Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[JDH1]

I found the comments I was referring to regarding Macrium vs. Paragon. Though they are in the thread "Acronis vs Paragon backup software", the posts are speaking about Macrium problems.

http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/53282-acronis-vs-paragon-backup-software-4.html

There read post #33-36 or so.

Some of it has to do with restoring to a smaller partition, something previously discussed here. But the line which really caught my eye was this:

"But irrespective of mismatched HDD sizes, Macrium Free apparently doesn't get it right... doesn't actually write a bootable and activatable system partition [Windows 7] so you have an exact copy of your prior setup. Good for backing up miscellaneous files and such, but not bootable/activated etc."

While I'm very familiar with Ghost and Acronis T.I., I'm a total "newbie" to Macrium (and for that matter to Paragon and EaseUS). As such, I found the above quote very troubling. So if moving to a smaller drive isn't it, what the heck is being said there?

 

[whs]

This quote is absolute bull. I have restored many systems (XP, Vista and Win7) from Macrium images and they all booted and worked properly.

 

[SIW2]

Whs is absolutely correct.

 

[JDH1]

This quote is absolute bull. I have restored many systems (XP, Vista and Win7) from Macrium images and they all booted and worked properly.

Thanks, I'm glad to hear this.

That the guy insisted on activation problems after a Macrium restore semed very strange. I read on in that thread to see if anyone would call him on this specific statement, but no one really did (the thread died after a relatively short 5 pages, so there weren't that many posts).

 

[whs]

Which proves again that not everything that is posted on the web should be taken as gospel.

 

[JDH1]

Which proves again that not everything that is posted on the web should be taken as gospel.

Certainly. And if a post such as was quoted is misleading or plain wrong, it deserves to be questioned and, most importantly, corrected (especially for the benefit of those who silently read forums, but do not actively participate). Anyway, I'm glad that what Macrium can and can't do was set straight. Thanks!

 

[stasioau]

Thanks whs for your information how to use Macrium.
Please read my comments.
Use two new Hard Drive, both WD 500 GB each.
Create Rescue CD1 and CD2( in compatibility mode)
Create Imago of my all C: hard disc.
Verify Image, it is OK
In BIOS check booting procedure (DVD, hard drive)
In Restore process in place where partitions should be add, Ctrl button does not work to check two places.
Start to run without partitions check, get "Bootmgr is missing:
Repeat for CD1 and CD2 with same negative results.
Will appreciate comments of all above.
Best regards

 

[whs]

Thanks whs for your information how to use Macrium.
Please read my comments.
Use two new Hard Drive, both WD 500 GB each.
Create Rescue CD1 and CD2( in compatibility mode)
Create Imago of my all C: hard disc.
Verify Image, it is OK
In BIOS check booting procedure (DVD, hard drive)
In Restore process in place where partitions should be add, Ctrl button does not work to check two places.
Start to run without partitions check, get "Bootmgr is missing:
Repeat for CD1 and CD2 with same negative results.
Will appreciate comments of all above.
Best regards

You may have forgotten the 100MB active partition. If you have that (not everybody has that), you have to image and restore that one too.

 

[stasioau]

whs, thanks so much.
Yes I have this 100 MB partitions in all HD what I am using. Every partition has his own letter. All 100 MB partitions are in NTFS, but one is in FAT. Do I have change this one to NTFS?
Now have next question
1.How do I image this 100 MB partition? it is a part of specific disk where only two partition are.
2. What is a reason for this 100 MB partition?
With my best regards

 

[whs]

I am not sure what this NTFS/FAT problem is. It should be in NTFS. But if you reformat it, you loose the content. So I am not certain what to advise. A full picture of your Disk Management would help.

ad 1) You image the 100MB partition as any other partition. With Macrium you have to restore that partition seperately and mark it as "active". Windows imaging does it automatically and also restores it automatically. With Macrium you will have to predefine the 2 partitions before you can dump the images into them. Make sure they are the same size (C: can be larger).

ad 2) The 100MB partition contains your bootmgr. It is also used for some other functions (e.g. Bilocker in Ultimate). If you do not have that partition, your system will not boot - as you have experienced.

Just a hint in case you get stuck. For $20 this excellent program will do the migration for you with 2 clicks. It was originally designed for SSD migration but works just as well for HDDs.

 

[iamc3k]

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

 

[kado897]

I had a similar problem before I wen't to the paid Macrium and the PE disk. I found that I found for the Linux disk to work reliably and find my backup drive you need to power off everything and leave it for 30 seconds before booting from the CD. Also, if your boot system allows it wait for 30 seconds at the boot menu to allow drives to settle.

