Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[ThrashZone]

Thanks Steve,
But when you were about to create the cd or flash recovery winpe what the macrium show your driver stats as ?
The driver list I showed was full of x's not all but too many :/
Looked mostly like usb 3.0 and possibly 3.1 port drivers were seriously lacking a driver ? even after installing it :/

 

[essenbe]

I may have had a few, but I really don't remember. I don't use USB 3.0 for storage drives, I use esata, so it didn't matter. But again, I don't recall. I can try it again and see.

 

[essenbe]

Mike...

 

[ThrashZone]

Okay 3rd time looks like the charm although I only have 7 listings

 

[essenbe]

Looks good Mike.

 

[ThrashZone]

I still have an unknown device,
ACPI\PNP0A0A\2&DABA3FF&0
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- ACPI\AWY0001\2&DABA3FF&0

 

[Electron]

The problem where a Windows boot menu appeared did occur with Macrium Rescue Media V5.3 or V6.1.

I booted the V6.1 Rescue Media several times today and did not see the problem! Either boot prompt worked the same.

I'll also note that two boots of the V5.3 Media somehow caused a serious problem in Windows 7 on the subsequent boot. Windows 7 would boot but one of the Intel i5 Quad Processors would be pegged at a full 100% CPU usage showing in the Task Manager as 25%. Windows would not shut down normally as a result.

I wonder if some program was left in memory that was still executing. This also makes me wonder if my PC does some sort of soft reset on Restart rather than a full hardware reset.

 

[Electron]

I just booted Macrium Rescue Media V5.3 and V6.1 and can display a Windows Boot Manager menu if I hit any key after the first DVD prompt. The menu that appears is identical to one of the available menus when booting into the Windows 7 Safe Mode menu using the F8 key.

If I wait for the second DVD prompt the Macrium Rescue Media boots.

Here is a possible explanation for the Windows 7 CPU Usage problem that I mentioned. To exit the Macrium Rescue Media I remember clicking on "Exit" and then hitting the DVD release button fairly quickly on the DVD drive. That is probably not a good idea as the program may not have finished executing. All seems normal if I just leave the media in the DVD drive and let Windows boot.

One other issue came up. When I boot the Macrium Rescue Media, my USB disk drive with the Images may come up as the E: drive or the F: drive. The DVD drive will be either the F: drive or the E: drive.

That seems to make a difference! If the USB drive comes up as E: then Macrium displays all the available images right from the start. If not, I have to browse for them. Note that in Windows 7 the USB disk is always the E: drive. It's not clear why the USB drive and DVD drive come up with different drive letters at times. Maybe it's related to when the media is actually placed in the drive and whether it is left in the drive.

Thanks all for the earlier replies.

 

[kado897]

Macrium usually manages to boot with the same drive letters although it cant be guaranteed.

 

[Electron]

It is a feature of WinPE3.1 CD/DVD that it has a press any key to boot from the CD/DVD message. Linux CDs do not and boot directly. The later WinPE versions don't do that either so you could just create a new rescue disk and change the PE version.

When creating the Rescue Media there is a box to check to enable that feature. I think I'll stay with the current setup now that I know to wait for the second DVD prompt.

I do have more information on the Windows Boot Manager menu that appears sometimes after using the first DVD prompt. An option is provided to enter Windows Setup [EMS Enabled]. Note that a similar Windows Boot Manager is shown in some of the Macrium V5 Tutorials. It comes up if restoring an image without using the Rescue Media. It might display Macrium Reflect System Recovery at the first instance followed by Windows 7 after the image is restored.

I also noticed that Macrium has a Windows Boot Menu Option that can be configured under Other Tasks in the Toolbar. My system is currently set to No Menu. There are also choices for Windows PE 3.1 Menu through Windows PE 10 Menu.

Thanks to all for the help.

 

[briley01]

I have a number of backups using macrium - but can not remember if they are windows 7 or windows 10.

(Don't ask why not)

Is there any file in the windows folder that can be used to tell which OS it is?

I can not use control panel etc without restoring the backups and obviously I do not want to do that.

 

[dsperber]

I have a number of backups using macrium - but can not remember if they are windows 7 or windows 10.

(Don't ask why not)

Is there any file in the windows folder that can be used to tell which OS it is?

I can not use control panel etc without restoring the backups and obviously I do not want to do that.

Well, you can open Macrium and select the RESTORE tab. Then you can click on "browse for an image file" and select each one of your backups, one at a time.

For each one selected, over on the right side one of the available links will be "browse image". If you select that you will be shown a window that contains a list of the one or more partitions contained within that image file, including its drive letter, volume LABEL, capacity/used/free for the partition, and file format (e.g. FAT32, NTFS, etc.).

