Macrium Reflect

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

  1. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Paul,

    "Failed to read from sector "... Is the disk you are backing up. The source not the target. If it is a HD I'd run the manufacturers diagnostics. eg WD Data Lifeguard, SeaTools. That message is concerning.

    Any SMART errors for that HD?
     
  2. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    No SMART errors for that disk, only for the backup drive o_O. And chkdsk /f (no /r necessary) seems to have fixed it. (I thought maybe MR also read backup disk for a differential).

    Btw thanks to @Arvy for this link: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Imaging disks with bad sectors earlier in this thread.

    Will run WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic as well.
     
  3. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Paul

    If you have any new HMPA beta's on that machine, besure to turn off Credential Protection. It might cause those errors. On the AOMEI that worked be sure to check the HMPA Event viewer log. There might be an error there .
     
  4. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    Thanks Pete. No HMPA on that machine, not sure what jhappened there. But all seems OK, for now.
     
  5. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    You're welcome. Error code 21 is literally "Device not ready", but it may arise from a range of problems with either the drive itself, and/or its controller, and/or its connection path/port. An "Unable to read from disk" error during a Reflect backup operation is generally indicative of a backup source drive problem rather than a destination drive problem. Of course, it doesn't exclude the possibility of other problems that may involve the destination drive, but usually best to focus on resolving one at a time. :)

    __
    P.S.: May I respectfully endorse @Brian K 's suggestion of "a new thread outside of this Macrium one" for further pursuing hardware issues in greater detail.
     
    Last edited: Oct 21, 2017
  6. waylo

    waylo Registered Member

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    Just as a general FYI, the freestanding "consolidate" utility has been updated. Maybe it's been updated for some time?

    The latest version I just discovered is v7.1.2643. The prior one was 6.1.1450.

    I was trying to consolidate some backup images and for reason I kept getting the error "error - backup set is not complete." Not sure how that was possible, as I was attempting to combine a FULL to the next incremental.

    With the updated utility, I encountered no such error.

    It's available here: http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/utilities/consolidate.exe
     
  7. Stode

    Stode Registered Member

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    It's nice Macrium put "Image Guardian" on the latest commercial version ..
    Only a shame they didn't tell to the public that there already exists an virus which targets Macrium Reflect Images, and attacks the WinPE environment ...
    The virus swaps stuff in there and loads it's own payload along with the Macrium WinPE, when used.

    It screwed up my laptop, where i have v6.x license ...
     
  8. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    Elaborate? Which virus, how did you detect it?
     
  9. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Really?! If true, that's certainly shocking news ... to me at least. Where and how did you discover that?

    In order to load its own stuff "along with the Macrium WinPE", it would need to be incorporated somehow into the WIM image and/or the boot loader created by Macrium's rescue media "wizard" which would seem to imply targeting integral with that part of the Reflect application itself. I can only say that I've noticed no such anomaly and would be very interested in any additional details. Please do follow up with more background on your findings.
     
  10. Rainwalker

    Rainwalker Registered Member

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    Whato_O Yes, please do follow up.
     
  11. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    C'mon, Stode... you can't make a claim like that without a follow-up. Where's the documentation?
     
  12. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    I know you are all tired of me asking this but one last time, I hope.
    I have ONLY done full Images and, although I hate the file size issues and time it takes, I like being able to go back to any date.

    I was thinking of starting to use a diff, but if I am not mistaken, you can not go back in time. You can only restore the last diff.

    So, there is the INC. Well, if I do a full image and then 6 INC's can I point to perhaps the 3rd INC and recover from there?

    You will understand my concern as Reflect 2614 saved me yesterday as I restored a full image from Oct 10. I am giving it a few days of clean running before trying to track down what happened and I sure hope it was not the 2646 update!
     
  13. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    MPSAN,

    If you had created a full image 100 days ago and a diff every day in the last 100 days you would be able to restore to any day in the last 100 days. A diff restore only requires two files. The relevant diff and the full image.
     
  14. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Well, since there is only the full and 100 days of an increasing DIFF, does a diff restore ask me for the date I want to go back to?
     
  15. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Sort of. You choose the date you want to go back to. The same as if you had 100 full images.
     
  16. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Well...I will have to try that. I thought that since there was only 1 growing DIFF that it would only have the current data (along with the full image of course).
     
  17. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    The diff does grow but I find it takes over 3 weeks to reach 10% the size of a full image. I usually create another full image every 2 weeks or so and start a new series of diffs. You can keep the old series for as long as you like. Or delete any diffs you don't want.

