Macrium Reflect

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

  1. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Switching to MBR and therefore Legacy BIOS booting means you can't use UEFI Secure Boot, which is a nice anti-rootkit protection mechanism. And MBR disks only allow 4 primary partitions; having more partitions requires creating an "extended partition" and then having logical volumes in it. And MBR can't be used for disks larger than 4TB, at least not if you want to be able to use the full capacity of the disk. (I'm ignoring an ugly hack implemented on some old USB enclosures that allowed >4TB disks in MBR specifically to allow such disks to be used with Windows XP.)

    Additionally, it seems that as of recent Windows 10 feature releases, if Windows 10 is set up for Legacy BIOS booting but detects that your system is capable of booting in UEFI mode, it will force you to convert to GPT and therefore UEFI booting. The only way around this is to have a system that allows you to enable ONLY Legacy BIOS mode, i.e. disable UEFI completely. But some systems only allow you to enable Legacy support alongside UEFI by enabling Legacy Option ROMs (aka UEFI CSM). If that's your system, you might find yourself forced to convert back to GPT/UEFI boot on the next Win10 feature release before Windows will allow you to install it.

    Giving up on a security feature like UEFI Secure Boot just to look at a different logo for the 1-3 seconds that your system displays it seems foolish -- particularly as you're asking on a security forum ;) -- but if you really want to do it, Macrium has this guide for how to perform a custom restore of a GPT disk onto an MBR disk, including making the necessary changes to allow it to boot in BIOS mode.

    But honestly, just set your desktop background to the Microsoft logo if you really like looking at it. Then you can see it even more and still get to keep UEFI Secure Boot.

    But in terms of your later question about restoring, if you do that custom restore and then later on run a regular restore of a backup that was captured while your disk was GPT, then your restored disk will be GPT. If you restore a disk from a backup that was made while it was MBR, then it will be MBR after the restore. The only exception would be if you performed a custom restore by dragging and dropping specific source partitions onto specific destination partitions (or pockets of free space) in which case Reflect will restore only those partitions without changing the entire disk layout scheme.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2020
  2. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    Ha ha.

    What partition did you use as boot partition, the old efi?

    Someone on another forum speculated that the boot logo may have to do with the licens. OEM=manufacturer logo, Retail=W10. Any thoughts or experiences on that?
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2020
  3. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I selected the OS partition... an EFI partiton is not used at all when using Legacy-MBR. A System Reserved partition may be used (happens when a fresh build is done on a blank MBR disk) but that's usually just a placeholder (very small at 16mB) during a fresh UEFI-Gpt build so I never use it when doing this type of conversion. Having just the OS partition as the BOOT partition is the way M$ used to build W07 years ago. They added the System Reserved partition along the way to separate some of the important BOOTing information from the OS partition, just in case the OS partition got dmagaed along the way (virus?).

    When you are using W10, any version, with UEFI BOOT & Secure BOOT, Microsloth requires that OEMs place their screen logo into their BiOS chips for extraction by Microsoft when booting. That's why you see the OEM logo rather than the W10 logo. You can change that using the hack mentioned above (one you had trouble understanding) but if you do, you cannot run Secure Boot anymore... all protection features implemented by M$ Secure Boot.
     
  4. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    This conversion business is more work then using hackbgrt so i will leave it. And who knows what Ms want to do with the Os regarding partitions in the future. Hackbgrt is simpler to do then i thought, after actually have read and understand it :D.

    What you say, in effect, means that retail should boot with W10 logo!?
     
  5. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I'm not sure what you mean by RETAIL... if you're UEFI W10 System (any version) is set to BOOT with the "Secure BOOT" feature enabled, you will wind up with the OEM's logo from your BiOS hardware. I believe if you use Hackbgrt to change that (to get the W10 logo), your System will not BOOT until Secure BOOT is turned off (UEFI-Gpt is fine just no "Secure BOOT" option enabled in your BiOS SETUP).
     
  6. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    What i meant was anything else then OEM.
    Now i`ve got the boot logo i want anyway. Thanks for the attention and thereby the inspiration.

    Naked in church, what a bizarr idè. Ha
     
  7. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    I got the OEM logo whether i have secure boot on or off.

    What i wondered was if you know if a bought license instead of a OEM d.o behavs different regarding the logo issue?
    I have a bought one so i am going to test it in the future, sometime, but it would be interesting with your experienced input in the here and now.
     
  8. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I cannot answer that question. Let us know how your test goes...
     
  9. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    You get the OEM logo if your system boots in UEFI mode, which you can do with UEFI Secure Boot on or off. But to get the Microsoft logo, you have to switch to Legacy BIOS booting, which does not allow you to use UEFI Secure Boot.

    The type of Windows license you're running makes absolutely no difference. The licensing information doesn't even come into play at boot time.
     
  10. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Wasn't sure where to post this question, here or start a new thread. I am not having a problem with Macrium, at least not that I am aware of.

    Made a full image yesterday. Did an incremental this morning, everything seemed normal, 700 mb in size. Did another incremental several hours later, 6.7 gb! Can't figure out why that incremental was so big. No Win10 updates came thru, no Office updates, nothing that I know of.