Assuming you knew the characteristics of your partitions that had been imaged in these backups, you should hopefully be able to recognize what the contents of each image file consists of, and whether your Win7 or Win10 partitions are among them.

My own approach is to NOT use the "image id" in labeling these files using a BACKUP job, as there is zero human-friendly to that methodology. Instead, I un-check that option (which I know says "recommended") and instead manually enter my own human-understandable English name for the backup file. Then, when I browse my backup folder (on external USB 3.0 drive) looking for the proper image to restore (or to select one of the imbedded backed-up partitions in that image file to restore) I can select the one with the correct English file name I know I'm looking for.

That way there is probably NEVER AGAIN going to be any confusion or uncertainty in your mind when selecting an image file as to what's on it. The "image id" is simply a physical assortment of characters, having ZERO meaning to a person. Use English titles for your backups from now on. Each new generation of the same backup dataset (e.g. if your run your backups each week scheduled automatically) Macrium will add an appropriate suffix to each one to create a unique complete name, although your English text will be the fixed prefix for each file name.

 

[briley01]

dsperber:
Thanks, yes I've learnt the hard way not to follow the recommendation and to put in my own file name.

Unfortunately browsing the image file doesn't help me, they are all drive C with the same drive label etc etc - but I know some are windows 10 and some windows 7 (I had a bad experience with Windows 10)

I am wondering if there is any one file in the windows directory that is specifically windows 10, or windows 7? Then if I see that I know which OS it is.

 

[mjf]

I have a number of backups using macrium - but can not remember if they are windows 7 or windows 10.

(Don't ask why not)

Is there any file in the windows folder that can be used to tell which OS it is?

I can not use control panel etc without restoring the backups and obviously I do not want to do that.

I'm not a user of Windows 10 but if you mount the image (double click) and explore the contents you should be able to tell if you have a W7 or W10 image.

 

[DavidE]

By default Windows 10 has a C:\swapfile.sys file, Windows 7 does not have this file.
It is a Hidden System file, so you need to temporarily change your File Explorer view settings to show Hidden and Protected System files.

Another possible way to know is if you have any different programs installed in Windows 7 verses Windows 10.
You could browse the C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) folder to see what is in the Image you are browsing.

 

[lehnerus2000]

mrimg File Properties

If you have added a Comment, you should be able to see it in the mrimg file properties.

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[Lady Fitzgerald]

If you have added a Comment, you should be able to see it in the mrimg file properties.

View attachment 385320
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That's handy to know. Thanks for sharing!

 

[thelma]

If you have added a Comment, you should be able to see it in the mrimg file properties.

View attachment 385320
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That's handy to know. Thanks for sharing!

Windows Explorer shell integration - KnowledgeBase - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

 

[PCrazy123]

Hey forums.

My 500GB WD Blue drive containing the Win7 OS partition has stopped working completely. Luckily I made regular backups with Macrium Reflect Free version (as per the instructions in this thread - many thanks for the help) so I can avoid the Win7 updating nightmares.

I want to restore the backup to a brand new 1TB hdd. The backups are on another internal hdd and I will be using the WinPE rescue cd (also created form the iso form this thread - thanks again for the help).

Last time I had to restore from the backups I was restoring to the same hdd and I had only made backups of the C Drive and the system wouldn't boot after the restore. To get it to boot I had to create the System Reserved and C partitions using the Win7 DVD and then restore the backup.

This time I'm restoring to a brand new and larger hdd so I have a few questions:

1. Do I need to format the new drive before restoring the backup? If the format is required what would be the best way for it?

2. The image contains the System Reserved and 60GB C Drive partitions only - do I need to create these partitions on the new hdd before the restore?

3. I had 4 other partitions on the previous hdd (primary + extended). Do these need to be created before the restore?

My apologies for the long post and novice questions.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dsperber]

(1) No. You don't need to do anything to pre-format your new drive in any way. Just use the WinPE "rescue media" (i.e. standalone WinPE boot with Macrium Reflect auto-started) and begin your image restores to the new drive. That restore process of the partition images you select will accomplish the formatting required.

(2) No. You select those two partitions (system reserved and C) for restore, and that accomplishes the formatting.

(3) No. After you restore these two partitions (both are required in order to boot to Windows as you've seen, because Boot Manager lives in "system reserved" which is the "active' partition that the BIOS goes to in order to begin the machine boot process) you then boot to the restored Windows are now you can create your other additional partitions on the new drive. I always use Partition Wizard Free for all of my partitioning needs, but you can do whatever you want.