    Let's say you went on a 10 day holiday and your computer created a diff every day (scheduled) while you were away. On returning you could delete the 9 irrelevant diffs and keep the one from yesterday.
     
  18. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Actually you can do the same thing with incrementals. You just have to keep the whole chain
     
  19. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    It depends on what you mean by "1 growing DIFF". Perhaps some of your confusion arises from Reflect's provisions for managing backup images within backup sets. Individual backup images of any type do not "grow" as such. In fact, each one of them individually remains totally unchanged by any other subsequent backup regardless of its type. Of course, the more backups you create the more space they will take on the destination drive. So, in handling backup sets, Reflect provides some options and even a standalone utility (see here) for consolidating incremental backups with full backups within the same set thus reducing the total amount of space required.

    Entirely apart from backup set management, you can create as many backup images of any type as you wish as often as you wish and restore any of them selectively, not just the most recent. In the case of differential backup images, each of them will store all of the changes that have been made to the imaged file system since the last full backup image. In the case of incremental backups, each of them will only store file system changes since the last image of whatever type, either full, differential or incremental. This KB article fully explains both differential and incremental backups. If some particular in that very detailed KB explanation is unclear to you, please specify what it is.
     
  20. normanbg

    normanbg Registered Member

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    Occasionally a file appears in my target directory called 'backup_running'; it has 0 bytes. I cannot delete it within Windows but it disappears as soon as I open MR.
    That file occurs only when a full backup is launched (I do plenty of incrementals and differentials, but they have never exhibited this problem), and only in about 5-10% of the cases. When they do happen, the machine (unattended) indicates it has rebooted at the time the full backup was scheduled to begin, and the scheduled backup then proceeds normally, generating a normal log. The Windows error message lists the 'Problem Event Name' as 'BlueScreen'.
    This behaviour began after I upgraded from version 7.0 to 7.1.2619, and did not go away when I updated to 2638; both CBT and MIG are enabled from the install.
    Operating system: Win7 x64
    Has anyone here come across something similar?

    Norman
     
  21. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    That file appears in my target directory during creation of backup image (full, diff and inc, if I'm not mistaken). In your case it might stay there if backup process was interrupted (blues creen or system shutdown). After MR is launched it probably removes those files if no backup is running.
     
  22. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    When Reflect begins a backup operation, it creates and locks the zero-byte ''backup_running" flag file in the backup destination folder and it should remove that file upon completion of that backup operation. The purpose of the flag file is to prevent multiple PC's backing up to the same folder and causing problems with retention rules, consolidation and .tmp file deletion. If an existing locked flag file is found in the backup destination folder (which could happen if the operation is interrupted) then a backup cannot proceed. If so, it should be cleared automatically the next time Reflect is launched.

    All of that is normal behaviour and, in itself, seems unlikely to be the cause of a "blue screen" error unless some other problem occurred with the Reflect update from v7.0 to v7.1. Probably the quickest and easiest solution would be simply uninstalling Reflect and reinstalling it by using the download agent (see this KB article) to get the full setup executable the current version. You can keep all of your current task definitions in place while doing that.
     
  23. normanbg

    normanbg Registered Member

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    Sure, sorry about that. My backups normally run unattended, so I didn't notice. But my problem is not in the creation of the 'backup_running' flag but in the reason it is not removed automatically: the forced reboot at the start of the backup.
    I'll try an uninstall/reinstall as you suggest, but its effect will take some time to determine because of the highly intermittent nature of the problem (5-10% of the full backups, and I do one a day).
    I will post back as soon as there is something definite.
    Thank you both for your quick reply.

    Norman
     
  24. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Understood. As you say, it may take some time to determine whether uninstalling/reinstalling overcomes the problem completely, but it will certainly do no harm to try that as a reasonable step for eliminating at least some possibilities, especially since the issue apparently arose following a version upgrade process. The other possibility based on what you've said would be a problem with one or more of the existing task scheduler entries for unattended operations. You could try removing and recreating those first if you feel that would be easier and/or more likely to resolve the issue.
     
  25. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello,

    FYI: This is to inform users of HitmanPro.Alert 3.7.0 build 720 BETA along with Macrium Reflect 7.1.2646 (UEFI) about a possible BSOD scenario when booting into the Recovery Environment using the Boot Menu Option.
    For more information see post # 659 in this thread: HitmanPro.Alert BETA.
     
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