Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[Bellzemos]

So ReDeploy is not needed if I only change the HDD (to a new, different brand, size, speed etc.)?

OK, I think I asked too many questions, got too much info and am now overwhelmed. Thank you! I will install and test Macrium in the following days, when I have some time.

 

[Britton30]

Good idea to be informed, but on-hands experience is best.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

So ReDeploy is not needed if I only change the HDD (to a new, different brand, size, speed etc.)?...

Correct.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Odd, I have ReflectService.exe running, and I have no auto scheduled back up set.

That is probably the check for updates. Look into the startups what it is.

It's for mounting the image file as "virtual disk" so you can read it with windows file explorer.

 

[Bellzemos]

OK, I need another quick advice from you guys.

Friend gave me his laptop for repair (it's filled with junk, unresponsive, BSODs etc.) and he's running Vista 32-bit. He wants to save his programs and data before formatting.

I will install Macrium Free (32-bit version of course) on the laptop and make an image of his HDD to my external USB HDD.

Then I will format his laptop and install Windows 7 32-bit on it and then install Macrium Free again so that I can mount the image from the external HDD and then browse, copy etc. the data he wants saved back on his laptop with freshly installed Windows 7.

Will this go smooth? Or should I manually copy his files to the external USB HDD? I'm afraid because maybe his HDD is corrupted. It seems I will test Macrium on someone else's PC first.

Thank you!

 

[Stephanie]

I just updated build 6463

 

[Bellzemos]

PS: PE 3 components is for Windows 7 x86 and x64, right? I see the option to download PE 4 and PE 5 also, but PE 3 is right for me? Thanx!

 

[Kaktussoft]

OK, I need another quick advice from you guys.

Friend gave me his laptop for repair (it's filled with junk, unresponsive, BSODs etc.) and he's running Vista 32-bit. He wants to save his programs and data before formatting.

I will install Macrium Free (32-bit version of course) on the laptop and make an image of his HDD to my external USB HDD.

Then I will format his laptop and install Windows 7 32-bit on it and then install Macrium Free again so that I can mount the image from the external HDD and then browse, copy etc. the data he wants saved back on his laptop with freshly installed Windows 7.

Will this go smooth? Or should I manually copy his files to the external USB HDD? I'm afraid because maybe his HDD is corrupted. It seems I will test Macrium on someone else's PC first.

Thank you!

Try to make the backup with macrium. Put checkmark at "verify image". In 99.99% of cases no error at all. Otherwise backup form outside vista.... with a recovery dvd. Still failing? Check the disk for errors

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

OK, I need another quick advice from you guys.

Friend gave me his laptop for repair (it's filled with junk, unresponsive, BSODs etc.) and he's running Vista 32-bit. He wants to save his programs and data before formatting.

I will install Macrium Free (32-bit version of course) on the laptop and make an image of his HDD to my external USB HDD.

Then I will format his laptop and install Windows 7 32-bit on it and then install Macrium Free again so that I can mount the image from the external HDD and then browse, copy etc. the data he wants saved back on his laptop with freshly installed Windows 7.

Will this go smooth? Or should I manually copy his files to the external USB HDD? I'm afraid because maybe his HDD is corrupted. It seems I will test Macrium on someone else's PC first.

Thank you!

Since you are going to install Win 7 on the laptop, I would manually copy his data to the external HDD. Using Reflect in this case would be more work than necessary. After you have copied the data and verified it all copied over without errors, I would delete the data only from the laptop, then make an image of the remaining System files on the odd chance the Win 7 installation goes south and you need to restore Vista.

After getting the data off the laptop HDD and the system files imaged, reformat the HDD and clean install Win 7. Once that has been done and all the updates finished, shrink the C: partition and create a data partition to copy the data on the external HDD into. Keeping the System and data on separate partitions will simplify backups and restores in the future since it is usually the System that goes wonky.

 

[whs]

OK, I need another quick advice from you guys.

Friend gave me his laptop for repair (it's filled with junk, unresponsive, BSODs etc.) and he's running Vista 32-bit. He wants to save his programs and data before formatting.

I will install Macrium Free (32-bit version of course) on the laptop and make an image of his HDD to my external USB HDD.

Then I will format his laptop and install Windows 7 32-bit on it and then install Macrium Free again so that I can mount the image from the external HDD and then browse, copy etc. the data he wants saved back on his laptop with freshly installed Windows 7.

Will this go smooth? Or should I manually copy his files to the external USB HDD? I'm afraid because maybe his HDD is corrupted. It seems I will test Macrium on someone else's PC first.





Thank you!

Hopefully such a defunct system will cooperate. But if it does not work, let me kmow. Then I upload a 32bit version of the WinPE .iso from which you can burn a CD or a stick and image with that.

