An Experience with windows backup

Good to know for those who use it, or might

 

If not for the near archaic reputation but always dependable, Drive Snapshot's successful results (long ago), there is no doubt this user would have tried swimming in those waters (Windows backup feature). Thank goodness some of us steered clear from it altogether.

 

I am impressed that they nailed the problem.
I always had problems with Windows backup and the target drive. Most of the time, my secondary drives were not valid for Windows backup. I could never figure out why?

 

Many years ago I used Windows backup and had a USB problem on the OS so went to restore, and because it was on an external drive it wouldn't. I handed it over to a computer store, and they couldn't do anything. It was one of those situations with the OS being a nightmare to recreate due to years of use and multimedia programs.

With extensive research I found that Macrium Reflect was quite happy to use Windows Back up images, and it restored without issues.

I never trusted Windows backup again.

 

XenMan,

Are you saying Macrium Reflect can restore an image created by Windows Imaging? Or did I misunderstand?

 

I'd say a misunderstanding. But I'll wait for XenMan.

 

With Win7 you couldn't move the Windows Imaging backup to another partition as the recovery environment couldn't find it. With Win10 you can move the backup folder (WindowsImageBackup) to another partition, but it must be put in the root. The recovery environment finds it automatically. If WindowsImageBackup is not in the root you can't find it.

 

i use Windows Backup since ages, never failed a restore, sure it is slow, but reliable, even famous 3rd party backup softs failed me at least once, not WB.
it is why when i clean install and finish set up my system, i do 2 backup , one with Macrium (for speed) and one with WB (because i know it won't fail me).

 

guest,

Are you using it on MBR or UEFI systems? It works on both. Today in testing a UEFI system, Windows Imaging identified a Data partition as a System partition and the partition couldn't be deselected in the backup. I had to change the Partition Type of the Data partition in the UEFI firmware (to hide it from Windows) so I could only image the relevant OS partitions.

 

@Peter2150 UEFI
It may happen, just reboot until it is deselected.

 

I did it.

 

Interesting. Current Macrium can't see a Windows Image. It only sees Macrium images.

 

Still there after a few reboots.

 

When this bug happen, if multiple reboots fail, I reorganize my partitions, deleting the old ones and creating new ones.

 

I have 200 GB of data in that partition. It would take a long time to backup that partition and delete it and then restore it. My fix of changing the Partition Type so the partition was hidden from Windows took a few seconds.

After the backup has completed, the Partition Type can be changed back again. Another few seconds.

 

Understood re external HD.

I'm just in the process of restoring a Window Image (UEFI system) to a new blank HD. Error... "Imaging failed. No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found". The WindowsImageBackup folder is on a second internal HD and is found in the wizard.

I've a good idea how to fix this.

 

Well that is bad on numerous levels. Firstly, I must be getting old, my stories are becoming redundant.

Also I have some old Windows image files in my collection for some devices.

 

A new blank HD is a MBR disk. It seems Windows Imaging requires a GPT disk. The MBR disk was converted to a GPT disk and the 4 Win 10 partitions were restored in the same order as the original HD. The MSR that was created by converting the disk to GPT was deleted and the old MSR was restored.

 

Do you have to initialize a brand new disk, or does restore work even without?

 

I was restoring to a computer without an OS so the disk couldn't be initialized conventionally. Certainly it could be initialized in another computer but that is too much work. Use Diskpart in the WinPE to "Convert to GPT."

As I mentioned above, a brand new disk is a MBR disk.

 

Convert to GPT = initialize?
Pardon my ignorance, but I never understood what initializing a disk does...

 

Initialize a MBR disk is writing Boot Code and a Disk Signature to LBA 0. Standby and I'll check what happens with GPT initialize.