Macrium Reflect

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

  1. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 8, 2017
    Posts:
    1,103
    Location:
    Lunar module
    Please, there is a need to download 7.2beta without login and pass, you can in PM.
     
  2. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,945
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    @PCFAN2014 ... there are still minor issues/requests being dealt with in the BETA, but it should be soon. There's no ETA at the moment.

    What new feature are you in most need of? Personally, I'm never in a hurry to apply minor (or major) application updates unless there's a compelling reason to apply them.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2018
  3. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2018
    Posts:
    913
    Location:
    US
    Macrium has posted a few ETAs in the past, but we're already past them. Most recently the answer was, "It'll be released when it's done, which might be in 4-6 weeks." I believe that was 3-4 weeks ago. As TheRollBackFrog mentioned, there are still some issues being reported, but they're pretty minor now. Overall it's feeling very polished, especially the new Rescue Media Builder because beta testing on that started a few months ago. I submitted I think 36 bug reports and enhancement ideas for that, and Macrium fixed/implemented all of them except a minor suggestion to update the Create Rescue Media icon in the Reflect UI to something that didn't involve an optical disc; I suggested a donut-style life preserver to keep the existing round shape and work with the "rescue" theme. Macrium said they'd update that icon whenever they updated all of their UI art.

    The most welcome feature for me is the "Warning" job outcome. I had a destination disk that was failing, and the early warning was that the backup jobs were completing but the consolidations were failing -- but I didn't notice that because the current Reflect release considers that situation a success. Someone else on the forums nearly had over a year's worth of backups rendered useless because they only captured Incrementals during that time and had a backup missing very early in their set. All of their log entries noted that the backup set was incomplete, but the user never noticed because Reflect considered that situation a success too (because there are some cases where an incomplete set at the destination is expected). The user didn't realize they had a problem until they tried to restore something and discovered that virtually all of their backups were unusable. Fortunately they had another copy of the missing file elsewhere. But both of those risky situations will now be addressed much better.

    But I can imagine WiFi-enabled Rescue Media being useful for people with tablets and other devices that don't have built-in Ethernet and where they might not have a USB Ethernet adapter handy. Persistent CBT might be useful too for people with large partitions. And the MIG "operation blocked" popups should go a long way to addressing the "Why do I see this error when I try to delete Reflect backups" questions that regularly arise on the forums.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2018
  4. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,945
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    I have to agree with JP on the "WARNING" job outcome. It brought to my (and Macrium's) attention something that was happening but never really noticed before. So far it's been very useful for me... although the NOTIFICATION ding-dong (without a notification msg) I now hear all the time when I exit Reflect (due to the new WARNINGs in my LOG history) is a bit annoying :isay:

    All the Wi-Fi stuff in the new WinRE Rescue Media is not of real use to me. I tried it and although it works just fine, it creates a kinda large image to be loaded (with all those Wi-Fi drivers) and takes much more time than a normal PE-based image to load for use. I'm sure it has its use for many other users.
     
  5. PCFAN2014

    PCFAN2014 Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2013
    Posts:
    51
    Location:
    USA
  6. Gorkster

    Gorkster Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2011
    Posts:
    147
    Nothing sounds too compelling to me with regard to the new features in the works. And while I'm all about seeing a polished release after the last two nightmares, feeling "in the loop" with Macrium is something I miss. I'd rather them give me a timeline and feature plans and say it's "penciled in" as opposed to remaining completely silent. But, I understand the conundrum they face as well. In the end I'd rather see a polished release than them trying to rush something out in order to meet expectations set by a community which doesn't always understand the word "possible."
     
  7. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2018
    Posts:
    913
    Location:
    US
    If you feel you have an actual need, consider reaching out to Macrium Support to request access. If they say no, then I don’t know about other beta testers, but I personally wouldn’t consider it appropriate to help undermine their decision about who gets access to their private beta.
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,113
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    I have a 150 MB FAT partition. It contains 90 MB of data. I know this data is spread across the entire partition so there are even sectors in use at the end of the partition. The image won't restore to a partition smaller than 150 MB. Is this an expected result?
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2018
  9. PCFAN2014

