Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[xlcgroup]

You don't need the rescue media on your external hard drive only on a CD. The CD is necessary to be able to boot the computer in the event of a major recovery. However, it is essential that you test it.

To do that shut down the computer, plug in the external hard drive, load the CD & restart the computer, hitting F8 or whatever key is necessary on the laptop to get to the boot menu & select the CD. After a short while it will display a menu & you should be able to find your external hard drive & also the particular image you wish to install. Don't install it unless you have a problem.

I got the menu to pop up, thanks so much! So, from the menu, are you saying that I can load any image? Like the backup image of my Windows backup that I made from Windows itself along with the image I made from Macrium?

 

[essenbe]

From the Macrium recovery disk you can restore a Macrium image you made. To restore a windows image made with windows backup you need a windows recovery disk.

 

[xlcgroup]

Cool, I have one of those on CD as well. Thanks so much!

 

[xlcgroup]

From the Macrium recovery disk you can restore a Macrium image you made. To restore a windows image made with windows backup you need a windows recovery disk.

thank you, i tested out the recovery disks and backups on both on a 7 laptop + 8.1 desktop and it began the process of restoring before i canceled it. i've been using computers for 20 years and never have backed up my whole HDD before, just the important documents on externals and CD's. should've started much sooner, would've saved me some headache and money on CD's, DVD's, cases, labels, etc.

to be fair i've only had to reinstall my OS two or three times in that span but it sure is nice to know that even if my primary gets compromised, i can get it working in just a few steps. i REALLY appreciate all the help everyone. i also wish i joined this forum 20 years ago too now that i think about it.

 

[xlcgroup]

i can get a restore going on both my 7 and 8.1 and it loads up fine from the boot menu via CD. i went through the documentation at macrium but it's a bit of vague when it comes to partitions, system images and images of drives so i just make one of each on each OS. should my primary become incapable of loading windows properly, will they all do the trick of restoring it to a working state?

i also made images of both the primary and the 'system reserved', NTFS active, with the primary drive to my D drive. should all my images and/or partitions include the NTFS active?

it's also vague about XML files. my question for this is: should they be made to "read only" if it will be used from the boot menu? in other words, if i can get into windows but something is still not right and i need to restore, will the XML be useless if it has been changed to "read only'?

i should've asked this before i spent hours backing up TBH but i was kind of excited to hear that you can do all this with a free version of macrium. especially after i just got both machines fixes in the past week. i wanted to get theses backed up while they are both in perfect working order to save myself time and effort should it happen again. before i backed up my drives, i ran malwarebytes, superanti spyware, cc cleaner, advanced system care, driver booster and installed windows updates. then i took off all the music and video on an external 4TB HDD to speed up back up and recovery times on both machines. i learned from the best (you guys).

 

[SIW2]

You might find this useful
17514x64-v3.iso

 

[xlcgroup]

You might find this useful
17514x64-v3.iso

i've never seen this software before, what is it exactly and can you suggest what i should or could do with it?

i burned the iso to a disc and ran it fine and loaded, just not sure what i am supposed do with this.

 

[SIW2]

It is boot media, useful if you need to repair or reinstall. It has a lot more functions than the standard windows recovery options.

 

[xlcgroup]

It is boot media, useful if you need to repair or reinstall. It has a lot more functions than the standard windows recovery options.

awesome, thanks! can you just give me the full name and version of the boot media? i want to do some research on it and learn more. i appreciate it sir.

 

[SIW2]

I made it.

There are shortcuts on the desktop and under the start menu. Mostly standard programs, like aomei backupper, aomei partition assistant, eset antivirus, recuva ( file recovery), 7-zip. Dism++ is there ( start it up to find what it does). A couple of things I made, such as nt6repair, and dism gui. Also includes the usual windows recovery options. QTweb Internet browser is there on the taskbar, if you need it.

 

[xlcgroup]

I made it.

There are shortcuts on the desktop and under the start menu. Mostly standard programs, like aomei backupper, aomei partition assistant, eset antivirus, recuva ( file recovery), 7-zip. Dism++ is there ( start it up to find what it does). A couple of things I made, such as nt6repair, and dism gui. Also includes the usual windows recovery options. QTweb Internet browser is there on the taskbar, if you need it.

damn, i feel special and blessed to have access to your creation. thank you sir. so i'll name it "SIW2 boot loader"?

i was afraid to play around with it bc i didn't know what any of the programs did.

can you tell me what nt6repair, and dism gui are? i understand the others.

 

[xlcgroup]

oh boy, i am getting the critical process died bsod again completely freezing up my 8.1 again. i had used macrium to restore my system to a point before these issues but it is still freezing up every 45 minutes or so. i am guessing i can restore my system to before this was an issue but it won't help because it is a separate issue? i took my pc to a friend last week and just got it back a few days ago. it seems it is back now. as soon as i got it back, i started to use macrium to avoid these kinds of issues but after 3 days or so, it's back. can someone tell me if it's possible to protect from this?

 

[Ranger4]

It looks like you might have a hardware problem or the laptop might be overheating. Download this Speccy program & install it & you can diagnose a lot of problems.

Speccy - System Information - Free Download

 

[Novel8]

I made my first Macruim image of win 7. At first I did not try to reinstall the image, but was more interested in trying to copy a file or two that I wanted. I get as far as finding them and click on restore and nothing happens...so I do not know if its possible to restore individual files...does anyone know it can and how successful were they in doing so and explain how its done...inquiring minds want to know. LOL

 

[essenbe]

Have you tried a simple copy and paste?

 

[Ranger4]

I agree with essenbe's reply. Copy & paste definitely works as I have done it myself on numerous occasions.

 

[Novel8]

restoring a file from image

Have you tried copy/paste????>>>>

No, I haven't ...thanks, I will give it a try...something as simple as that who knew? LOL

 

[Novel8]

copying a file in Macruim

Most likely, its me and lack of knowledge that came with the free version of macruim. as it turned out when i went to make a backup of win 7 in 2016 on my external hd. Since then i had to buy a disk of Win 7 for a new computer...so all i am interested in with that bkup are some files. When i boot up the drive, i see so many drives and wonder why are they shown. I am only interested in my bkup one. When i see the size of that external drive, it carries the drive letter "J". That ought to give you the idea of how many drives are shown in Macruim. Messing around i came across what i assume is the backup drive, cause it says BKwin7. I choose to the left to browse files. At first i only see 4 listed folders starting with Boot, and source. Anyhow i finally get to see the list of folders that look like my older version. When I click on some of those folders that i would want to copy, they open empty. So what are my recourse, if any, after making a so called backup in Macruim, if the ones that i am interested in copying are shown as empty? Also, why does Macruim confuse the issue of showing all the other existing drives on my system as it stands today? The less shown, the better.

 

[Ranger4]

This Macrium website might help you with mounting an image so you can copy files & paste them.

Browsing Macrium Reflect images and backups in Windows Explorer - KnowledgeBase - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

On your question on the number of drives showing in Macrium, may be related to the number of partitions you have on your hard drive, but where it says drive J does not mean that all the alphabetical letter before J are in use. If the back up drive is a USB one Windows will allocate a drive letter to it that has not been used before.

If you want to see what partitions you have on your main Windows C drive use Disc Management & to use that follow this Forum tutorial.

Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[Novel8]

my BkupWin7 Drive H

Here is the disk management including the external drive H.