Imaging with free Macrium

   Information

This tutorial shows imaging with free Macrium Version 5.0. If you are still using Macrium Version 4.2, go to this Vimeo site where the tutorial of that version is stored.

The Video does not show the recovery part because I have no setup to screen capture it. But Keith (Kado) made this excellent recovery tutorial with text (but no sound) that he captured from a virtual partition.

   Warning

Note that the external disk to which you image must be formatted in NTFS. A disk that is formatted in Fat32 will accept an image, but the recovery programs cannot restore that image. You can, however, mount (open) a Fat32 image as VHD.

   Note

The production of the WinPE recovery CD (which is highly recommended) may take up to 3 hours because Macrium needs to download the 1.7GB WAIK (Windows Application Installation Kit). For your convenience I have uploaded a ready made .iso of the WinPE recovery disc. That can be downloaded in appr. 8 minutes which clearly beats the WAIK download. Once you downloaded and unzipped the folder, you can burn it directly to a CD with e.g. ImgBurn.

Here is the link to my Skydrive site.

Here is an alternate link from FileSwap (courtesy of Gary - Britton30)

I draw your attention to the fact that this WinPE CD can also be used to make images. That may be convenient in case you do not want to install Macrium on your PC.

This video tutorial explains the full cycle of the imaging process which is:

· Initial setups
· Image definition
· Image scheduling
· Image production

The imaging program that was used for this tutorial is free Macrium. But the basic principles are the same for other imaging programs although the user interface will be different.

This video runs for appr. 7 minutes.
There is a related thread on the Vista forum which gives a brief introduction to Macrium followed by a discussion.
You can download the free Macrium edition from here.

Note: If you have a problem with the loudness of the sound output of the video, check the "Loudness Equalization" box in your Playback device. It is under the 'Enhancements' tab.

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Create a System Image Backup in Windows 7
• How to Do a System Image Recovery in Windows 7
• How to Backup User and System Files in Windows 7
• How to Restore Backup User and System Files in Windows 7
• How to Restore your System with a Broken Windows 7 System Image
• How to Create a Bootable Rescue USB Flash Drive for Macrium Reflect

 

[JerometheGiraff]

I've decided after watching the tutorial video that I will be also using Macrium as my backup tool of choice over Norton. The primary reason, Norton back-up which I have bundled with Norton 360 does not support OS backups Somewhere within this thread I read someone wanted to restore a backup from their desktop to their laptop, obviously one has different hardware more importantly different motherboard. I didn't get the answer whether it worked or not so that is my first question, can you restore a backup from one computer to another with completely different hardware specifically different motherboard which always requires from my knowledge, a fresh install of Windows ?

In post #12 WHS brought this up:

Please note that I added a warning to this tutorial ( Imaging with free Macrium ) because it is a trap that one can easily fall into. And since it is a relatively recent phenomenon, the mistake is easy to make.

What mistake is that?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

can you restore a backup from one computer to another with completely different hardware specifically different motherboard which always requires from my knowledge, a fresh install of Windows ?

In post #12 WHS brought this up:

Please note that I added a warning to this tutorial ( Imaging with free Macrium ) because it is a trap that one can easily fall into. And since it is a relatively recent phenomenon, the mistake is easy to make.

What mistake is that?

You can't make an image of computer A and restore it to computer B and expect it to work. I'm not even sure the software would let you proceed in all cases.

The mistake would be to ignore the warning WHS refers to. IE, if you have the 100 or 200 mb partition, "you must not mark the C partition as active nor must you check restore MBR during the restore phase. Rather mark the partition as primary and answer the MBR question with do not replace. Else, your restored system will become unbootable.
The same applies to a double booted system where the MBR resides on a different partition."

 

[Tews]

You can't make an image of computer A and restore it to computer B and expect it to work. I'm not even sure the software would let you proceed in all cases.

Actually, you can do this with Acronis True Image Home, using the Universal Restore function ...

 

[SIW2]

You can do it with the paid version of Macrium, too. Like Acronis - it as an extra you have to pay for separately.

You can also do it with the paid versions of Paragon imaging programs - they were the first to develop Adaptive Restore - the others followed suit, of course.With Paragon, you don't need to pay extra - it is included.

There are no free apps. with that function.

You might be able to do it without any adaptive software - Vista and 7 are quite resilient - if the hardware is not too different - it may work.

You will still need a windows license that allows you to transfer to a different machine, of course.

Hiya Tews - good to hear from you.

 

[mjf]

The mistake would be to ignore the warning WHS refers to. IE, if you have the 100 or 200 mb partition, "you must not mark the C partition as active nor must you check restore MBR during the restore phase. Rather mark the partition as primary and answer the MBR question with do not replace. Else, your restored system will become unbootable.
The same applies to a double booted system where the MBR resides on a different partition."

