Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[whs]

Yeah Anne, PW must be drunk. No problem with the Dutch. I am German and spent a lot of time in the Netherlands plus I lived a couple of years in Belgium where I had a Flamish girlfriend - although we spoke French most of the time.

But back to your problem. What exactly do you want to accomplish. Maybe we can do it differently. Increasing the size of the recovery partition is not necessary - why would you want to do that anyhow?

 

[anne1982]

Hi whs,

This is good explanation, PW needs from time to time some alcohol in his blood (d).



Good news that it is not necessary to increase the size of the recovery partition. I am thinking to divide this 1T HD into 3 partitions for different types of data i.e. music, doc's etc... The question: is it safer in case of crash which can happen to one of the partition that others will not be effected?

Many thanks for your patient (dank je wel).

Regards,

Anne

 

[whs]

Yes it is better to have a data partition so that you do not lose your data in case of a crash. But I would only make one extra partition and then either move your current user folders there or create new folders and include them into the libraries.

The easiest is to use Disk Management for the task. You may not be able to shrink your C as much as you would like, but have a look what it yields. Here is a video tutorial of mine on how to do that: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/72427-data-partition.html

Nowadays I actually prefer to make new folders (rather than maving the existing folders) in the new partition and move my data there. Then you right click on those new folders and Include them into the respective library. The advantage is that you completely seperate your stuff from the system stuff. If you look into your current Documents, you may notice that there are all kinds of folders that you did not create but the system did.

Let me know which approach you want to take and I give you more details. If you choose to move the current folders, there is one trap that many fall into - they move the folders to the new partition instead of to predefined folders in the new partition. That creates a mess. So let's discuss before you go ahead.

 

[anne1982]

Yes it is better to have a data partition so that you do not lose your data in case of a crash. But I would only make one extra partition and then either move your current user folders there or create new folders and include them into the libraries.

The easiest is to use Disk Management for the task. You may not be able to shrink your C as much as you would like, but have a look what it yields. Here is a video tutorial of mine on how to do that: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/72427-data-partition.html

Nowadays I actually prefer to make new folders (rather than maving the existing folders) in the new partition and move my data there. Then you right click on those new folders and Include them into the respective library. The advantage is that you completely seperate your stuff from the system stuff. If you look into your current Documents, you may notice that there are all kinds of folders that you did not create but the system did.

Let me know which approach you want to take and I give you more details. If you choose to move the current folders, there is one trap that many fall into - they move the folders to the new partition instead of to predefined folders in the new partition. That creates a mess. So let's discuss before you go ahead.

Hi whs,

Thank you for your support. I have had contact with the helpdesk of PW. They told me that the problem with decreasing the space of the C: drive is because the computer is using BitLocker (which I got it standard installed on it when I bought it). According to PW this will encrypt the partition and it will not be supported.

Today, I have had a contact with the helpdesk of the computer shop. They explain me how to dismantle the BitLocker and the RAID1 which I am going to do in the coming 3 weeks and do a daily image to the second disk. Sure I will let you know the further development.

Many thanks again for your support.

Best regards,

Anne

 

[whs]

Thanks for updating us. You are right, that bitlocker can play an act on many programs. And the Raid1 is pretty useless and counterproductive in my book.. See my logo on the bottom of my post - I always warn against fancy setups - nothing but trouble.

i hope you get it sorted out and if you need further assistance, let us know.

 

[Frozenthunder]

Anyone who purchased Macrium Reflect and tried out incremental images? Would be very nice if this would work, since I gave up with Windows Backup which does always copy the whole data instead of new data.

 

[whs]

Incremetals is in the paid Macrium specifications. Although I have never used it, I assume it works. I am dead against incrementals because they are difficult to manage and if you loose one in the chain you loose the whole chain.

At todays prices of large disks, it should not be a problem to store a good selection of full images which are easy to weed out when required. And the runtime to take the image should not be a problem either because that can run in the background.

If, however, you want delta images for any reason, you should look at Paragon. They work with differentials which are a lot safer than incrementals.

 

[Frozenthunder]

Incremetals is in the paid Macrium specifications. Although I have never used it, I assume it works. I am dead against incrementals because they are difficult to manage and if you loose one in the chain you loose the whole chain.

At todays prices of large disks, it should not be a problem to store a good selection of full images which are easy to weed out when required. And the runtime to take the image should not be a problem either because that can run in the background.

If, however, you want delta images for any reason, you should look at Paragon. They work with differentials which are a lot safer than incrementals.

The reason why I want incremental/differential backups is because of HDD failure like bad sectors. Imagine you have an HDD with 300GB of data on it and an external 1TB. Then you can store up to 3 full images on the external one. Let's say you do this, and when the HDD is full you delete the oldest image. But between first and second image a sector of your main HDD broke on which some sensible files were, then you got the problem that you can't get those files back. Because you may notice that only after a long time that you lost that files and then you can't get it back because the oldest image is younger than the file when it still existed.

