Macrium Reflect

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Stigg, Nov 23, 2013.

  1. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    That's expected, but if you manually encrypt the clone target afterward, then subsequent clones will preserve the target's encryption, including its unique protectors (e.g. Recovery Keys). At least this is the case in the paid version where Rapid Delta Clone can be used after the initial clone. I'm not sure about the Free version. More info here: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/BitLocker Restore Outcomes
     
  2. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    This isn't a Reflect version issue, but rather a Windows PE version issue; both Reflect 6 and 7 support the same WinPE versions, so they're equally susceptible. It occurs because some systems have an incorrect implementation of the UEFI spec, specifically the Graphics Output Protocol. In most cases, using WinPE 5 rather than WinPE 10 resolves this. Using Legacy BIOS boot rather than UEFI would also fix this if you needed features exclusive to WinPE 10, like BitLocker XTS mode support, but if your OS normally boots in UEFI mode, then booting your Rescue environment in Legacy BIOS mode would make the Fix Boot Problems function work incorrectly.

    For what it's worth, a new Rescue Media builder currently in beta and expected to be released soon will have a simpler fix for this issue. It will have a "Legacy EFI support" checkbox that will allow using newer WinPE versions but keep the WinPE 5 bootloader, which apparently fixes the resolution issue for the vast majority of affected systems.
     
  3. jimb949

    jimb949 Registered Member

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    Thanks JP, for all that information. I already made a rescue disk with 5.0 and it worked perfect. Glad to hear they're fixing this problem.
     
  4. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi JP

    Welcome to Wilders. glad to have you here
     
  5. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

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    I just updated to version 7.1.3196 which corrects a serious bug in the CBT driver

    https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.1.3196/details7.1.3196.htm

    In my case, I don't have the CBT driver installed. Its greyed out and can't be ticked in Edit Defaults/Advance Incrementals. I guess this means my incremental/differential backups are unaffected by this bug?
     
  6. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    They are unaffected...
     
  7. Gorkster

    Gorkster Registered Member

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    I went through my backups since this issue started and have nine corrupted backup images. :(
     
  8. jimb949

    jimb949 Registered Member

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    Since reflect updates quite often do I have to update my rescue disk each time also? How do I know which reflect updates affect my rescue disk? I want to update my rescue disk only if it's really necessary.
     
  9. jadinolf

    jadinolf Registered Member

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    Usually, maybe always, Reflect will tell you to update your rescue disk if necessary.
    Just be sure to read the details. I wish I always did. :D
     
  10. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Thanks!

    As mentioned above, with the exception of one case I remember, Macrium is quite good about indicating in the release notes when a change affects something in the Rescue environment -- and in that case, they'll have red text recommending that users update their Rescue Media if they're affected by the issue. Take a look at the 7.1.2917 release notes here to see an example, and you'll see identical examples in the notes of a few past releases as well if you scroll down. These release notes pop up inside the prompt to update Reflect. Additionally, you can at any time view the release notes for your currently installed version (and all prior versions within that major release) by going to Help > Release Notes inside Reflect.
     
  11. jimb949

    jimb949 Registered Member

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    Thanks guys!
     
  12. WinterKnight

    WinterKnight Registered Member

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    I always update my USB rescue media when a new version of Macrium is released. In addition, I have a backup USB flash drive with an older version of Macrium Reflect (v7.1.2917). I keep it around for emergencies because I did a successful restore with it, so I know it works. Would that version still work with Windows 10 v1803? How long would it be good for just to do a restore (not other utilities)?
     
  13. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    I, too, always update my rescue dvd. As it is a dvdrw I just write over it.
    I also have heard nothing good about Windows 10 v1803!
     
  14. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    With respect to Win10 1803, Reflect V7 works fine, but if you use CBT, you must be running at least 7.1.2899, because that release included an update to the CBT driver to comply with new requirements imposed by Microsoft with Win10 1803. Older Reflect versions would cause a Win10 1803 system to blue screen at boot if CBT was installed. Reflect V6 also works with Win10 1803, and to my knowledge there's no minimum release requirement since V6 didn't have CBT. (UPDATE: 6.2.1495 fixed an issue that prevented scheduled backups from running on Win10 1607 and later, and 6.3.1849 fixed a rather large security vulnerability created by the original design of that fix.)