    PCFAN2014 Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2013
    Posts:
    51
    Location:
    USA
    Hi! i am trying a little experiment,my USBs Flash Drives are failing when i plugged in,i guess it's because are running out the 5 years of warranty,i have several Kingston Pen Drives 1,4,8 GB,i am a little tired of the limited time that the Flash Drives have,my primary use for them was store WinPE of Image For Windows and WinPE of Macrium Reflect (I buy what i think there are the two of the best image backup software out there),i used Yumi to make a MultiBoot Pen Drive with both iso images intact,what i am trying to do now is almost the same,i need both isos intact (if possible) in a external Hard Drive Partition that i use for store my images,and a way to choose what of the two WinPE isos i need to boot,basically the same that i have before in the Pen Drive but in a Hdd Partition,i hope that i have explained everything right,for the record i googled what i need to do but i didn't find anything,i hope that the Professionals in this matter @Brian K @TheRollbackFrog etc,can help me,i read a long ago in a thread here that @Brian K have several WinPE botting in a Hdd,so i think that i need the same,sorry for the long post and thanks
     
  10. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 27, 2006
    Posts:
    455
    Location:
    CSA Consulate, Glos., UK
    I've noticed failures on my usb sticks, usually due to past mistakes formatting/partitioning them. I'll correct them with a partitioning tool to get them back to a single primary fat32 partition. Then I'll use the inbuilt macrium tool to make a bootable rescue, or use it to make an iso I can burn to the USB via the 'Rufus' utility.
     
  11. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,945
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    @Brian K - if you're referring to Reflect, the following rule applies to the restoration... yours is right on the hairy edge. I don't know whether this rule is format restricted in any way (FAT, FAT32, NTFS, etc).

    The minimum size is equivalent to the used space on the restored partition plus 50mB.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2018
  12. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2018
    Posts:
    913
    Location:
    US
    I use SanDisk Ultra Flair flash drives for "casual use" situations like Reflect Rescue Media. They're physically small, inexpensive, available in a large range of capacities, and offer pretty fast reads even if writes aren't the best. I also have a SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 flash drive that's essentially an SSD on a stick even on writes, but it's far more expensive.

    In terms of booting, I know there are custom bootloaders that will allow you to choose from various ISOs, but if you only need to boot Windows-based environments, I've found it's easier to avoid the setup and maintenance hassle there and instead just keep a folder called "Bootable Environments" on my drive, then create subfolders for each environment I want to keep -- Windows 10, Reflect Rescue, Windows 7, etc. When I want to boot a given environment, I just move the contents of the desired subfolder to the root of the drive, and now my flash drive boots that environment. When I'm done, I select everything on the root (except that Bootable Environments folder, of course) and move everything back to the right subfolder. Apart from that, I've also got a multi-partition flash drive that has a UEFI NTFS driver on a tiny FAT partition and then an NTFS partition for the rest. The system boots from the FAT partition to load the driver, and the driver then boots whatever is found on the NTFS partition -- a design that allows me to boot in UEFI mode from an NTFS partition (indirectly), which is handy because some of my bootable environments have files larger than 4GB. The only catch to this strategy is that Secure Boot has to be disabled because the UEFI NTFS driver is licensed under GPL, and Microsoft won't sign bootloaders licensed this way. But of course Secure Boot can be re-enabled when you're done booting from that type of flash drive.
     
  13. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 28, 2007
    Posts:
    11,126
    Location:
    U.S.A. (South)
    I also picked up this summer couple of similar SanDisk flash drives for creating a WinPE rescue USB and another for same purpose where I don't have to run Legacy Mode.
    And that's where the discovery of disabling Secure Boot surprised me but was simple step to change and change back again. The first USB didn't boot without the warning: USB:HDD SanDisk has been blocked by the current security policy.

    When you don't do so many of these it might catch someone off guard but it's an easy step to change the setting and your in business.
     
  14. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,113
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    TRF,

    Thanks, that makes sense.
     
  15. PCFAN2014

    PCFAN2014 Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2013
    Posts:
    51
    Location:
    USA
    Thank you so much for your answers!
     