I already lost unique data (which no one else has) because it just broke and tried to get it back from backups but i wasn't able to do this, since it was already broken long time ago and i didn't notice.

All I want to do is to keep the very very old backup as long as possible, plus all the versions of modified files. Also I want to never re-backup already backed up data, because maybe a sector broke at one day, then I can't backup that file anymore and lost it, just when such a scenario happens like I described earlier.

Is that Paragon program which allows differential images free?

 

[whs]

1. an image of 300GB of data will be about 160GBs (because of image compression) - with Macrium.

2. I do not know what kind of disk you have, I never had a sector failure on any of my 12 external disk that are of 7 different makes. And even then you can repair it with chkdsk x: /f /r

3. I always image to at least 2 disks (alternating), sometimes 3 when I am in a hurry and use an internal disk.That provides the safety you are looking for.

4. As I said, if you insist on deltas, use Paragon. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/

5. If you have 300GB to image, most of it must be data. I would seperate that data into a seperate data partition and rather than imaging that I would use a sync program - there are many on the web. I use Allway sync.

 

[SIW2]

I would suggest Differentials - much safer.

Is that Paragon program which allows differential images free?

Yes.

Free Backup Software: Paragon Backup & Recovery (Advanced) Free Edition - Overview

It comes with a linux based boot disc ( like all free apps. ). Again like all free apps. linux based recovery discs - first thing to do is check it works for your your system - boot it up and make sure it sees all your drives.

Note - differentials are not any quicker than a full image - because obviously it needs to compare everything before deciding what needs to be imaged - they are smaller, of course.


An incremental backup will include changes since the last incremental - you therefore need all of them plus the original full image. ( Original full is called parent or base image )

Differentials back up any changes since the first full image - you therefore only need one of them ( whichever date you want to ga back to ) plus the plus the original full image.

 

[alan10]

Note - differentials are not any quicker than a full image - because obviously it needs to compare everything before deciding what needs to be imaged - they are smaller, of course.

That is NOT true for Macrium.

It took 3 minutes 54 seconds to create a FULL image file of the whole primary HDD.
Image File Size 5.79 GB (6,223,702,084 bytes)

It took 2 minutes 29 Seconds to create a DIFFerential file of the same
Image File Size 808 MB (848,014,078 bytes)

It took 2 minutes 13 Seconds to create a INCRemental file of the same
Image File Size 88.6 MB (92,934,986 bytes)
This included reading the entire FULL image plus 8 subsequent INCR files and comparing with current HDD contents

My Primary Drive is 1 TB
It has the special 100 MB boot + System C:\ + 2 more partitions.
Partition sizes 0.1 + 25 + 10 + 4 GB
Total Space Used 17.6 GB

I would suggest Differentials - much safer.

I suggest no more than an itsy bitsy bit safer.

All I really need is the 5.79 GB FULL backup, which is copied to an external just in case of the unthinkable and unbearable.
I would miss the weekly 800 MB DIFF file if it was corrupted, but fear does not keep me awake.
I totally dismiss the risk that my latest 90 MB INCR is dependant upon, on average, 3 previous daily 90 MB INCR files plus one 800 MB DIFF plus one 6 GB FULL

Regards
Alan

 

[whs]

Note - differentials are not any quicker than a full image - because obviously it needs to compare everything before deciding what needs to be imaged - they are smaller, of course.

That is NOT true for Macrium.

It took 3 minutes 54 seconds to create a FULL image file of the whole primary HDD.
Image File Size 5.79 GB (6,223,702,084 bytes)

It took 2 minutes 29 Seconds to create a DIFFerential file of the same
Image File Size 808 MB (848,014,078 bytes)

It took 2 minutes 13 Seconds to create a INCRemental file of the same
Image File Size 88.6 MB (92,934,986 bytes)
This included reading the entire FULL image plus 8 subsequent INCR files and comparing with current HDD contents

My Primary Drive is 1 TB
It has the special 100 MB boot + System C:\ + 2 more partitions.
Partition sizes 0.1 + 25 + 10 + 4 GB
Total Space Used 17.6 GB

I would suggest Differentials - much safer.

I suggest no more than an itsy bitsy bit safer.

All I really need is the 5.79 GB FULL backup, which is copied to an external just in case of the unthinkable and unbearable.
I would miss the weekly 800 MB DIFF file if it was corrupted, but fear does not keep me awake.
I totally dismiss the risk that my latest 90 MB INCR is dependant upon, on average, 3 previous daily 90 MB INCR files plus one 800 MB DIFF plus one 6 GB FULL

Regards
Alan

You are talking about incrementals, NOT differentials. Macrium makes incrementals, Paragon does differentials.

 

[SIW2]

Thank you whs.

I was referring to Paragon.

 

[whs]

Thank you whs.

I was referring to Paragon.

