Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[kado897]

I can't but they are showing with a size. I guess that Macrium will tell us that they are really empty.

 

[BJB]

Mine shows at 3.6GB so it matters whether it contains data or not. Think I'll take a normal image, then delete the page file and hiberfile using a boot disk and then take another image. My money is on them not taking up any meaningful space.

 

[kado897]

It was as I surmised... Macrium Support Forum - Pagefile and Hyberfil

 

[BJB]

Seems to be so - the test I carried out, firstly with the page file in and secondly with it removed, there was a difference of just 164MB in the image files. Windows wasn't booted in between the tests (to prevent it from recreating the page file) so the only difference between the two was the deletion of the page file.

 

[grant56]

very easy, just mount the image in explorer and look at it with a hex editor or any file lister.

As for the answer given at Macrium, it's very confusing to say the least.

I believe them, but what is the data that is showing up when the file is examined? It seems to have the same 'header' from one backup to the next, so its consistent. All kinds of data that sure looks like swapfile to me.

Is it data from other files on the backup or what? I'd have expected to see blanks if the file was truly empty, but maybe there's something about this I don't quite get.

 

[Britton30]

I would guess the pagfile.sys and hiberfill.sys are placeholders and need since they are system files. Probably like an new but formatted drive has several MB of used space for the file system.

 

[kado897]

A description of what a sparse file is. Sparse file - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Britton30]

Thanks Keith, it explains why they would appear to have data in them.

 

[grant56]

"When reading sparse files, the file system transparently converts metadata representing empty blocks into "real" blocks filled with zero bytes at runtime. The application is unaware of this conversion."

Still doesnt make sense to me. Not seeing zeros . Sorry. Maybe my system is doing something odd here.

 

[Britton30]

How are you opening pagfile.sys?

 

[kado897]

New Version 5.2.6544

What's new? 5.2.6544:

Restore view loading speed increase
The time to populate the Restore view with image and backup files has been reduced.

Bug Fixes:

Linux CD incorrect image information displayed
On the initial page of the Linux restore wizard, Incremental and Differential image files were labelled as Full images. This has been resolved.

Image mounting problem from a password protected network share
When using Windows Explorer context menu to mount an image, if the share was password protected the the mount could fail. This has been resolved

Improved Installer reliability
Macrium Reflect installation could fail and rollback if the installation of the Reflect service failed due to Anti-Virus software blocking the installation. This has been resolved.

Problem with File and Folder backup due to Russian locale
When using Russian Windows, Files greater than 4GB in size would not combine to a single file in the restore process. This has been resolved.

Macrium Reflect Patch Details

 

[essenbe]

Thanks, Keith. Good info.

 

[kado897]

What's new? 5.2.6551:

What's new? 5.2.6551:

Cancel confirmation on Clone and Restore

A confirmation dialog has been added to prevent accidental cancelling of Clone and Restore operations.

Volume label added to the USB drop down when building rescue media

To aide detection of the correct USB media when building a bootable USB stick the Volume label of the drive has been added to the selection box.


Bug Fixes:

UEFI boot problem when shrinking a GPT partition.

Some customers have reported that when restoring and shrinking a UEFI booting system that the message "0x0000225 \winload.efi is missing". This has been resolved.

If this issue affects you then please create fresh Windows PE rescue media after updating.

Windows 8.1 Event error for ReflectService.exe

The event "The description for Event ID 2 from source ReflectService cannot be found" was incorrectly posted to the Windows Event log in Windows 8.1. This has been resolved

Macrium Reflect Patch Details

 

[Marcus Foller]

Great post, thanks for sharing

 

[Electron]

I just downloaded and installed Macrium Reflect and it looks like an excellent Imaging solution. Two problems were encountered and I'd appreciate any help or comments.

1. In creating the Rescue DVD, I assumed I would be prompted on when to insert the blank DVD. The process was started and I wound up waiting a very long time while it displayed creating ISO Image. I don't recall being prompted. Eventually I hit eject on the drive and was just able to insert a blank DVD before the drawer closed. The DVD was written correctly. Have others seen this problem? I should probably repeat the process.

2. After booting the Rescue DVD, I received warnings about USB and Ethernet Drivers not being loaded. I proceeded anyway and the software detected my external USB Disk Drive including the Macrium image file that had been written 30 minutes earlier. Does it look like everything will work? I did not proceed from that point. Another issue might be whether USB 3.0 was being supported. The drive supports USB 3.0 and was plugged into a USB 3.0 port.

 

[SIW2]

Doubt usb3 is supported.

You can use my winpemmaker which will support usb3. I use a different imaging program, Aomei Backupper, but this works for macrium also.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ophotsq6fjrbzl/REv16.zip

 

[whs]

1. In the latest releases, USB3 is supported.
2. The warning about drivers often appears. Just ignore it. Maybe you checked the box in the picture below.
3. It is recommended to insert the DVD before you start the DVD creation process.

 

[Electron]

Thanks for the help

Thanks SIW2 and whs for the help. I repeated the creation of the Rescue DVD and it behaved the same way. They apparently do want you to insert the blank DVD before starting. However, I tried inserting a non-blank CD after the problem occurred and the software reopened the tray and prompted me to insert blank media. They need to also detect an empty tray and then prompt you.

I changed my mind at that point and created an ISO file which is another option. It was 160 MB.

I'm also testing out the free Acronis Western Digital edition but Macrium appears easier to use.

Next step is to buy an internal SATA disk drive to test imaging of my Windows 7 system. I intend to buy the same exact disk size which is 1 TB. I haven't resolved yet whether Macrium would work with a different disk size.

 

[essenbe]

It should as long as the disk has more space than the actual data on the imaged drive. Macrium goes by the actual data size rather than the disk size.

 

[whs]

You can use any disk (or USB flash drive) to place the image - as long as the image fits. The image size will vary but as a rule of thumb, an image of the C partition will be about 65% of the size of the data in the C partition. The size of the partition itself is irrelevant. This is with normal compression. Images of pure data partitions may compress differently. That will depend on the structure of the data.

For my Windows 8.1 tablet I even use a 64GB micro SD card to place the images. That works too.