MACRIUM REFLECT - Create Bootable Rescue USB Drive

MACRIUM REFLECT - Create Bootable Rescue USB Flash Drive

How to Create a Bootable Rescue USB Flash Drive for Macrium Reflect​

   Information

In order to restore a Macrium image when your Windows operating system cannot be started, you are required to boot from a rescue CD, which holds a compact Linux operating system. The Linux operating system on this rescue CD allows you to quickly browse the disks and partitions of your PC, and select the image you wish to restore.

Within Macrium reflect, there is no direct way to create a bootable USB drive, but there is a very simple workaround to create bootable rescue USB drives. This tutorial will show you how to do that, so you can forgo the stack of rescue CD's sitting on your desk. If you manage Macrium images for multiple computers, you will find this technique extremely useful.

This tutorial is based on Macrium Reflect Free Edition Version 4.2 Build 3141

:note: Requirements:

You will need the following in order to create a bootable rescue USB drive:-

1. A USB flash drive
2. YUMI Multiboot USB Creator

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:note: Step 1 - Create the RESCUE ISO

Open Macrium Reflect as normal, and then from the menu, select the option Other Tasks > Create Rescue CD.

The 1st panel of the Rescue CD Wizard will be be displayed as shown below:

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The default option is Linux. Accept that by clicking on Next, and proceeding to the 2nd panel of the Rescue CD Wizard.

From the pull-down list, select the option Create ISO image file, as shown below:

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Click Finish, and now provide a name and location for the rescue ISO file that is about to be created, as shown below:

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   Warning

Do not include spaces in the ISO name or YUMI will fail to boot from it.

Once the file has been saved, close Macrium Reflect as normal.

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:note: Step 2 - Create the bootable RESCUE USB drive


Download YUMI Multiboot USB Creator to your desktop - its a single executable that requires no installation.

Insert the USB flash drive you want to use, into an available USB port on your computer.

Open YUMI by double-clicking it, and when prompted by Windows UAC, click Yes. You will be prompted to accept the Licence Agreement. Click I Agree to proceed.

Now follow thse steps and refer to the image shown below:

1. From the drop-down list, select the letter of the USB you wish to use.

2. The USB drive is required to be formatted as FAT32. If this is not the case, check the format option, which will format the entire USB drive before copying any information to it. If the USB drive is already formatted as FAT32, ignore this option.

3. In the distribution box, scroll to the very bottom and hlighlight the Try an Unlisted ISO.

4. Click Browse to locate and select the rescue ISO you create previously.

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5. Now click Create to create the bootable rescue USB drive.

If you opted to format the USB drive, please take careful note of the warning panel that appears, and is shown below. Click Yes to proceed.

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The rescue ISO file will now be copied to the USB drive. If successful, you will see the progress panel as shown below:

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Click Next to proceed. You will be prompted if you wish to add more ISO's/Distros. Click No to close this pop-up, and then click Finish to exit YUMI.

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You have now created a Macrium Bootable Rescue USB and can safely remove the USB drive.

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:note: Step 3 - Test the bootable RESCUE USB drive


One of critical elements of imaging, is to ensure that you can boot from the rescue USB drive. In fact, the same holds true if you choose to use the traditional bootable rescue CD method.

To do this, turn off your computer, plug in your USB drive and reboot your computer as normal. During the POST screen, press the DEL key repeatedly to enter your BIOS, and then find the setting that allows you to boot from a USB drive and place it first in the device boot sequence. Alternatively, during POST keeping pressing the F8 function key to bring up the one-time boot menu, and then select the USB device from that menu.

Once the PC boots from the USB device you will see the YUMI boot menu, as shown in the example below:

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If you select the option called Directly Bootable ISO's you will then be presented with the rescue ISO you created earlier. In the example shown below, I have a choice of 4 rescue ISO files (refer to the tip below):

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Once you select that ISO, the Linux operating system will boot the ISO, and then allow you to select the Macrium image to restore, as shown in this example below:

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   Tip

If you manage multiple computers, you can add as many Macrium rescue ISO's as you require. I manage 4 different computers and each one's rescue item is bootable from a single USB flash drive - refer to the image above.

If you already have a YUMI multiboot USB drive with other ISO's and/or distros on it, simple add the Macrium rescue ISO's as normal. This makes for a very handy USB toolkit.

I hope you find this tutorial useful, and remember : you saw it first at Sevenforums.

Regards,
Golden

   Note

Special thanks to kado897 who provided the information for capturing the YUMI screens.

Related Tutorials

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• Imaging with free Macrium

 

[lehnerus2000]

Thanks to everyone for confirming my understanding of backup image types.

