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

 

[MilesAhead]

BTW my Crucial SSD has 10,500 hours of use and is down to 94% health. SSDLife says it has another 57 (yes 57) years of life left if you believe that

Makes me wonder how much life SSDLife has left. :devil:

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

BTW my Crucial SSD has 10,500 hours of use and is down to 94% health. SSDLife says it has another 57 (yes 57) years of life left if you believe that

Makes me wonder how much life SSDLife has left. :devil:

Curious. I don't own a Crucial (no worries; methinks you deleted one end quote too many).

 

[MilesAhead]

Makes me wonder how much life SSDLife has left. :devil:

Curious. I don't own a Crucial (no worries; methinks you deleted one end quote too many).

Yeah on here highlighting and quoting doesn't do the trick. You wouldn't believe how many edits it takes sometimes. I seem to be getting wandering caret syndrome.

 

[profdlp]

Has anyone here ever worn out an SSD?

 

[MilesAhead]

How fast it is depends on how much the system has changed. An old image will probably have so many changes that you wouldn't notice the difference.

It does work. To test it I made a backup then deleted a tiny text file. I booted and selected only C: partition to copy back(I am on W8 with the GPT jazz.) It showed elapsed time of about 2 1/2 minutes. Much better than the 20+ minutes it used to take to restore from a complete backup in v. 4.2.

 

[kado897]

How fast it is depends on how much the system has changed. An old image will probably have so many changes that you wouldn't notice the difference.

It does work. To test it I made a backup then deleted a tiny text file. I booted and selected only C: partition to copy back(I am on W8 with the GPT jazz.) It showed elapsed time of about 2 1/2 minutes. Much better than the 20+ minutes it used to take to restore from a complete backup in v. 4.2.

 

[mjf]

Makes me wonder how much life SSDLife has left. :devil:

Curious. I don't own a Crucial (no worries; methinks you deleted one end quote too many).

I wish I was around in 2072.


As to Macrium V6 I'll sit on V5 for a little but eventually go to V6. I'm using the free version so making the V6 pe restore may be different from those who have the paid version.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

At the rate my body and the rest of the world is falling apart, I don't want to be around in 2072.

I'm still on the fence over whether to stay with V5 pro, upgrade to V6 Free, or shell out the shekels for V6 Pro.

 

[Butlerkid]

Which PE component should I use?

New member here!

Yesterday I read "most" of the posts in this forum....till my head started spinning!

Today I am ready to download MR free. I am using a custom built machine with Windows 7 Professional (I have one lone ancient program that requires XP. I know I'll have to let it go soon!) with a 256 GB SSD C: drive and several USB 3 ports.

Should I download PE 3.1 or would PE 4 work for my machine?

Thank you in advance!

Karen

 

[kado897]

Hi Butlerkid and welcome to Seven Forums.

When you download MR free it downloads the most suitable PE components for your installation. In your case that will probably be 3.1 (200MB download). When you create the rescue disk you have the opportunity to change the PE version. The most recent is PE5. If you chose that you will need to download a further 500+MB. I think you only need PE5 for UEFI and secure boot but it never hurts to have the latest code.

 

[Butlerkid]

Thanks for the quick response! What about the 1.7 GB WAIK download I read about? Guess I am confused already! LOL!

 

[kado897]

That was for a previous version of MR free. It now just downloads the components it needs. In the case of PE3.1 that is just short of 200MB.

 

[Butlerkid]

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[kado897]

No problem.

 

[Butlerkid]

I am at the last step of creating a Rescue CD....(I selected PE 5)..... should I click on the REBUILD rescue environment by copying the required files????

 

[kado897]

Yes. It may take some time to complete the rebuild.

 

[Butlerkid]

Thanks for being there! I didn't see this step covered in any of the tutorials...they skip right over it! Will do!

 

[kado897]

I'm just about to sign off for the night so if you have further questions it will have to wait for the morning.

 

[Butlerkid]

Just wanted to say that today I created my Rescue CD. Then follow the test set up in Post #33. No problems. Then created an image of my C: drive on my external HD!

Thanks to all of you for providing such a wonderful resource that helped me so much! Reading all the posts was most helpful, and having kado897 provide on-the -spot answers to my newbie questions was a real bonus.

 

[kado897]

Thanks for letting us know Butlerkid.