You are welcome. It was pretty obvious that you were referring to Paragon. But many people do not differentiate between incrementals and differentials. I have to admit that I had to learn the difference too.

 

[alan10]

You are talking about incrementals, NOT differentials. Macrium makes incrementals, Paragon does differentials.

Please read my post again and also look at Macrium Reflect's capabilities.

I WAS talking about DIFFERENTIALS.
I was also demonstrating that the risk of 3 off 90 MB INCRementals failing is only 5% of the risk that a 6 GB FULL would fail.

I am perfectly happy to depend upon 6GB Full + 800 MB Differential + up to 6 off 90 MB Incrementals at the end of a weekly series.

Macrium easily creates BOTH Incrementals and DIFFerentials.

Regards
Alan.

 

[SIW2]

I believe the thread is about the free version of macrium.

My post was about an alternative free app. ( Paragon ), which does do differentials.

 

[whs]

I believe the thread is about the free version of macrium.

My post was about an alternative free app. ( Paragon ), which does do differentials.

Exactly. free Macrium does only incrementals. However, the paid version can do both.

 

[alan10]

O.K. I had forgotten the title of this topic,
BUT FrozenThunder was considering the purchase of the full featured Macrium.

I was intent upon showing that the risk of a series of Incrementals is NOT significantly greater than using Differentials,
AND that it only takes half the time to do either Incremental or Differential compared with the time for the Full image.

Regards
Alan

 

[SIW2]

Depends how many you do - if you have 30 images - the risk to any one of those (tho. thankfully still small ) is clearly greater than the risk if you only have a couple.

It just so happens that in your case you only have a few - and you don't seem to mind- as long as you still have the base.

Thanks for the info about the speed with paid macrium.

Does macrium have a clever workaround such that the loss of an incremental does not adversely affect restoring from any subsequent incrementals?

 

[alan10]

Yes and No ! !

Necessary explanation :-

My last FULL image file has the name

D4F3BDD38CC36FC5-00-00.mrimg

The name for all DIFF and INCR files based upon this is always of the form

D4F3BDD38CC36FC5-xx-xx.mrimg

Where the suffix xx is a 2 digit decimal number in the range 01 to 99
I believe that after 99 the suffix progresses to -yy-xx-xx,
but I think after 100 days being afflicted with all the Patch Tuesdays and other Windows Woopsies,
the Differential images will be half the size of the FULL and I would start a fresh series.
The extensions are always mrimg,
and the prefix such as D4F3BDD38CC36FC5 is random for each FULL and its derivatives.

Given that -00-00 is always the FULL,
And if -10-10, -20-20, -30-30 etc are DIFFerentials,
Then all the other suffixes are INCRementals.

On that basis, if the file *-23-23.mrimg becomes corrupt it will have zero effect upon restoration from any file in the range *-00-00 through to *-22-22.mrimg,
and also zero effect upon *-30-30.mrimg and upwards.
After *-23-23.mrimg becomes corrupt I do not believe it will be possible to create any further Incrementals until a subsequent DIFFerential is created,
but if corruption occurs after creating *-27-27.mrimg then all images from *-23-23 to *-27-27 will be defective.

A clever workaround for these defective files is a registry hack which tells Macrium to proceed regardless of checksum errors.
I would have to search for the precise information but I know this allows the image to be Mounted and a drive letter allocated so that Windows Explorer can browse the image and copy all the files. It possibly would also allow restoration to a new Partition.

I can make a 1 GB (up to 2 GB) DIFF image every 10 days, and 15 GB of DIFF + 6 GB FULL = 21 GB is good for 90 days.
By doing an INCRemental on 9 days out of 10, and keeping only the last 30 Incrementals I can go back to any chosen day in the last month at the cost of an extra 3 GB, i.e. grand total for series = 24 GB.

That is the theory.
In Practice I have one 6 GB FULL plus 32 DIFF/INCR totalling an extra 5.6 GB,
so I have high hopes of keeping below 25 GB for 90 days.

The principle desire for daily incrementals is that should Microsoft without notice slip a patch onto my system, when I start up the next morning and it fails to boot I can easily restore back to how it was the day before Microsoft corrupted it, and I will only lose the last day's documents, and not the last 10 days.

(This system was validated by WGA but the evil empire sneaked a WGA update which I believe allows them to download new hack detections. It did not act as they documented - instead Windows ALWAYS STOPPED RESPONDING about 100 Seconds after a Restart, and the ONLY way to restart was to disconnect all power.
As it happened the Macrium Recovery BOOT CD allowed me to create a backup of my trashed system and then Restored my last good image. Then under a working Windows system I used Macrium to mount the image of the trashed system, and BestSync found several thousand files that were different, and I easily deselected all the Windows tweaks and twitches to itself and retained only my latest documents, desktop links, etc, and BestSync then restored all I needed to my resuscitated Windows.)

Regards
Alan