The part of this which is correct is that you do not mark your C: (OS, Boot) partition active if you have a 100+MB system reserved partition. If system reserved does not exist then C: is the system partition and it is marked active.

The MBR has has resided on the first 512 physical bytes of the boot device (HDD) for the last 25 years (since the IBM PC). It does not and has never resided on a partition. The boot manager in conjunction with the BCD facilitate multibooting.

Here is a correct explanation of the booting process. Understand this and you'll know what boxes to tick in Macrium.
Post#24
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/139658-reflect-updates-3.html#post1207608
Macrium stores a copy of the MBR that existed at the time a partition was imaged along with every imaged partition.

 

[whs]

@mjf, just for your info, I made many real system recoveries too - not just the little class excercises.

LOL, I knew you'd bite.

Joking aside I do take my comments seriously. 99%+ of people (a guess) who use Windows for work and play don't visit these sort of forums and before Windows 7 they wouldn't know what an image was it it bit them.
So big tick for MS for including it - just make it more robust.

I can only agree with you. In my computer club we have 700 members of which I would guess 650 have no clue about all this stuff we are discussing. The other day we had a lady who was afraid to unpack her brand new laptop and brought it to the club so that someone would take it out of the box for her. I could tell you endless stories.

Nevertheless, the folks on the forum are knowledgeable (with very few exceptions). And amongst "us" I think we should expect better than what MS fabricated. The acid test is when you have to recover and I don't want to know how often that does not work - remember all the failures of System Restore from a shadow.

But MS does things their own way. I give you another example. They sell (for $199) this really very good screen capture program ( MS Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture). The output file of it is .xesc that only (and only) WMP can play. Even WLMM cannnot deal with it even though I have the .xesc codec on the system. So you have to send it thru their encoder to get either .wmv or .mp4. The encoder takes 2 to 5 minutes (2 passes) for every recorded minute. My i7 works at 70% with all 4 real plus 4 hyper cores. And to put insult to injury, when you want to process the output with WLMM, it reencodes the file again because it deems that the quality is not sufficient. - Go figure.

 

[whs]

I've decided after watching the tutorial video that I will be also using Macrium as my backup tool of choice over Norton. The primary reason, Norton back-up which I have bundled with Norton 360 does not support OS backups Somewhere within this thread I read someone wanted to restore a backup from their desktop to their laptop, obviously one has different hardware more importantly different motherboard. I didn't get the answer whether it worked or not so that is my first question, can you restore a backup from one computer to another with completely different hardware specifically different motherboard which always requires from my knowledge, a fresh install of Windows ?

In post #12 WHS brought this up:

Please note that I added a warning to this tutorial ( Imaging with free Macrium ) because it is a trap that one can easily fall into. And since it is a relatively recent phenomenon, the mistake is easy to make.

What mistake is that?

1. My guess is that chances of successfully dumping an image on another system are less than 1%. Apart from the licensing problem because of another mobo, most of the hardware drivers in the image can probably not handle the new system.

2. The warning I refer to is regarding the implications of the 100MB active partition that was new with Windows7. This is no showstopper as it really needs to be imaged only once (for the rare case that the physical drive dies) and never needs to be restored. The situation changes only if you decide to add double booting because that changes the bootmgr. Then you need a new image of that partition.

Neat trick is to restore the original 100MB partition if you want to get rid of the double boot (and then just delete the partition with the "other" system). This can save you a lot of trouble backing out of a double boot. So always keep the original in a safe place.

 

[whs]

The mistake would be to ignore the warning WHS refers to. IE, if you have the 100 or 200 mb partition, "you must not mark the C partition as active nor must you check restore MBR during the restore phase. Rather mark the partition as primary and answer the MBR question with do not replace. Else, your restored system will become unbootable.
The same applies to a double booted system where the MBR resides on a different partition."

The part of this which is correct is that you do not mark your C: (OS, Boot) partition active if you have a 100+MB system reserved partition. If system reserved does not exist then C: is the system partition and it is marked active.

The MBR has has resided on the first 512 physical bytes of the boot device (HDD) for the last 25 years (since the IBM PC). It does not and has never resided on a partition. The boot manager in conjunction with the BCD facilitate multibooting.

Here is a correct explanation of the booting process. Understand this and you'll know what boxes to tick in Macrium.
Post#24
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/139658-reflect-updates-3.html#post1207608
Macrium stores a copy of the MBR that existed at the time a partition was imaged along with every imaged partition.

That was my bad. Keep mixing up MBR and bootmgr. I corrected it in the tut. Sorry.

 

[mjf]

Nevertheless, the folks on the forum are knowledgeable (with very few exceptions). And amongst "us" I think we should expect better than what MS fabricated. The acid test is when you have to recover and I don't want to know how often that does not work - remember all the failures of System Restore from a shadow.

But MS does things their own way.....

I don't want to divert from the tutorial questions.... but one last comment.

