exploration as a duplicate to C:\ but with a different drive letter.
I recommend free-ware BestSync to compare the real and virtual partitions.
I use the 64 bit portable version which is item 6 down at
Download BestSync

Alan

 

[iamc3k]

I found out why Macrium v4.2 couldn't see my backup hard-drive. I wrote the following last week.

whs,

Based, partly, on your writeups and other reports, I'm trying out Macrium v4.2 before I spend money on v5.0. It's not working. My computer has 3 hard-drives. Each hard-drive is a single partition. I only have one OS, W7/64, installed. (No multi-boot options or anything complicated.) My drives are C, for everything; D, which is a backup of C; and E, which has some old data I'm not using or backing up. I have AHCI enabled in BIOS and all 3 drives are formatted using NTFS.

I imaged C and saved it on D. I created the linux boot CD and rebooted. The Macrium restore which opened up at the reboot did NOT see any hard-drive other than C. Since my image is on D, the restore environment fails. (Yes, I tried another boot CD using the "compatibility" option. No good. It, too, only saw one hard drive.)

How can I get Macrium to find my other hard-drives when I boot off the linux boot CD?

(My goal is far loftier than just solving this issue. I have 4 machines networked at home. I would like to store the image from computer 1 on a dedicated hard-drive on, say, computer 2. That will be something I try to tackle AFTER I get Macrium working on a simple computer with 2 hard-drives.)

Thanks,
Ken

The part in bold, that all 3 are formatted in NTFS is wrong. The two that are invisible to Macrium's rescueCD are both formatted in GPT. Macrium's release notes state that v4.2 (free) does NOT support GPT disks. They claim that v5.0 (purchased) does.

I'll wipe my backup, reformat as NTFS, take another image and then see if I can restore my machine. (I'll pull my C drive and toss in a spare of the same capacity.)

Thanks,
Ken

 

[essenbe]

If that dosen't work try to use hiren's boot CD. Load the mini XP mode and it has a Macrium rescue in it. That is what I have to use. For some reason the Macrium rescue CD freezes my computer when I boot from it. But it works perfect with Hiren's. I know that has nothing to do with GPT partitions, but it is another option for you.

 

[SIW2]

Try the macrium v5 trial version.

If you can be bothered to download WAIK - it will run off a winpe3 recovery disc for you ( that is not a trial and works forever. It is also backward compatible with v4 images ).

If you can't be bothered to d/l WAIK - then if you are on 64 bit win 7 - you can use my little app. to make it for you - without WAIK.

64 BIT HERE

If you are on win 7 32 bit 32 bit here

 

[Digital Life]

I just started using Macrium and I thought that I share the way that I make the linux version of the rescue cd
instead of saveing the the rescue cd I save to a iso and then use either linux live cd or unetbootin to copy it to a usb drive . then boot the computer with the usb drive

 

[SIW2]

I think you will find the .iso is already in the Macrium\Reflect folder.

 

[kado897]

Hello guys need a little help

I've been playing today with win 8 and made a mess of things. I made an image of my C partition this morning before joining the fun. It's an 80 gig partition with 28 gig used. Macrium free imaged this in 11 minutes to my Usb external HDD.
I booted the Usb stick with the Macrium recovery software, choose the Image on my external, choose the partition to replace of off it went.
But it didn't did it. It has just taken 2 hours 28 mins to complete the restore with no integrity check before or after.
Surely this can't be right. Windows Imaging feature does it in about 20 minutes on my system.
I am now up and running as I was before but will be removing Macrium unless I can find a reason for the hours it took to restore.
Any help gratefully received.

Danny

Not sure about that. I have restored a Macrium image of my C drive. It took longer than the backup but nowhere near that long.

FYI. I have just had to re-image my Windows drive (53GB) today with Macrium from a backup on a USB attached drive. It took 46mins which is not much longer than the backup.

 

[xxxdannyxxx]

Hello guys need a little help

I've been playing today with win 8 and made a mess of things. I made an image of my C partition this morning before joining the fun. It's an 80 gig partition with 28 gig used. Macrium free imaged this in 11 minutes to my Usb external HDD.
I booted the Usb stick with the Macrium recovery software, choose the Image on my external, choose the partition to replace of off it went.
But it didn't did it. It has just taken 2 hours 28 mins to complete the restore with no integrity check before or after.
Surely this can't be right. Windows Imaging feature does it in about 20 minutes on my system.
I am now up and running as I was before but will be removing Macrium unless I can find a reason for the hours it took to restore.
Any help gratefully received.

Danny

Not sure about that. I have restored a Macrium image of my C drive. It took longer than the backup but nowhere near that long.

FYI. I have just had to re-image my Windows drive (53GB) today with Macrium from a backup on a USB attached drive. It took 46mins which is not much longer than the backup.

