Macrium Reflect

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

  1. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    You don’t need to have made a screenshot beforehand. If you go to the Restore tab and select any image backup, the layout of any partitions in that backup will be shown at the top of that window. Compare the layout of any pre-upgrade backup to a post-upgrade backup, including the sizes of those partitions. It’s possible that your C drive was shrunk slightly in order to make room for a larger Recovery partition immediately after it. You might also want to check whether the upgrade created any new partitions on your disk, and if so whether you want to include them in your backups going forward.

    In order for a new backup to be considered a match to an existing backup set (which is required for making a Diff or Inc), the new backup must contain exactly the same partitions as the ones in the existing set. If you add or remove any partitions from your backup selection, or any partitions have been resized and/or rearranged on the source disk, the new backup will no longer be considered a match.

    The fact that some upgrades within Windows 10 sometimes the resize I described above and therefore trigger unexpected Fulls is why I set my retention policy to apply to all backups in the destination, rather than the default “all matching backups”. Otherwise, the retention policy would no longer act on pre-upgrade backups. But this change means you need to have a destination folder dedicated solely to backups generated by that definition file, otherwise that setting could cause your retention policy to purge completely unrelated backups.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2019
  2. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    Good tip ... thanks! :thumb:

    Edit: Updated my existing backup definitions to avoid any unwelcome surprises (hope that's OK, that it 'flows through' as mentioned below).
    Edit 2: Each backup job (definition) has its own destination folder. ;)
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2019
  3. beethoven

    beethoven Registered Member

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    Jphughan, thank you very much. That was very helpful and I can see that the first new backup includes a Recovery Partition of 564mb. I am not sure how to understand your advice regarding the retention policy. Do I need
    to take any specific action now or will this just "flow" through eventually with the new chain replacing the old parts. I am not bothered about storage at the moment.
     
  4. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Restoring the image is an even better check. But if I went from w7 to w 10 I would start a new chain.,
     
  5. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    If you look at the dropdown menu above the Full/Diff/Inc retention policy options, you’ll see an option to specify the backups that the retention policy should apply to. By default it’s set to all matching backups. Since your partition layout changed during the upgrade, the pre-upgrade backups will not be considered a match to any post-upgrade backups. As a result, if you keep the default retention policy mode, Reflect will never automatically purge any of those non-matching pre-upgrade backups going forward. If however you set the retention policy mode to “all backups in the destination” rather than “all MATCHING backups”, you can fix that. Otherwise you’d have to purge the pre-upgrade backups manually whenever you’re ready to do so.

    But again, before changing that setting, make sure that your destination folder contains ONLY backups generated by that definition file. I recommend separate destination folders for separate jobs (definition files), but some users have multiple definition files all sending backups to the same folder. In that situation, the settings change I just described would allow your definition file to purge completely unrelated backups created by other definition files, which you probably wouldn’t want. If all of your backups are performed by one definition file, then no worries about changing this setting.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2019
  6. beethoven

    beethoven Registered Member

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    Thanks Guys, I think I will start a new chain as suggested and use a better folder structure to avoid any issues.
     
  7. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    Yeah, wouldn't like to lose your music, @beethoven. :D
     
  8. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

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    The last version solves the 205 KB download issue for me.
     
  9. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Hello ALL:
    My OS is 64 bit Windows 10 Pro and I am still using v7.1.3196. Can I now update to 7.2.4601 without any worries. I guess I should update but should I do an Image first?
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2020
  10. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Sounds like you know exactly what to do... :thumb: You have imaging software... let's IMAGE!:) (an Incremental'll do)
     
  11. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Great Froggie. It has been a while. So you suggest that I DO an image BEFORE I update.
     
  12. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

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    I'd say Yes. Never hurts to image. Better to have one and not need it than to need it and not have it.
     
  13. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Yes!
    Reminds me of what we used to say about Security guards at a Company I worked for...

