Macrium Reflect

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

  1. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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  2. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    As shown in Reflect's "Cloning a disk" page of the online user manual (link), you can select "Cloned partition properties" in the Destination area to resize the destination partition differently from the original source while you are staging the clone. The somewhat unintuitive part of this is that you can't increase the size of a partition if another partition has already been staged next to it; Reflect won't automatically push subsequent "staged" partitions farther down the disk, so to speak. So if you wanted to do this, instead of using the "Copy selected partitions" feature to stage everything from the source onto the destination in one step, you would have needed to drag and drop each individual partition from Source to Destination one at a time, working left to right, and then after dragging your OS partition down, resize it as desired (you can specify the new size either by partition size or by how much free space to leave after it), and THEN continue dragging down subsequent partitions. I already have a Wish List thread requesting an improvement in this area. Reflect is actually quite flexible when it comes to clone and image restore operations -- you can resize partitions, reorder partitions, clone partitions from multiple sources onto a single destination (one job per source), etc. -- but that flexibility isn't readily apparent.

    Since you've already run the clone though, you could just delete the Recovery partition (use diskpart's "delete partition override" command), resize the OS partition as desired leaving enough space to bring the Recovery partition back, and then reclone the Recovery partition into the remaining space on the new SSD. You'll have to use the drag and drop method for that operation too, since "Copy selected partitions" also stages the partition on the destination using the same start and end sectors that it uses on the source, and any existing partitions that occupy that area get marked for deletion, which obviously would not be what you want to happen.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2018
  3. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    On many Windows 10 systems, especially those that have been upgraded from earlier releases, the Recovery partition now exists after the OS partition. The reason is that newer versions of Windows now require larger Recovery partitions, and it isn't possible to extend the Recovery partition that exists earlier on the disk, so instead the Windows 10 upgrade process shrinks the OS partition by the amount required to create a new Recovery partition of the required size in the freed up space. The old partition is then left there uselessly taking up space. If a Recovery partition already exists immediately after the OS partition but is too small, then the OS partition is only shrunk by the additional amount necessary, and then the Recovery partition is deleted and recreated to occupy that full space. But the net result is that if your disk is set up this way and you clone to a larger disk without making any adjustments, you'll end up with an OS partition of your original size, then a Recovery partition, and THEN your unallocated space.

    Incidentally, Microsoft's guidance on TechNet for how to manually partition disks for Windows installations now includes placing the Recovery partition immediately after the OS partition precisely to avoid ending up with a "deprecated" Recovery partition elsewhere on your disk taking up space that can't be usefully repurposed -- but Windows Setup still places the Recovery partition first.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2018
  4. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    The original SSD had a recovery partition. I cloned the entire SSD.
     
  5. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    That's it, jphughan. :thumb:
     
  6. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Is deleting the recovery partition and creating a new one a good idea?
    How do I do that?
     
  7. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I’ve done it a few times in scenarios where I wanted to move a Recovery partition to another area of the disk. For most people who use Reflect, the Recovery partition won’t even be used anyway, and of course since you have Reflect, you can capture an image backup before you make these changes in case anything goes wrong. If you want to do it, here are the steps:

    Capture an image of your OS disk. Or at the very least capture an image of your Recovery partition, or make sure your original clone source is still intact.

    Note the size of your current Recovery partition for later — total size, not just capacity in use. Reflect will reveal this quickly.

    Open an elevated Command Prompt and enter the commands below:

    Diskpart
    List disk
    Select disk X (replace X with the number of your OS disk, as shown by the list disk output)
    List partition
    Select partition X (replace X with the number of your Recovery partition, as shown by the list partition output)
    Delete partition override

    Now go into Disk Management (or use diskpart) to extend your OS partition to fill the remainder of your disk MINUS the size of the Recovery partition you just deleted.

    Finally, restore your Recovery partition from a backup or re-clone it from the original source. Again, use drag and drop to bring that partition from the Source to Destination since you’ll be restoring the Recovery partition to a different area of the disk compared to its original location.

    Good luck!
     