If you look at the viewing stats for this forum, the majority by far are not members but I imagine people searching the internet for an answer to their problem. I'm not trying to preach to people who have already made up their mind.

On your last point. I did some business studies some years back and large organisations can often find it difficult to innovate and integrate. The smaller focused and nimble companies can often run rings around them.

 

[whs]

On your last point. I did some business studies some years back and large organisations can often find it difficult to innovate and integrate. The smaller focused and nimble companies can often run rings around them.

Having worked for 35 years for one of those mega companies, I can confirm that. A very large portion of energy is lost in in-fights between the different groups. We had over 30 international development labs (plus many national), some as many as 3000+ people, and usually at least 2 labs if not more worked on the same problem. I think it was intentional to stimulate competition, but an awful lot of time was lost in defending each project - after all it was about funding. At one time I managed a relatively small (software) lab of 800 people. I had to find $100 Million each year to feed everybody. Tough, tough, because the cash does not come automatically. Each year it is a new game. I suspect that is similar at MS.

 

[JerometheGiraff]

The mistake would be to ignore the warning WHS refers to. IE, if you have the 100 or 200 mb partition, "you must not mark the C partition as active nor must you check restore MBR during the restore phase. Rather mark the partition as primary and answer the MBR question with do not replace. Else, your restored system will become unbootable.
The same applies to a double booted system where the MBR resides on a different partition."

Isn't this logical that if you have a 100-200 meg partition you wouldn't restore your boot OS onto it, if I understood correctly?

You can do it with the paid version of Macrium, too. Like Acronis - it as an extra you have to pay for separately.

You can also do it with the paid versions of Paragon imaging programs - they were the first to develop Adaptive Restore - the others followed suit, of course.With Paragon, you don't need to pay extra - it is included.

What is Adaptive Restore called in Macrium ? Paragon Adaptive Restore from what I read from other users seems to work next to if not perfectly. You can backup Windows7, change motherboard then reinstall Windows7 with Adaptive Restore and it works perfectly. Over this one feature I'm deciding over Paragon or Macrium, as WHS mentioned the other programs like Paragon are a little more complex compared with Macrium, did he do a tutorial on this and I'd like to hear WHS honest opinion on Paragon ?

 

[whs]

Isn't this logical that if you have a 100-200 meg partition you wouldn't restore your boot OS onto it, if I understood correctly?

The 100MB partition contains the bootmgr (not the MBR) and that usually does not change (unlees you add/delete double boot). Thus there is no need to restore it (unless you move to a new harddrive).

 

[JerometheGiraff]

MBR is where all your partitions are stored and your primary OS drive correct? While your boot manager is just for what OS are installed !

 

[whs]

MBR is where all your partitions are stored and your primary OS drive correct? While your boot manager is just for what OS are installed !

Kind of right. The MBR descibes the disk drive, the bootmgr has the bootloader for all OS systems on that volume. When a partition is marked "active" (and there can only be one active partition per disk drive) then you know that this one has the bootmgr - and the MBR knows it too.

If you mix up active partitions, the MBR cannot point to the bootloader and you cannot boot.

 

[mjf]

MBR is where all your partitions are stored and your primary OS drive correct? While your boot manager is just for what OS are installed !

See here for an explanation
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/139658-reflect-updates-3.html#post1207608

 

[JerometheGiraff]

Thanx WHS. Atleast I was almost on target. MjF, I read that thread already why I asked the question in this thread.

 

[tcat7]

OK, what to do when I "need my image" (maybe)? Have a 20gb "C" partition and 160gb "Data" partition. My computer is booting up, but goes straight to a "SystemRestore" screen, saying I have about 9 drive errors (I'm not sure if this is a virus screen or not, it says I need to pay if I want the advanced errors fixed). I can open my Data partition, see all files (and move them to another drive-done). But I open "C" and nothing is there. Nothing shows up in any menus (like looking for an application). The computer will reboot like this everytime. Is the best approach to a problem like this just buying a new drive? (or a new computer since it's XP and 5 years old?) I do have images, but have not been updated in a year.

 

[whs]

You have 2 options - either reinstall or go back to the youngest image (which is probably a better deal even if the image is 1 year old). Trying to remove the virus may be possible but the damage it did will not be repaired. That's why I would not even attempt it.

 

[mjf]

Thanx WHS. Atleast I was almost on target. MjF, I read that thread already why I asked the question in this thread.

If you had read the thread I posted and understood it you wouldn't ask the question you raised (your post #132).
If there is anything unclear in my explanation please let me know. I believe it helped a number of seasoned users better understand the booting process.

 

[bulajap]

All in one

what is the easiest and best all in one cloning, imaging and backup ( files) program?
I soon plan on getting a new computer with Windows 7 64 bit.

I am not familiar with cloning or disk imaging and would like something that combines all of the functions that is easy to use.

Please advise... thank you

Joe