Macrium Reflect

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

  1. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    A friend of mine used the Acronis BootCD program for PC backup for several years.
    Now he bought a notebook Asus zenbook UX425EA and has big problems with backup: all programs refused to backup this laptop!
    I advised him the Macrium program. He created MacriumRescue.iso WinPE10 (Free) ver. 7.3.5854, but the flash drive with Macrium still (like Acronis BootCD) does not see nvme ssd !!
    I advised him to create MacriumRescue.iso WinRE.
    Now the program detects nvme ssd and he made a backup of his laptop!
    However, he is unhappy because he wanted to use MacriumRescue.iso WinPE10
    What advice can you give?
    Perhaps his problem stemmed from Thunderbolt 4 with display / power support, USB Type-C standard?
    Notebook Asus zenbook UX425EA.
    1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
    2x Thunderbolt 4 with display / power support, USB Type-C
    https://b.radikal.ru/b03/2105/09/edf08c287ec6.jpg
    How do I add Thunderbolt driver support to Macrium?
    Perhaps there is an up-to-date Macrium driver pack to add to WinPE10?
    You can also add drivers for the card reader to this driver pack, as in this post
    https://forum.macrium.com/45598/Restore-from-SD
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: May 24, 2021
  2. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Is this NVMe SSD connected through a Thunderbolt enclosure? If not, then I'm not sure why you're looking at Thunderbolt drivers. If the problem is instead that the internal storage is not detected, then if the system is set to RAID mode in the BIOS rather than AHCI mode, the issue is likely that the WinPE 10 build doesn't have the appropriate Intel Rapid Storage driver installed. You could try having him check the WinRE build's \Driver\Disk folder to see if there are any folders in there. If so, copy them to the WinPE 10 build's \Drivers\Disk folder and see if that resolves it. If it does, then you can copy that folder into the Rescue Media build folder on your system so that all future Rescue Media builds will always include that driver. You can even do that for drivers that aren't relevant to the system where you're building Rescue Media in case you want to use one PC to build Rescue Media that will be usable by multiple PCs.

    If there's no difference in the Drivers folders of those two builds, then it does sound like the WinRE build has some native drivers that aren't available on WinPE 10. Out of curiosity, why does your friend want to use WinPE rather than WinRE if WinRE works, especially if WinPE 10 doesn't?

    The other option would be to switch your system to AHCI mode, which will work unless your friend is actually using an actual RAID setup or Intel Optane storage. But switching from RAID to AHCI on an existing Windows installation requires some work to get your system to keep booting. Normally that change is only made before reinstalling Windows. But there are guides for how to switch from RAID to AHCI in-place.
     
  3. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    To be honest, I've read a few of your posts, like this one:

    "... Otherwise, WinRE is pretty much all risk and no reward. The problem with WinRE is that it gets updated whenever you update your full Windows environment, and Microsoft has a particularly poor release quality track record these days ..."
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/macrium-reflect.356309/page-333#post-2937321
    ... Then I convinced my friend that WinPE10 is cool and WinRE sucks. :cool:
    By the way, one more question:
    My HONOR laptop has an NVMe SSD and a UEFI only motherboard. I am using MacriumRescue.iso (WinPE10_1709) on an external DVD.
    If I make a separate backup of Windows System Partitions (100Mb + 16Mb + 500Mb + 1Gb + 10Gb Recovery Partition) in sector ("raw") copy mode.
    Then I will make a full backup of the entire System(120Gb + System Partitions) in "smart" copying mode.
    I save all backup files to my WD Black external hard drive.
    Is this 100% insurance?
    For example, if I completely wipe all partitions of my NVMe SSD, will I be able to recover all the partitions from the backed up copy 100%?
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2021
  4. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Well in fairness, whatever WORKS is cool, and whatever doesn't sucks. I've just found that WinPE 10 can be the safer and more reliable choice. But if your friend is having the opposite experience, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with using WinRE as long as it continues to work as expected even as Windows 10 feature updates get installed.

