Perhaps Macrium could re-examine their support policy

I recently installed Macrium Reflect free and the installation went without a hitch and I created a backup of my Windows partition (approx 16GB, excluding pagefile) in a bit over seven minutes, to another partition on my laptop's hard drive--very nice.

I also downloaded and installed the large Microsoft Windows PE and created a Windows PE recovery USB stick and when I booted to the recovery USB, again everything went as expected, until I restored the backup and it required over 45 minutes.

I then installed Parragon's free backup and created the recovery media on the USB stick and made the backup (very similar time and backup size) and then booted to the USB and restored. This only took ten minutes.

I have searched Wilders, Macrium and the internet for help to fix the slow restore process, but haven't found an answer. I then tried to ask on Macrim's forum, but I cannot register without purchasing the product.

I cannot get the free version to work properly, so I will pay for the commercial version, and be able to get help on the forum--I don't think so. It is not a big problem, Parragon works just fine, but Macrium Reflect seems quite good, as well, but perhaps they need to tweak their policy. Offering the free version is a great way to introduce users to their product, but if it doesn't work properly, it is definitely counter productive.

 

From what you are saying it is slower to restore than other solutions but it works

 

Yes, it does work - not really acceptably, imo, but it does work. As I searched for info as to why the restoring was so slow, I saw comments that the restore process should not require much more time than the backup, which is what I expected. Taking over 6x as long to restore as to backup seems to me to indicate that something is not quite right.

 

That is strange behavior ad67. I have never tried Macrium version 5, as I still have the free 4.2 version and when I use it, it works fine. I never had issue with the Linux based recovery disk but I will say that even with that, restores always took a few minutes longer than image creation, but it was always solid. 45 minutes to restore 16GB is pushing it, but at least it did work, and I understand your concern.

I think they have had issues with their WinPe boot media, but maybe the free version is simply lacking some features? Generally, restores are faster than image creation in my experience. If no one has mentioned this as a problem, maybe it is something users have come to accept.

 

It took me 11-13 min to restore 10GB on my Notebook's 5400RPM, which is a couple of minutes slower than when I created an image.

I created my bootable WinPE ISO onto my FAT32 flash drive using YUMI and whs's tutorial. He kindly provides an updated ISO on each important Macrium release, saving potential hours

 

I use Macrium Reflect Free edition latest version and created a new WinPE recovery ISO using WAIK install.
I made my USB bootable stick and backup Windows 8, 26GB in 5 mn on my SATA backup HDD.
Restoring on the same partition took 7 minutes and 45 sec.
I think time is processor speed dependant as well as the HDD speed.
My PC has an Intel i72600k @ 4,2 Ghz.
(I use for OS a WD 1To Black and a 2 To WD Blue for backups)

 

Thank you Yakuman I just downloaded this last night. WHS boot iso works great. I do have a question though.

I noticed the macrium 5.0 iso he created is 64 bit. My laptop is 32 bit. I created a USB flash drive with the iso and booted from it and even though my system is 32 bit, it worked flawlessly. Is there potential problems using the 64 bit boot media on my 32 bit Windows 7 system?

I do not have much experience with 64 bit systems, but this 64 bit boot disk seemed to work just fine with no complaints. Anything I should be careful about? From what I have read, it is fine using a 64 bit boot media to boot a 32 bit machine, but I thought I would ask in case there is anything I should be aware of. The WHS post makes no mention of this regarding his boot disk ISO he created, so I assumed it was fine, and I was surprised to see it stated after it booted up it was 64 bit, but operation was fine on 32 bit laptop.

Thanks

 

I wondered about that too. I was certain that Windows PE is dependent on the CPU's architecture (32 or 64 bit) because there were times when I couldn't execute 32-bit files from a command prompt within WinPE, but this was when I tried to create my own WinPE through the long WAIK method. Maybe your OS is 32-bit, but your CPU is 64-bit. If so, that explains why it's compatible with it (e.g. just like how one can still install 32-bit Windows on a 64-bit CPU, although the opposite is not true).

I found this in the third bullet point of Macrium's tutorial - step 3:

To identify your CPU type follow Microsoft's steps. If you see 64-bit capable then you actually have a 64-bit CPU .