    Out of curiosity I started fresh with another full image. It was the same size as the full image I did yesterday, no extra 6 gb. What was that 6gb incremental all about earlier?
    Thanks all, Acadia
     
  11. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Check the partition maps of each backup to see if there's actually more data there. The partition map is displayed by going to the Restore tab and selecting the backup whose map you want to see, at which point it's shown at the top of the Restore area. Within each partition, the upper figure is the space used, and the lower figure is partition size. Does the second Incremental show more space used? If not, some application may have shifted data blocks around within the partition, causing Reflect to see a lot of changes. If you DO see a lot more usage, then mount the first and second Incrementals together and use a folder comparison tool to compare their contents. I use the free WinMerge for this purpose.
     
  12. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Thanks, jphughan. Did not bother to check all that because I thought to look at the Optimize app. Looks like Windows10 2004 did an optimize about 1/2 hour after my backup completed. I am going to assume that optimizing caused it and everything is working.
    Thanks again, Acadia
     
  13. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

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    Yup, 'optimizing' a hard disk moves blocks, so Macrium has to take them into account. Same with an SSD, Trimming 'zeros' the erased blocks to reset them & subsequent backups will be larger if you have 'cleaned' out a number of large files.
     
  14. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Wayne, this is not the case. OPTIMIZATION of an SSD only changes the state (within the SSD) of UNUSED blocks on the disk. Since normal backups only process USED blocks, the structure of a SSD following OPTIMIZATION will change very little, if at all.
     
  15. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Hmmm, now that's curious. My C: Drive is a SSD. But everything seems to be working. Just one of those mysteries.
    Acadia
     
  16. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I think everything should be working... :cool:
     
  17. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    So i did the test. The boot screen was not different with a bought licens, it still showed the manufacturer. Furthermore, when updating windows with the latest updates the boot screen created with HackGBRT vanished.

    That means that i have to redo it every time Windows updates, but that is a small price for having the boot screen i want to see.

    Anyway, as i said before, thanks for the inspiration.
     
  18. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Since you mentioned you have an HP system, did you ever look at this guide? Even if you don't have an EliteBook, you might find that you have the same option described in the guide available on your system, in which case this should be persistent even across Windows updates since it's being accepted at a firmware level.
     
  19. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    Yes i did.
    Unfortunatily it did not apply to my Pc.

    But i am satisfied now. The HackGBRT fix takes only a couple of minutes to execute so it is not a big deal to repeat that action.

    Thanks anyway.
     
  20. camelia

    camelia Registered Member

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    Hello,

    I have some questions about the Macrium Rescue Media Builder

    Windows Home 10 v2004
    Macrium Latest

    A) If I select Windows RE, Macrium doesn't download anything from their servers, but if select Windows PE 10(WADK) it will download from Microsoft if I not browse for the pe10_1709x64.zip

    What is the difference between making a Rescue Media using WIndows RE VS Windows PE 10(WADK)?

    B) Can someone provide me with an example about when you will need a Custom base WIM?

    Thanks
    Camelia

    Windows_Pe_10_WADK.jpg 02 Macrium_Rescue_Media_Bulder.jpg
    Custom basw WIM.png
     
  21. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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  22. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    @camelia - in a nutshell, a WinRE build already exists on your System due to what's done when Windows was installed on your System, no download required. It is populated with all the drivers your System was built with, incl. wireless, if needed... basically a WinPE already customized for you System. Windows builds it to provide you with a RECOVERY media used in case Windows itself needs some help in getting it fixed.

    The WinPE is also a basic pre-installation System but must be built from building blocks provided by Microsoft... thus the download. Once built, it is then populated with required options (drivers, etc.) that are required for your System as well as Macrium Reflect as well... its basically a fresh, basic creation for your System as well as being somewhat flexible in other use areas.

    A CUSTOM WIM can be used if you have one. This a a case where a user has already created a custom WinPE environment for other uses such as a diagnostic or tool build. If someone has such a configuration, REFLECT may be added to that custom pre-built environment as an add-on for that purpose.

    For your System exclusively, a Macrium WinRE build would be best for use, although a little bit larger than the WinPE option would create.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
  23. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    It seems that @paulderdash has already given me an assist here by linking an earlier post of mine. Thanks! :)

    A custom WIM isn't something the average user would ever use. Some enterprises build custom boot images that contain additional scripts or tools they might want to have available in their environments. In that case, you can tell Reflect to use that as its baseline, rather than a default WinPE/RE build, and Reflect will build Rescue Media on top of that. The end result will be Rescue Media that also includes those other scripts, tools, etc. You might have noticed that Reflect only has one version geared at individual users (Home), and multiple editions geared at businesses (Workstation, Server, Server Plus, Agent), plus special licensing arrangements, support agreements, and site management capabilities. So some of Reflect's capabilities are geared more toward that market. Basically, if you don't know what a WIM file is, there's no chance you'd need that option. And even if you do know, the odds are a bit slim.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
  24. korben

    korben Registered Member

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    I have just made an image on my wife's new laptop - I cannot see the Boot Menu though - only black blackness which works when I try to go down and choose the Macrium boot option.

    What's wrong?

    W 10 1809, Latest Macrium Free
     
  25. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Sounds like a problem with Windows Boot Manager itself. Reflect doesn't generate that interface; it just adds an entry to the Windows BCD, which causes Windows Boot Manager to appear since there is now more than one entry rather than just the default Windows 10 BCD entry. But you can try working around it by switching from the "modern" interface back to legacy. Instructions here. The legacy interface is simpler and also does not suppose mouse or touch input if that matters to you.
     
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