 

[whs]

Since you have v5.2, create a BartPE bootable disk. That may work better.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea why your other drives do not show up. But the Linux recovery program has its limitations as I have seen before.

 

[iamc3k]

I had a similar problem before I wen't to the paid Macrium and the PE disk. I found that I found for the Linux disk to work reliably and find my backup drive you need to power off everything and leave it for 30 seconds before booting from the CD. Also, if your boot system allows it wait for 30 seconds at the boot menu to allow drives to settle.

Hmmm, I cannot see any way to delay the boot menu for 30 seconds. I did, however, totally shut down the computer, waited a few minutes, then cold-started with the bootCD already to go.

It didn't change a thing. It only saw my C drive and my 2 optical drives.

I used the same bootCD in my Vista64 computer. It worked correctly. It found my second hard-drive.

The Vista64 machine uses an Abit IP-35 pro mobo. The W7 machine runs a Gigabyte ga890 gpa ud3h (rev 2.0) mobo.

The bootCD functions. The software used by Macrium v4.2 is not compatible with my hardware.

 

[iamc3k]

Since you have v5.2, create a BartPE bootable disk. That may work better.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea why your other drives do not show up. But the Linux recovery program has its limitations as I have seen before.

Thanks, but as I posted upstream, the BartPE option is disallowed by the Macrium wizard. (At least, I _think_ I posted it upstream.)

The freeware version of Macrium, v4.2, only gives 2 types of boot CD's: Linux or BartPE. BartPE is limited to XP or Server 2003. If you do not have XP or Server 2003, the boot CD wizard will NOT allow the BartPE option.

A boot CD should see any hard-drives I have. Grrr.

 

[whs]

I thought you had bought the v5 pro version. That is why I suggested the BartPE. It should be available. If not, SIW2 knows how to make one from scratch.

 

[kado897]

I thought you had bought the v5 pro version. That is why I suggested the BartPE. It should be available. If not, SIW2 knows how to make one from scratch.

The v5 pro has WinPE not BartPE. The OP has 4.2 which should have BartPE.


The alternative of course is to download Hirens CD which has the winPE in its miniXP environment.

 

[iamc3k]

I thought you had bought the v5 pro version. That is why I suggested the BartPE. It should be available. If not, SIW2 knows how to make one from scratch.

The v5 pro has WinPE not BartPE. The OP has 4.2 which should have BartPE.


The alternative of course is to download Hirens CD which has the winPE in its miniXP environment.

You're correct. v4.2 has BartPE which is inoperable in Macrium's wizard unless you're using XP or Server 2003. I am using W7/64. Macrium v4.2 therefore limits me to their linux boot CD which does not work with hardware which came out about a year ago...or more.

I don't want to pay for v5.0 only to find out WinPE may not work either. (If Macrium assumes linux boot CD will work and they're wrong, what's to support their assumption that WinPE would work?)

What is meant by your alternative statement? How would I use WinPE in a miniXP environment?

Heck, all I want to do is have a consistently updated, reliable backup image of my hard-drive.

 

[kado897]

I thought you had bought the v5 pro version. That is why I suggested the BartPE. It should be available. If not, SIW2 knows how to make one from scratch.

The v5 pro has WinPE not BartPE. The OP has 4.2 which should have BartPE.


The alternative of course is to download Hirens CD which has the winPE in its miniXP environment.

You're correct. v4.2 has BartPE which is inoperable in Macrium's wizard unless you're using XP or Server 2003. I am using W7/64. Macrium v4.2 therefore limits me to their linux boot CD which does not work with hardware which came out about a year ago...or more.

I don't want to pay for v5.0 only to find out WinPE may not work either. (If Macrium assumes linux boot CD will work and they're wrong, what's to support their assumption that WinPE would work?)

What is meant by your alternative statement? How would I use WinPE in a miniXP environment?

Heck, all I want to do is have a consistently updated, reliable backup image of my hard-drive.

Hirens boot CD has a mini windows XP environment with a lot of tools in it one of which is Macrium Backup. Hiren's BootCD 14.1 - All in one Bootable CD » www.hiren.info

 

[mjf]

Here is the Hirens download link for v14.1
Download Hiren
I have use the Macrium component (under the backup subsection of tools) to both image and restore a full (x64) W7 system. Obviously works on (x32) as well.

Slight aside
If you had only 2 DVD/CDs in your toolkit in my opinion they would be
1) Windows System Repair disk
2) Hirens Boot disk

I do have others but Hirens covers most of them!