 

[kado897]

What is the spec of the laptop. is it powerful enough for Windows 7?

 

[SIW2]

Not sure if I should start a new thread for this, but the thread title is entirely relevant.

Quite a few of you using macrium.

Why?

Some of you have the free version. What is it you like about it - more to the point, what do you expect from a free imaging program ?

Some of you have the paid version. Why? Is it because you used it for a while and just felt you ought to buy the thing? If you bought it for extra features, which features ?

I am curious because I am interested in this disk management stuff. It seems odd that , for exampple the paid Paragons offer a huge number of features some of them not available anywhere else, yet there aren't many paragon users here.

I also recall paragon used to include file&folder backup in their free version. That didn't seem to create a great impression here either. File and folder backup is not something I do a great deal of. But as far as I tell it is the only kind of backup Joe public does. Most users have no idea what imaging is.

 

[kado897]

At the time Si Macrium was the only decent free imaging program. I bought the paid version for the incremental/differential imaging which I do daily. I think on a future machine I might use AOMEI which has those features.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I initially bought the paid version of MR because I needed differential and incremental backups at the time. I no longer need those features but the Pro version does have some other features I do use now, such as recovery from Windows boot menu (very handy), free support, etc. (I'm not sure anymore which features I use are not in the free version). An additional feature the Pro version has is restore to dissimilar hardware which may come in handy someday should my MOBO, etc. die.

 

[whs]

what do you expect from a free imaging program ?

All I need is reliability and that is very good with Macrium. I never had an image fail (and I made a lot of recoveries when I was teaching a Macrium class at the computer club).

I have no need for any fancy functions. I always make full images because they are easiest to manage and disk spcae is not my issue.

Keith, I was trying AOMEI. It worked well on my desktop with 64bit Windows 7 for imaging and recovery. But on my Asus Transformer with 32bit Windows 8.1, the recovery part did not work. From the installed program I could not find the partitions - it was just a gobble and it also did not produce a workable recovery stick.

 

[SIW2]

At the time Si Macrium was the only decent free imaging program.

Yes, good move by macrium. I think they realised the only way for them get among the established players was to offer a free version better than the others. Partition Wiz took a similar approach.

restore to dissimilar hardware

How does that work - have you tried it . What is the process? Does it adjust a macrium image during the restore?

That is of course different from "make os bootable on different hardware" or "physical to physical adjust" as Paragon call it.

The latter is independent of the image restore process. It can be pointed an OS that has been restored from any other imaging program, or an OS on an HD that has been moved form another machine.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...

restore to dissimilar hardware

How does that work - have you tried it . What is the process? Does it adjust a macrium image during the restore?

That is of course different from "make os bootable on different hardware" or "physical to physical adjust" as Paragon call it.

The latter is independent of the image restore process. It can be pointed an OS that has been restored from any other imaging program, or an OS on an HD that has been moved form another machine.

I've never had cause to use it but it's supposed to allow one to restore an image to hardware other that what was used to make the image, such as restore an image to a system that had the MOBO replaced after the image was made. This is how Macrium explains it on their website:

Restore to new hardware

Includes Macrium ReDeploy™ to move Windows to a new or virtual PC.
Including Windows Server!

 

[kado897]

what do you expect from a free imaging program ?

All I need is reliability and that is very good with Macrium. I never had an image fail (and I made a lot of recoveries when I was teaching a Macrium class at the computer club).

I have no need for any fancy functions. I always make full images because they are easiest to manage and disk spcae is not my issue.

Keith, I was trying AOMEI. It worked well on my desktop with 64bit Windows 7 for imaging and recovery. But on my Asus Transformer with 32bit Windows 8.1, the recovery part did not work. From the installed program I could not find the partitions - it was just a gobble and it also did not produce a workable recovery stick.

I have restored with it but only on a 64bit system.

 

[kado897]

...

restore to dissimilar hardware

How does that work - have you tried it . What is the process? Does it adjust a macrium image during the restore?

That is of course different from "make os bootable on different hardware" or "physical to physical adjust" as Paragon call it.

The latter is independent of the image restore process. It can be pointed an OS that has been restored from any other imaging program, or an OS on an HD that has been moved form another machine.

I've never had cause to use it but it's supposed to allow one to restore an image to hardware other that what was used to make the image, such as restore an image to a system that had the MOBO replaced after the image was made. This is how Macrium explains it on their website:

Restore to new hardware

Includes Macrium ReDeploy™ to move Windows to a new or virtual PC.
Including Windows Server!

Restore to dissimilar hardware requires the PRO or sever versions (expensive).

 

[SIW2]

Keith,

Does it adjust the image during restore - or is it independent of the image?