  8. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    You're right. There probably needs some improvement there. It isn't obvious. I didn't realise that I could have dragged and dropped in the order that I wanted when cloning.

    And thanks for the tips above.
     
  9. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    In the past, when I have had to reinstall Reflect or the operating system, I have been able to backup my definition file XML and export my scheduled tasks, then simply copy back my definition file XML and import my scheduled tasks, and Reflect is all ready to go very quickly. But the other day when I cloned and replaced an SSD, that method didn't work. I had to set up my backup schedules again manually. I think I received some message about the drive ID. I guess I needed to change something regarding the drive ID.
     
  10. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    Yes. Open your definition file XML in NotePad ++ and edit the ID to a new one
    1.png
    For an example, the ID from USBDriveInfo (this is part of USBDLM) is the same as in Reflect.
    2.png
     
  11. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    @aldist
    Thanks. Where do I find the disk ID?
     
  12. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Hadron,

    Not sure about Macrium. You can find it in Diskpart...

    list disk
    select disk x
    uniqueid disk

    With a MBR disk this shows the Disk ID (Disk Signature)
    With a GPT disk this shows the Device GUID
     
  13. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Thanks Brian.

    That's good info for next time. :thumb:
     
  14. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    USBDriveInfo (USBDLM), its portable uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html
     
  15. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    A note about this since something similar just came up in the Macrium forums. On MBR disks, Reflect uses the Disk ID expressed as a hex value, but PowerShell's Get-Disk command shows the same value in decimal format. I haven't looked at USBDriveInfo's output, although I do use USBDLM to force consistent drive letter assignment for the 9 disks in my backup rotation and it is fantastic for that. I preferred it to using Volume ID-based targeting for a variety of reasons.

    However, I believe you could have just chosen to edit your definition file within Reflect and reselected your disk(s)/partition(s), at which point all of the other settings would have remained intact. I guess it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other. But if you want to edit your definition file manually, I guess you could always just try manually adding the Disk ID in whatever format the application you checked it with provides, and then use the "Validate" function within Reflect to see if it's happy.
     
  16. bellgamin

    bellgamin Registered Member

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    Why not start a thread if you think it's any good. I came to THIS thread to read about Macrium Reflect, because that is this thread's title.
     
  17. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Thanks aldist.
    It looks a simple option.
     
  18. Jo Ann

    Jo Ann Registered Member

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    Is Macrium still supporting v6 (re Win10 compatibility)? - I ask because I'm still using v6.3.1852 on Win10. :doubt:
     
  19. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Support has stopped on v6 unless it's a critical bug in the core code... if it is they will backport the fix.

    v6 still works on W10 but there may be scheduling issues at times... that's where the main problems were when W10 came out. By now, MicroSloth may have mitigated all those scheduler issues with v6, hopefully.
     
  20. Jo Ann

    Jo Ann Registered Member

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    Well I've not upgraded to v7 because I never backup more than once/day (so I have no need for CBT). But if you are saying that v6.3.1852 has/can incur scheduler issues on Win10 then perhaps I better upgrade!
     
  21. jadinolf

    jadinolf Registered Member

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    Jo Ann V 7 works fine on Windows 10.
    I use the FREE version and am enjoying the 100% discount I receive.:)
     
  22. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    v6 is supposed to be W10 aware... it just had some scheduler problems when W10 first arrived on the scene. It should work just fine. And if you don't need Incrementals, the @jadinolf solution works great :D
     
  23. jadinolf

    jadinolf Registered Member

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    Yep, it does work.
    I believe in "Keep It Simple Stupid " so I have virtually no problems with V7
    I just image the disks on my 5 computers with Windows 7 or 10 almost every day.
    Yeah, I'm old and have nothing better to do.:D
    Backups only take less than 5 to less than 9 minutes.
     
  24. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Yeah, I'm still on v6 too.
    I tried v7 around the time of release, but couldn't see any compelling reason to keep it, so I went back to v6.

    Version 6 is still going strong and never fails me. :thumb:
    Maybe I will upgrade to v8 when it arrives. :geek:
     
  25. jadinolf

    jadinolf Registered Member

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    Yep, Version 6 is fine.
     
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