  16. MarcP

    MarcP Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2009
    Posts:
    743
    Just announced.

    upload_2018-10-30_10-46-9.png
     
  17. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2014
    Posts:
    14,881
    Location:
    Slovenia, EU
    Thnx for heads-up :thumb:
     
  18. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2002
    Posts:
    5,703
    Location:
    North Carolina, USA
    Hello,

    A new update has been released, version 7.2.3811...
    Homepage
    Download Page
    Release Notes
    Overview from the above KB article (for more detailed information see the KB article):
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2018
  19. test

    test Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 15, 2010
    Posts:
    499
    Location:
    italy
    txs a lot!
     
  20. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2014
    Posts:
    14,881
    Location:
    Slovenia, EU
    I updated it using built-in option (97,3 MB download) with no noticeable problems. I did not install CBT driver and MIG component. In settings I removed automatic check for updates and rebuilt rescue media with no problems.
     
  21. FanJ

    FanJ Updates Team

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2002
    Posts:
    4,638
    Could it be that there is some error in version v7.2.3811 with respect to PE version number?
    Or is it me or my system?

    System: Win 7 64-bit.
    Macrium Reflect upgraded from 7.1.3196 to v7.2.3811.
    PE version 5.0. Well, that was the intention. But look.

    Screenshot from within MR:
    There you see PE 5.0

    Macrium_2018-10-31_01.png

    But now when I let the PC, after a restart, boot from MR boot recovery.
    It shows PE 4.0
    The picture is very dark, I know. I had to use a photo-camera. I don't have the knowledge to make the picture better, and I have very bad eyes.
    But it does show PE 4.0

    Macrium_2018-10-31_04.png

    So why is MR from its normal program showing PE 5.0 and when booting from its recovery boot option showing PE 4.0? I have no idea.
     
  22. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2018
    Posts:
    913
    Location:
    US
    The large download is because Macrium didn't provide a "delta patch" for this release from 7.1, so you got the full installer. You may want to consider MIG and allowing automatic updates. MIG seems like it could be quite useful in a ransomware situation that nobody ever plans for (unless you're very diligent about keeping offline backups), and the update mechanism for 7.2 was enhanced to support background checking and even sending emails when new updates were available. That came about in the wake of the issue with CBT creating corrupt backups for a few releases of Reflect. Some people updated to one of those affected releases and then didn't update to the version that had been fixed because they didn't check for updates to learn there was a problem. That was especially an issue for people who run scheduled backups and seldom launched Reflect interactively and/or ran Reflect on a server where even Windows logons are rather rare. Even after Macrium started emailing all of their registered users about the update, some people didn't get the memo because they had registered with an old/bogus email address. Not that I'm suggesting another massively critical update is likely, but you never know.
     
  23. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2018
    Posts:
    913
    Location:
    US
    Did you happen to create both PE 4.0 and PE 5.0 Rescue Media builds at some point? Check your C:\Boot\Macrium folder and see if you have folders for both PE4 and PE5 there. If so, the Rescue Media Builder might be defaulting to displaying info about whichever one is newer (or perhaps whichever build was updated or used to generate "external" Rescue Media most recently?), whereas your Windows Boot Manager entry might still be pointing to your PE 4.0 build. For example, I have both WinRE and WinPE 10 builds on my system. If I click Advanced and change the "Choose Base WIM" selection between WinRE and WinPE 10, the Rescue Media Builder status updates to show the PE version and Reflect version of the selected build.

    If you haven't already, try removing the boot menu entry and recreating it. If you still see this discrepancy, open Command Prompt in the Rescue environment and note the version number displayed at the top of the command line to see which version of WinPE you're actually using. That will indicate whether this might be a bug with the title bar in the Rescue Media environment or the status in Rescue Media Builder.
     
  24. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2014
    Posts:
    14,881
    Location:
    Slovenia, EU
    I regularly copy my images to external HDD and also didn't got hit by malware for more than a decade so I don't think that MIG would give me much protection. For me it would be probably more likely a source of problem than something that would protect my backup images.
    I also prefer to update programs when I want and don't like software updating in background. I use SUMo to regularly check for newer versions and visit forums like this one to get information about them.
     
  25. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2018
    Posts:
    913
    Location:
    US
    Fair enough. Just to clarify though, Reflect does not update itself in the background, or even download updates in the background; it simply checks for updates in the background and as of 7.2 will notify you via system tray icon when an update is available, or via popup when you launch Reflect interactively -- and optionally via email if you set that up. But actually downloading and installing the update always requires manual action.
     
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.