Imaging with free Macrium

ossjzb said:

Hi,

In regards to the Free version.. and not being able to restore to a different device..

Any ideas on how true to the identical a new device needs to be?

ie.. god forbid my HD crashes.. k... I was smart and made a Macrium backup w/ the free version.. lets say it was from a WD 500gb disk... ok.. my HD is dead.. so what are my options in regards to using the backup i made?... I need to buy a new disk correct?.. to use the free version and restore it back... question is.. do i just need to match the Size.. ie a Seagate 500gb would work?.. or do i need the exact precise to the letter WD drive i orignally made the image from?

or in other words.. is the free version backup only really worth doing.. w/ the assumption that your HD wont fail?... the pro seemed spendy for backup software.. so not sure if im goona snag it at this time..

thanks much..

Hi ossjzb and welcome to Seven Forums. I think that the free version can restore to a drive that has the same capacity or greater. I don't think you can restore to a smaller drive.

Yep ossjzb kado is right on mate - I thought I saw one of those clone apps state somewhere too that the same goes for the cloning from original to clone drive eg 500GB original > 500GB second (clone) drive.

Plus you don't need to worry re brand mate WD to Seagate to Samsung etc makes on difference - it's just a hard drive (a pothole is a pothole within reason of course). I don't (I could be wrong) think that the drives speed makes any difference either eg 3Gbs or 6Gbs. The only one I would not know about are those solid state drives but there would be someone in here who is a wizz with that query:)

I've cloned to a 3GBs hard and a 3.0 USB external drive/s from a 6Gbs original drive on my main machine and from a 3Gbs to a 2.0 USB external on a Vista machine.

By the by EaseUS to do is the best - tried the rest they don't come close IMHO.:)
Best free backup software for data backup & disaster recovery in Windows Server/Workstation and PC - EaseUS

Oh and welcome to the best forum on Earth

ossjzb said:

ty for the warm welcomes all..

So in regards to the FREE restrictions... .. in their sales info on their site.. they state the paid versions are able to restore to new hardware.. thus one of the reasons to purchase..

So the HD doesnt matter in regards to replacing it w/ a new one.. as long as its the same size or bigger?..

What the purpose of placing that on their sales info then?.. Does it marry itself to your Motherboard?.. or other hardware?.. ( as it appears to state in the below link )

Macrium Support Forum - restore image to a larger drive

That link is for version 4. It was more restrictive.

No problem ossjzb. Getting your backups sorted is one of the more important tasks.

So the HD doesnt matter in regards to replacing it w/ a new one.. as long as its the same size or bigger?..

Correct

Has anyone had a HD fail on them.. then purchased a NEW different HD.. and successfully restored an OLD image from a Completly diff HD to your Newly purchased Different hd?..

A couple of people went thru that successfully - and think of all the people that use Macrium to migrate their OS from the HDD to an SSD.

also.. Paragon looks like its free.. and has a TON of features.. i;ll have to take a look at that also.

Paragon is a nice imaging program. I use it occasionally. But it is more complex than Macrium (has to be, comes from Germany- LOL)