Brian, This is much too advanced information for him as he is new to imaging. I think since he has never done a restore before, so he is thinking that the recovery media needs to be on the same ext drive where the image files are located for it to work properly, which is not true.
The Win8.1 ADK is 2.97 GB. Keep the download. Install the ADK, make the recovery media, uninstall the ADK. When you want to again make recovery media, install the ADK, make the recovery media, uninstall the ADK. There is no point in having 3 GB of "data" in the C: drive if it isn't doing anything. That makes for longer backup and restore times.
The same file (Win8.1 ADK) can be installed on a Win7 system. You could get a mate on a big internet plan to download it for you.
I just had a look at a fresh Win7 system without ADK/WAIK. Macrium (for boot media) requests "only" a 463 MB download from Microsoft. Edit... A fresh Win8.1 requests 463 MB too.
I suspect it might take a long time to defragment, but also I imagine it will continue to get fragmented as it gets merged with the next incremental every hour. In this case I'm not sure that that's the issue - e.g., I can make a baseline, then 30 hourly backups and the restore time will be almost entirely unaffected by the length of the chain. However if I set it to retain only 6 incrementals (as I have done), and then do a restore weeks later it will be noticeably slower. Have now unticked the synthetic box and will see what difference it makes over time.
Yeah, I tested with a chain of 45 incrementals and it added 30 seconds to the restore time, but that was before the new PE
There have been 2-reports of strangeness over the last 2-weeks and both have been dealt with in available updates. Both of those instances were involved with RDR-type restorations... regular v5-type (FULL) restorations were trouble free in both cases. It's a brand new technology for Macrium, it was tested exhaustively in house (their entire Corporate IT Dept. is using it... there must be some trust there ), but as with any newer technology, when it's unleashed on the unWashed (that's US with 300+ different system configurations) rather then just them (with Corporate approved system configurations that probably number in the 10s if they're lucky)... glitches are found and dealt with in a very timely manner. If you feel uncomfortable currently, you can always use v6 without RDR (it's just a CheckBox in the DEFAULT settings area) or continue using v5 until you feel that everything in the "newer" area of v6 has been successfully dealt with. Personally, I was heavily involved in the "unOfishul" Wilders BETA frenzy (leaked BETA) and between that time and using my current v6 license I performed over 100+ RDR restorations (Forward and Backward... I'm a big snapshot user more so than a backup user although I do both) without a single failure. I have a very good feeling about this product, even in its RDR technological infancy. FWIW... there is no comparison whatsoever between Macrium's attempt at DIFFERENCE RESTORATION (RDR) and AX64's 2+ year attempt at trying to accomplish the same thing. Macrium, out of the gate, has been outstanding for a new technology in their imaging world. There is FULL Backward compatibility with v6 and NO Forward compatibility with v5. My guess is that RDR is most likely NOT AVAILABLE when processing v5 images with v6.
Taotoo... coupla issues. There's always the chance that the original BASELINE when made was heavily fragmented, but your assumption is correct. If it wasn't, and you don't move it ("Synthetic" unCHECKed), the 2nd incremental will be the one merged (consolidated) along the way. BUT... I think you will be quite surprised if you'd just update both your Windows LIVE installation AND your WinPE version (both System and external media-based) to Build #545. The RDR restore times have changed drastically as far as looking for changes is concerned.
So I wonder if each time it merges the oldest incremental, it creates a new file or not. If it does then I should be fine, otherwise I'm just going to end up with a highly-fragmented incremental instead of the baseline. Actually I'd already done that - yes the looking for changes is now much faster, but my overall restore time was still slow (not really sure why..).
Taotoo, if you're gonna run out of SYNTHETIC mode, you'll need to defrag that baseline to make a decent comparison. In fact, if you defrag it while in Synthetic mode, if fragmentation is an issue, it'll show up there as well without changing modes.
Guys can you post a link of what file systems Macrium supports and if RDR works on them? For sure it supports Fat32, NTFS... The other day that I installed it on a system I saw that it correctly recognised the EXT4 file system and was a bit surprised. Panagiotis
Hmmm, defragging made little difference, as did switching over to non-synthetic. Maybe I have a bigger issue..
Has anyone successfully created a restore CD with the latest version (545). I've burned 2 cd's, one with Macrium the other with another software burner and neither would boot? I've had no trouble with previous builds.
Panagiotis, the quote below was published from Macrium right after the v5 release. I have an inquiry into them concerning the v6 release and specifically, RDR... will pass it on when I hear from them "All editions of Macrium Reflect support FAT16/32, NTFS, EXT2,3 and EXT4 with extents using intelligent sector copy. Any other file system can be imaged, but you'll need to use sector copy. We have only recently confirmed full support for EXT4 extents, so other information you may have read is out of date."
I usually don't directly burn Recovery MEdia but ISOs produced by Macrium function perfectly, incl. Build 545.
Yes, I have been following the discussion since last week here and hopefully they will iron out the remaining kinks soon. I have been using Macrium for the last 4-5 years and have found it to be extremely reliable and I hope the reliability continues in v6 RDR restores as well. I was just trying to workout the process that goes on when RDR is used and it is not surprising that they are having MFT errors as inserting a new MFT into an existing one must not be easy. That is good to hear that one can use v6 without RDR if one wants to and that v6 can see and process images created by v5. I got confused when I read people using the terminology of a snapshot with Macrium in this thread. I always call the backups taken by software like Macrium, "images" and the ones done by programs like rollback rx as "snapshots".
From a long chain I meant the time since the baseline full image was created. I believe you mentioned your baseline is over 2 months old and you have been doing increments since then. You also have synthetic option enabled that probably integrated all increments together and then merges it with the baseline. But the fact is that the baseline is over 2 months old, so when you restore, Macrium has to go through 2 months worth of changes before it can restore your image. You can speed up the restoration process by making sure that your baseline is not over 10-14 days old. You can setup a schedule where a new full backup is done every other week and then incrementals and you can set a retention policy where you can configure the number of sets (baseline+increments) you want to keep and automatically delete the older sets.
You can use the linux recovery media, it is fully functional. However, WinPE is more powerful and gives you the same interface as the actual software in Windows.
Raza007... so far, no LINUX Recovery Media for v6. They're taking the pulse of the user community as I type to determine whether they should even do it.
The person in question, yesnoo, is using the free version of Macrium, so most likely he is using v5, as there is no free v6 as of yet. I have never actually used the Linux Recovery media ever. And it used to be included with Backup softwares like Macrium, because it was free and at that time the companies had to pay a license fee to Microsoft for including a WinPE media with their software, but since now any user can make a free WinPE media themselves and the companies do not have to pay MS a license fee, so the Linux media has become unnecessary. I am not surprised they are considering not offering it with v6.
