Questions re Macrium Reflect 4 Free (restoring)

[Libra]

I have Macrium Reflect 4 free on three computers (one Vista, two Win7 64bit).

I have made images of each one, but am confused on how I would restore an image, if necessary.

On a Win7 image I have:
1. System Active 100 MB 24.18MB(used) 75.87MB(free) NTFS
2. Windows(c) Primary 420,662GB 30.692GB(used) 389,970 free NTFS
3. <no name>(d) Primary 87.20 GB 87.20(used) 29,915GB(free) NTFS
4. Lenovo_Part Primary 7.408GB 7.408.GB(used) 7,592GB(free) NTFS

Do I have to select each one separately (starting with the active) and then go back for the next one until I have all four OR can I check the boxes (if they exist) and just restore all at once? Also, in the tutorial for Vista it recomends to tell Macrium to replace the Master Boot Record from the backup - does that apply to Windows 7 or does that 100MB Active thing change that?

Also, in Vista or Win 7 will I have to determine sizes of what is restored? I think that would be a problem for me.

(Looking at the above figures, I think I made a mistake copying #3.)

I would appreciate any help in understanding this (in case the need would arise in the future).

Thank you.

Sincerely, Libra

[Libra]

Hi,

I've been browsing this forum and I have confirmed that for this version of Macrium Reflect I should do multiple restores starting with the active partition.

I would appreciate it if anyone knows if the 100 MB active partition in Win7 is actually the MBR? I'm asking because Macrium recommends you take the backup MBR and not what was imaged. Does the MBR question apply to Win7 and, if so, what should be selected?

Thank you.

Sincerely, Libra

[Robin A.]

Originally Posted by Libra

I would appreciate it if anyone knows if the 100 MB active partition in Win7 is actually the MBR?

These are general comments, I haven´t used Macrium.

The MBR is not in any partition, it is in the first track or Track0 of the disk. The MBR can be backed up and restored, or it can be re-created as a standard or generic MBR.

The 100 MB active partition is needed to boot the system, and should be backed up and restored if the need arises. The Windows installation is in the "system" 420 GB partition.

The other partitions are probably Lenovo special partitions, used to save the factory image and/or diagnostics programs. To use these partitions, it may be necessary to use the original Lenovo MBR, they may not work if a generic or standard MBR is used.

[Libra]

Thank you very much for explaining what the 100MB active partition is and the MBR. I appreciate it.

Sincerely, Libra

[Palancar]

Comment: the first thing I do with a computer running 7 is to move the 100 meg partition start files into the system disk. Then I remove the system reserve completely. I use WDE so that just makes a ton of problems go away. Everything works perfectly as well.

I have been looking at Macrium 5 and it seems OK. I can't see where there is an option to add a password to a system backup. Am I missing something in the Macrium free? Somebody give me a steer on this. Where is the option to AES encrypt the backup file?

Is that reserved for a paid version of Macrium?

[Gorkster]

I am currently using a trial version of Reflect Pro v5 and it includes the ability to password protect images. When I am creating a backup scheme on the last page where I can click finish there is another option I can click called "Advanced Options." The option to password protect the image is there and it does have AES options.

[Palancar]

Gorkster,

That option is missing on the free version. When I go there, which I did before my post above this one, I look around and that option is missing. That is the only option missing (that I want) from the free version. I enjoy the intelligent sector copy because I use encryption.

I have used a paid backup program for a long time and just wanted to try something different. If I have to pay for it I'll just upgrade my existing software since its never left me down and the upgrade fee is nominal. Just wanted a reliable change for the heck of it.

[Gorkster]

I installed the Reflect free on a separate vm and can verify that yes, indeed, the option to encrypt images is missing from the free version.

After epic failures from later Ghost software (I've used Ghost since MSDOS days) and ESPECIALLY from Acronis, then after reading the manuals for and testing other imaging software I've been quite pleased with Reflect. I'll more than likely slap down $60 for a Pro license. I haven't yet, though - $60 is a lot of money for me right now...

[Flexigav]

I thought I might try some of the different disaster recovery and back up software on the market. I used to use Power Quest disk image and it was fantastic. It did a great job where the earlier version of Norton Ghost failed. However technology moved on and PQDI did not, so I said good by to it when I moved to Windows XP. I thought I would try Paragon when version 9 Express was released. It initially worked fine, but started to become a hit and miss affair more recently. Not all partitions recovered were bootable, when they should have been. At boot up the command line would say a file was missing. I'm am not certain whether such files were missing from the backup image file, or were just not restored in the correct place. Integrity verification of the image file showed it was ok. It might also be due to restoring to a smaller physical hard disk drive, although the partition I was restoring was just slightly smaller than the physical drive I was restoring to. Both the disk image and the restore location were on the same XP SP2 machine...only the physical hard disk drives were different.

I then tried the same test using Terabytes Image for Dos trial version and had complete success, although I faced a little learning curve on this program as it offered many options I wasn't sure about.

I then tried Macrium Reflect free V5. It had a nice GUI and was very fast...twice as fast as the others here. Unfortunately I have not been able to restore my saved image files successfully yet. I tried to create a bootable recovery disk using Win PE but failed. My system is FAT32 and I believe the Reflect Win PE based recovery disk doesn't work with FAT32. I then tried to restore my MReflect image file to another physical drive from my Windows session. It restored to this dedicated drive, but would not boot from it. The boot program could not find a required file. When I looked into the restored disk I couldn't make out any folder or file names. The folder and files were all there, you just couldn't make out any names—even the disk volume name was garbage...a whole lot of symbol characters and numerals. No wonder the boot program couldn't find its' required file! On a file structure test I got the message: Cluster Run Error, cluster run short-Error code=21. I am still investigating this problem. Although my destination drive is smaller than the source drive the image was made from, the partition I was trying to restore is smaller than the destination drive and only 50% of that partition contained data (my Win XP OS), so I wonder if that could be a source of my problem?

I haven't discarded Macrium Reflect yet as unreliable, as the problems might be in my setup...although Terabytes Image for DOS gave me no problems on the same equipment! Any body else experienced anything like this?

[Gorkster]

Unfortunately I don't have anything to tell you about the problems you're having with Reflect. I've never restored using it, honestly, but have trusted that it should work based on what others have indicated. (I have of course made sure that the recovery CD can find the images over the network and that sort of thing.)

I did want to point out that PQDI didn't "die," really. Symantec bought them out and incorporated that technology into their own product line, to include Ghost.