Thanks for the info Kado897

I've temporally gone back to windows imaging until I get a chance to look at Macrium again

 

[mjf]

@xxxdannyxxx
Your problem is strange. Like I said earlier I find Macrium restores can take a lot longer than Windows depending on your partition size but it doesn't explain your problem really.

Can you check your external HDD out again? The HDTune screenshot looked a little odd to me. Can you try CrystalDiskMark and Crystal DiskInfo.
Also, can you get your hands on another external HDD to try?

 

[xxxdannyxxx]

Hi mjf Im on to that now

Mmmm not looking to good

 

[kado897]

This is my main backup drive USB attached Seagate GoFlex which is the limiting factor for speed.

 

[mjf]

Here are my results 750GB USB2 portable


Sorry to say your HDD is looking a bit sick. Read speed is way too low. Defragmenting may help but your reallocated sector count I think is too high for the number of hours on the HDD.
With CrystalDiskInfo go to Function>Health status settings
as shown. Try setting your threshold warning just above the current count and see how it behaves over say the next month.

But I think your drive is may be stuffed Danny.

Edit: I believe the RAW values of sector counts are the actual number

 

[xxxdannyxxx]

Hi mjf

Try setting your threshold warning just above the current count and see how it behaves over say the next month.

Not sure what you mean by this can you explain please

I took my data off and gave it a good clean.These are the results after a clean all and full format

 

[mjf]

With the sliders I'd set the threshold of warning "Reallocated sector count" to say C9. Your current reading is C7. Your post before last it was BA.
(CrystalDiskInfo - select Function > Health Status Setting - adjust the reallocated sector count slider to C9. I haven't had these errors but I think the amber warning will go away until this new threshold is hit)

The speeds still look a bit low to me but for your PC & ext HDD they could be normal. What I think you need to watch is "Reallocated Sector Count". If it climbed from C7 to C9 in say 1 month then if it was my HDD, I wouldn't trust it.
Is it still under warranty by any chance?????

 

[xxxdannyxxx]

With the sliders I'd set the threshold of warning "Reallocated sector count" to say C9. Your current reading is C7. Your post before last it was BA.

The speeds still look a bit low to me but for your PC & ext HDD they could be normal. What I think you need to watch is "Reallocated Sector Count". If it climbed from C7 to C9 in say 1 month then if it was my HDD, I wouldn't trust it.
Is it still under warranty by any chance?????

Thanks mjf

No warranty unfortunately. They do still look a tad slow but an improvement none the less. Would enabling Write Caching on the drive help (this is not my area at all, Ive never lost a HDD before).
Will do as you suggested with the reallocated sector count but must admit I don't understand it at all. What do the numbers and letters mean.
I'm just going on the school run so going to run a full chkdsk /f/r whilst out.Will check in when I get back.

Thankyou for the help

Danny


Edit - Sorry mate where's C9 on the sliders I don't understand it

 

[mjf]

chkdsk is a good idea.
I'm certainly only a little bit knowledgeable here. As I understand it reallocated sectors are bad sectors which have been mapped out by the firmware. I think when they start to grow too quickly, it is an indicator that your disk is failing.

C7 hex = 12x16+7 = 199 sectors have needed to be reallocated.
In absolute terms I would have thought this high for a disk with ~1000hours on it.
Setting

It's just a reference point. It doesn't "fix" anything.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone more knowledgeable can step in here and give us both their opinion.
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[xxxdannyxxx]

chkdsk is a good idea.
I'm certainly only a little bit knowledgeable here. As I understand it reallocated sectors are bad sectors which have been mapped out by the firmware. I think when they start to grow too quickly, it is an indicator that your disk is failing.

C7 hex = 12x16+7 = 199 sectors have needed to be reallocated.
In absolute terms I would have thought this high for a disk with ~1000hours on it.
Setting
View attachment 176550
It's just a reference point. It doesn't "fix" anything.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone more knowledgeable can step in here and give us both their opinion.
------------------------------------------------------------------

I managed to find the warranty for that drive and got a replacement through yesterday. They sent me a Seagate instead of Hitachi(not sure if thats an upgrade of not)but alls well again.



Thanks for all the help

Danny

 

[mjf]

I've got 2 Seagate internals and I've been quite happy with them so far. I have a Hitachi hanging around as a backup spare and it never caused me grief.
I think sometimes it's the luck of the draw and make sure the temps don't get too hot.

 

[glennc]

Hello to All,
This may not be the place to ask the question, but it looks the closest. I apologize in advance. I just installed the upgraded Macrium Reflect with the new WAIK download to get a restore disk. When running the system image, I was unable to locate the verify system image option. Did I just miss it or did they remove it??
Thanks for any assistance!
Glenn