    In terms of the "shelf life" of older Rescue Media, it was recently asked in the Macrium forums when the image file format had last changed, and Macrium's answer was that Reflect V6.1 added Delta Incremental Indexing, so if you wanted to restore images that used that feature, you would need at least that release of Reflect on your Rescue Media. If you're NOT using those, then I suppose you could go even farther back, though I'm not sure just how far. So in theory, as long as your restore scenario doesn't require any of the fixes or enhancements that get added in newer releases (e.g. ReDeploy recently added support for migrating onto NVMe SSDs), then old Rescue Media should be good for quite a while.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2018
  15. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    [OT Post]
    I can see Timeline being a cool feature for certain people (I'm not one of them), especially after third-party developers build better support for it, and 1803 fixed a bug with Virtual Machine Connection that affected me....but it also seems to have introduced a new VMC bug and turned PowerShell ISE into a crash-tastic mess. I've noticed that Microsoft seems to just be swapping one set of bugs for another with Windows 10 releases, and I'm not yet convinced that there's been net forward progress. And that doesn't even consider that IF bugs get fixed, they only get fixed in the next release, which doesn't help people on corporate machines that may not be allowed to update, especially if they're running LTSB releases.

    And then WinPE 10 1803 contains the bit of comedy below. This is on a system with 16GB of memory, and that line is supposed to be the copyright line. I don't have a way to know this for sure, but I don't think an actual memory error is occurring there. I wonder if that out of memory message is just a hard-coded string in Command Prompt caused by a memory error that occurred in Microsoft's own compiler while this was being built. Sigh....

    Cmd.PNG

    [/OT Post]
     
  16. WinterKnight

    WinterKnight Registered Member

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    I’m using the free version of Macrium Reflect 7.1, so I don’t have some of those features. I always have an up-to-date USB flash rescue drive, but I like to keep an older version around if I used it successfully and I know it works. This way if there is some issue with the latest rescue media, at least I can do a restore with the old one. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t too old for Windows 10 v1803. It sounds like it’s still OK for now. Thanks.
     
  17. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    The Rescue Media doesn't know or care what version of Windows is contained in the image it's restoring, if any at all. In fact it can even restore Linux partitions even though Reflect itself doesn't run within Linux, so you've got nothing to worry about on that front. :)
     
  18. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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  19. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Thank you @Minimalist . And a reminder to all with Macrium REFLECT registrations... that may have used bogus emails when registering (for privacy protection or some such stuff), you will never see this type of warning if you're using an automated scheduled backup system (GFS, Forever Incremental, etc.) and never log into REFLECT's main User Interface.

    There's just no way for Macrium to get in touch with you.
     
  20. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    ...and for those just looking into this as far as how much you've been affected, pls keep this in mind.

    If you're running a DEFAULT Windows 10 configuration, Reflect's CBT feature remains in play following a ShutDown operation, not a reSTART operation. This is due to the DEFAULT FastStartup feature which is ON following the installation of Windows 10.

    So... if you don't reSTART very much and only do mostly ShutDowns, any image taken since your original FULL may be compromised. The best way is to look at your image LOGs and determine if the image (DIFF or INC) was taken with CBT active. If so, it definitely may be compromised.
     
  21. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    My comment above most likely applies to Win8 as well since I think that's where the FastStartup feature was introduced...
     
  22. jimb949

    jimb949 Registered Member

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    I have two questions about C:boot folder. 1. When is it created? 2. If I do a clean install of Windows 10 do I need to save that folder onto a flash drive first and then copy it back over on to the C drive once Windows is reinstalled?
     
  23. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    It’s created when you first build Rescue Media, and no it doesn’t need to be backed up because everything in that folder can be recreated by Reflect by going through the Create Rescue Media wizard.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2018
  24. jimb949

    jimb949 Registered Member

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    So if I already have a rescue disk made and do a clean install of Windows 10 will the rescue disk still work?
     
  25. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    If by “Rescue Disk” you mean CD or USB-based Rescue Media, then yes any Rescue Media you have already created will always work regardless of the contents of your hard drive — that’s the whole point of Rescue Media. The C:\Boot\Macrium folder serves two purposes:

    - It contains a cache of the files that get copied to Rescue Media whenever you decide to create/update CD or USB-based Rescue Media.

    - If you enable the boot menu recovery option, the boot entry that gets created points to the files in that folder as the environment to load.

    The ability to use the boot menu recovery option relies on those files existing intact at that location, which is why it should be considered a convenience but not a sole recovery mechanism — for example, if your restore fails partway through, then chances are your boot menu recovery files won’t be usable. Same goes if you need to restore onto a new empty hard drive. That’s why you always want to have “external” Rescue Media on a disc or flash drive, since it has no dependencies on any files existing on the hard drive after it has been created.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2018
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