 

Thank you for your thoughts Yakuman I went to the seven forums and contacted the thread about whs ISO file. I gave my specs, Dell laptop 32 bit, etc., and I was told the Macrium free version WinPE x64 ISO that whs created would work fine with a 32 bit system, which has been my experience so far. It has worked flawless plus offers cold imaging, etc.

Here was whs response to my inquiry: "Your assumption is correct. All the 64bit means is that the mini-OS that drives the Macrium on the WinPE is a 64bit version. As long as your PC is 64bit capable (which practically all PC's are nowadays), then it will run.

And regarding the Macrium version question, there is nothing to worry about. I have imaged and recovered with all kinds of mixed Macrium versions and never had a problem. They seem to be all upward/downward compatible."
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Even though my laptop is a Dell Inspiron E1705 from 2007, and Win 7 pro says it is 32 bit (x86), nothing about x64 capable, at least as far as I can tell.

So good to know it is working on both x86 and x64 systems I assume because it loads into ramdisk and is not OS driven other than the WinPE from the boot disc to support and run the 64 bit Macrium components. All the Macrium functions also work as expected. Evidently, whs prepared an ISO to support both x86 and x64 architecture as I looked inside the WIM file he uses and it does include many x86 components along with of course x64, so I am assuming whs created it in such a way to work on both. As far as I can tell, looking at my laptop specs, I have no 64 bit capability as mentioned above, CPU is Dual Core Intel T5300 1.73GHZ. Win 7 states x86 in system info.

I did notice also that if I opened up a macrium explorer window and navigated to a folder that had a 32 bit portable app utility such as BOOTICE, it would not run via reason of lacking the proper 'subsystem', so that may be just a limitation of the boot disc, I assume a 64 bit issue, but otherwise no problems creating and restoring Macrium images and no complaints I did think a 32 bit portable type app would run under x64, but in this case it did not.

So the bottom line is I was told it should work regardless of x86 or x64, and it does seem to work excellent. Thanks again for your help. I was grateful to find whs ISO. he did a great job with it and obviously very flexible.

 

Thanks for shedding the light! I'm obviously no expert in this area, so to have a pre-made ISO available from one of my favourite forums is a godsend

I researched that troubling message about the subsystem and it relates to the WoW64 not being present in WinPE x64, which in a way is understandable because WinPE is meant to be a mini version of Windows and a lot of components had to be cut off. I believe it's possible to customize your WinPE further to include WoW64 and any application one can imagine, but all the steps involved to do so are way over my head .

 

Thanks again Yakuman. I understand also that some things are over my head too, even after working on PC's for 16 years, I learn something new everyday almost. I have little experience with x64 systems.

By the way, I followed your MS link about system capabilities...to my surprise, I DO have 64 bit capable, found in the detailed info under Performance Info. Here is what the system part states:

System

Manufacturer Dell Inc.
Model MP061
Total amount of system memory 2.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 2
64-bit capable Yes
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Now that was news to me! LOL So I assume that explains why the boot disc works as expected have a good day my friend, thanks for taking the time to help me.

 

Glad to know I my suspicion was correct Have a great day.

 

Indeed it was It was also what whs stated to me that he was pretty sure the laptop was 64 bit capable, but i had no idea and your link helped me find it out. Good to know, I assume that at some point, if I desired to, I could potentially install Win 7 x64 I think. But i have no plans to do such, as 32 bit Win 7 pro is fine for me.

Take care

 

to the op ...just as a thought could you try to make the iso on a dvd instead. i know it may sound strange but a lot of times some machines have issues with bootable usb drives. i own such a laptop. trying to install windows or restore a image from a usb takes FOREVER but from a bootable disc its quick as can be. i have found this to be the case with limited numbers of machines that sometimes just dont jive well with either bootable usb or certain usb drives in particular.

 

zfactor, thanks for the suggestion, I had not tried the CD/DVD recovery option and worth a shot. I have a dual boot setup with Win_7 and Win_8 and I created a new backup image of the Win_8 partition from Win_7. No problem; it took a little over eight minutes to create an approx 7.2 GB image of my 35 GB partition, which contains approx 15 GB data.

I then restored from Win_7 and that only took a few seconds longer that the time to create the image. I shut down and re-booted to the DVD WinPE media and started restore--took one hour and 12 minutes--definitely doesn't like my system.

I will stick with Paragon.