    "Better to send 5 Ambulances when they were not needed than 1 when it really was" :)
     
  14. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I would also create a Rescue Media ISO from your current Reflect release before updating, just in case the new release has a problem that breaks Rescue Media, which has happened. The fact that Macrium doesn't make old Reflect installers available except sometimes upon request means that if you don't keep old installers yourself, getting back to a previous Reflect version would require rolling back your entire OS partition to the time prior to the update, which of course might not be desirable especially if you don't discover this problem until later. But if on the other hand you have an ISO of an older, known working Rescue Media build handy, then even if your new Reflect version can't generate working Rescue Media for your system, you've got that ISO as an insurance policy, because you can use that ISO to create a bootable disc or flash drive if needed. (There's another "escape hatch" for this scenario involving the Skip WIM Rebuild option in Rescue Media Builder if you have backups of the partition where you store your Rescue Media files, but that's more work than storing an ISO.)

    And that leads into my second piece of advice: Every time you update your Rescue Media, typically after updating Reflect, RETEST IT! Make sure your updated Rescue Media still boots properly and still sees all of the hardware you'd need it to see if you needed to perform a restore (or backup). Breakage happens, and you don't want to find out that your Rescue Media broke somewhere along the line only at the time you actually need to restore something.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2020
  15. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

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    excellent idea. I always rebuild the boot menu files, rescue disk (actually on a flash drive) and also the iso I save to a removable external usb hard drive every Reflect update . that external drive also has a synced copy of all my macrium backups on my ssd's second partition.
     
  16. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Thank You both but I know it is not required BUT...

    EVERY time I do a Reflect update I create a NEW Rescue DVD on a R/W DVD and test it. I even rebuild this first. I keep hearing that this is not needed but I keep the previous one and create a new one. Being an R/W I can reuse the older one when all is OK. OH, I use a DVD as it loads faster than a CD.
     
  17. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Unless you're using an ancient PC that doesn't support booting from USB, I'd really recommend getting a flash drive for a few bucks, which is literally all it takes these days. Flash drives boot much faster than even a DVD and they're also much faster to update compared to erasing and rewriting a disc. I use SanDisk Ultra Flair flash drives as my general purpose devices because they're physically small, have fast read speeds, and even decent write speeds. As of this writing, the smallest capacity available is 16 GB, which is way more than you need for Rescue Media, and it costs a whopping $6 on Amazon. My performance flash drive is a SanDisk Extreme Pro that basically offers mid-range SATA SSD performance on a stick even when it comes to write speeds, but that's physically larger and more expensive.
     
  18. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Well I have a big issue here. I am now on Windows 10 1903 and have Reflect v7.1.3196. Guess why I can not run a final Image before I go to v7.2.4601?

    Yes, I have the Error 9 bug and I guess I can not get the fix any more as my v7.1 is too old! Is there a file I can get or should I just Update without a final Image? i HATE to do that! I can, however run a full image from the Rescue DVD I have if there is no other solution.!
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2020
  19. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    BIG Issue here as my v7.1 rescue gives me the same ERROR! Nothing is working so do I dare update anyway? Strange but FILE backup does work, I just can not do an image and from the rescue media it says to check the log but I do not see where to get to it!
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2020
  20. AbbyJack

    AbbyJack Registered Member

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    Have you tried running chkdsk on the drive you are trying to back up?
     
  21. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    No, but I could. This was a known issue, but I guess they did not fix it in my old version of Reflect!
     
  22. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Do you have any other backup programs installed?
     
  23. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    well, I can see but chkdsk was fine. This IS a known bug and fix but they did not do it for v7.1!
     
  24. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    I just discovered I've lost the use of Macrium. I did a thread involving error 0x81000203, which stops System Restore and VSS. Restored a backup (with Aomei) made Jan 13 and got restore back. Now, it's no longer working again. Fortunately, I've got Aomei Backupper Pro.

    I have not added any software, other than a couple of Windows Updates. The security I have onboard is in my Sig. It's been there for months. No clue what's going on. I can live with Aomei Backupper Pro, but Macrium has always been my go to. Whatever this error is, it only affects VSS and System Restore. I've spent all day online reading and trying cures. None work.
     
  25. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    AOMEI Backupper can be the cause of the problem. That's why my previous post asked whether MPSAN was using another backup application.
     
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