 

[insomniacno1]

How to add to multiboot usb?

Hi all, having a 32GB multiboot usb drive already, that works with multible .iso files - I like to add Macrium reflect rescue media .iso


I know how to add lines to syslinux cfg, but don't know what to add.

Can you help me out?

I didn't use Yumi to make the usb drive, I used Xboot(also on pendrive linux site) and didn't use Grub4dos but syslinux(Grub4dos is also on the drive, just don't know how to make use of it since majority of my .iso works better with syslinux).

JBJ

 

[kado897]

I've not had any experience of Xboot myself but a search on the web found this which may help Feature Request: Support for Macrium Reflect - XBOOT - reboot.pro

 

[insomniacno1]

Hi Kado, thanks for the info, I have now tried for 1 hour making an account on Reboot.pro - their system is not sending me the validation email, and its not because its ending up in spam folder - simply not working

When you make a multiboot what do you have in your boot->Grub4dos folder? Any chance you could upload it here?

JBJ

 

[kado897]

I don't know. As I said I've not used xboot. I would imagine that xboot would take care of that when you select the grub option.

 

[insomniacno1]

The problem is that I already have a finished, ready to use(not going to remake) usb drive. Could you or anyone else list what they have under boot->Grub4dos? Just list the name of the file and post the content - its a txt file.

Then I will figure it out myself

JBJ

 

[kado897]

A suggestion. Try it on another USB and copy the entries across.

 

[insomniacno1]

Hehehe, well I had thougt of that but don't have any drives to spare, Thought I could get the files here, Ok I will sacrfice one of my drives.

Has anyone tried making this drive with syslinux instead of grub4dos?

JBJ
PS Xboot is more flexible when making these drives, and also contains QEMU for testing the finished drive - there is also an option to save the finished project to an .iso file - Yumi is the newer of those 2 but lacks alot of funtionality that xboot had.

If any typo, its because i'm not wearing my contacts.

 

[kado897]

I created one myself with just Macrium. This is a zip of the USB minus the iso files to save size.

 

[insomniacno1]

Thank you so much, I will try it out when I have time, and let you know

With kind regards

JBJ

 

[kado897]

You are welcome insomniacno1.

 

[spreedin]

So question

I have been using reflect and making seperate usb boot with a big external hd...does YUMI still work? so that I can have 8-10 images to choose from as carrying that many usb just to boot is alot i rather just have one usb with all images

thanks in advance

 

[kronckew]

what is 'YUMI'?

usb 3 flash drives go up to at least a terabyte, tho you may have to sell your family to afford one. a large ssd in a usb 3.x enclosure may be more economical, i use a bootable 64gb usb3 flash drive as my recovery 'disk' along with a usb3 'passport' 500gb hard drive. the 64 boots fine but is too small to hold a full image of my system drive. i may someday get a 128gb and keep an image on it as well.

 

[spreedin]

I understand I can get a larger usb....my question is about yumi if it still works, so I am to understand this....we use yumi to boot on any pc then select the macrium iso to start reflect then use refelct to image the pc??? so does it matter what I install the bartpe on to use??

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

what is 'YUMI'?

usb 3 flash drives go up to at least a terabyte, tho you may have to sell your family to afford one. a large ssd in a usb 3.x enclosure may be more economical, i use a bootable 64gb usb3 flash drive as my recovery 'disk' along with a usb3 'passport' 500gb hard drive. the 64 boots fine but is too small to hold a full image of my system drive. i may someday get a 128gb and keep an image on it as well.

Go back and read all of this thread from the beginning, which is what you should do before replying in any thread.

 

[Novel8]

MR image file

I created such a file of Win 7 and I see on the dir of that usb hd, it has boot and restore. Now that being said, shouldn't it be bootable and once it does, click on "Restore' should do the job?

 

[Golden]

I created such a file of Win 7 and I see on the dir of that usb hd, it has boot and restore. Now that being said, shouldn't it be bootable and once it does, click on "Restore' should do the job?

Refer to Step 3 of the tutorial.

 

[Novel8]

Thanks, I found how to boot MR by setting my Bios. Now, I got as far as viewing my partitions and certainly was confused by it. First, some of the drive letters did not match the actual drive letters that I had designated. So its very intimidating to try to choose in which partition to restore it to. I would gladly include a snapshot of it, but it looks like almost impossible to do so in MR. I do see it done in the tutorial, but maybe its professionally done. BTW, I think I saw the size of my backup of win 7 set at 7gb, and yet when i did try accidentally to install into a partition that has 121 gb, i got a message that there is not enough space.