    In terms of your question, I'm not sure why you're backing up just the Windows System Partitions (except your C partition) as a separate backup, or why you're using raw/forensic mode for that job. If you'll also be making a backup that will include all partitions on your disk, then those other partitions will be included in that "whole disk" backup. Even if you have all of your partitions in a single backup, that does NOT mean you always have to RESTORE all of them. For example, if you have a "whole disk" backup and then somehow only your 100 MB EFI partition gets corrupted, you can choose to restore from that "whole disk" backup but configure the job to restore ONLY that small partition from the backup. That way the other partitions in the backup will NOT be restored, and therefore any other existing partitions on the target disk will be left as they are. So I don't understand what you're hoping to achieve by backing up just the "extra" partitions separately, especially in forensic mode.

    There's no such thing as 100% insurance, but the biggest risk I see in your setup is that you're saving all backups to a single external drive. If you want a more robust backup strategy, store backups in more than one location so that corruption/failure on a single drive doesn't destroy all of your backups. That would be much more valuable than the separate backup jobs you're considering right now.
     
  5. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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  6. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    You hit the bull's eye!
    The problem is that there is no Intel Rapid Storage driver in WinPE .. although why can't Microsoft add this driver if it affects the System boot ?? My friend read your post, downloaded this driver, https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...el-Optane-Memory-10th-and-11th-Gen-Platforms-
    used your advice and it worked! We both thank you!
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2021
  7. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v8/v8.0.5928/details8.0.5928.htm
    When I wrote about this here on the forum earlier, I was told that I was wrong and my reason was in the scaling of the screen.
    See a fix for several issues mentioned in this forum, thanks to the developers and beta-testers for reading this forumI.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2021
  8. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    This doesn't fix the column width issue I posted about on the Scheduled Backups tab and I was not having any other issues that I noticed. I'm happy for any updates they release and this is a minor cosmetic issue but it still persists.
     
  9. Rainwalker

    Rainwalker Registered Member

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    The issue I and others are having concerning failure to shutdown computer at completion of backup is not fixed o_Oo_Oo_O
     
  10. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    I agree, the size of the "Edit Comment ..." window is also not saved.

    I ask beta testers to check, maybe I'm wrong, when uninstalling Reflect, the driver files mrcbt.sys mrigflt.sys (C: \ Windows \ System32 \ drivers \) are not deleted. When installing a different version, the old drivers are simply renamed :oops:
     
  11. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Looks like they are appending an underscore to the end? I am seeing this also. Now that you pointed it out. :D
     
  12. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Microsoft does have an Intel Rapid Storage driver in WinPE. But newer generations of Rapid Storage controllers sometimes need newer driver versions. It's possible that the system you have requires a newer version of the driver than was built into WinPE 10 1709, which after all is over 3 years old at this point. Glad to hear you got it sorted though. :)
     
  13. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    What I said was that the comparison images you posted suggested a scale difference that did not match what I was seeing when running V8 and V7 side-by-side using the same display settings. So yes, that did prompt me to suggest that scaling might account for your difference, because I was unable to reproduce anything close to what you were seeing in an apples-to-apples comparison. But if you go back and look at my own side-by-side comparison, it is true that V8 seemed to use a slightly thinner and very slightly smaller font. I did not see that as a significant difference, but apparently it was. Although considering that people are more likely to post on a forum with a complaint/issue than to say, "Everything looks good," I'm curious what percentage of the user base felt that the original V8 presentation was noticeably worse than V7. Still, Macrium responded quickly as they typically do, and it seems even more font customization options will be forthcoming.

    I'm pretty sure this came up on the Macrium forums a while ago, long before the V8 beta, and Macrium's response was that this was deliberate in order to avoid a blue screen issue that could occur in some restore scenario if the files were completely deleted. But I can't remember the details anymore. The fact that you only noticed something as of V8 does not mean it is new for V8. :) And now that V8 has gone into production, there isn't a V8 beta anymore.
     
  14. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

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    New v8 Macrium release today:
    upload_2021-5-25_17-25-45.png
     
  15. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    There are still many small fonts available, I hope Macrium will fix this.
    My knowledge is so little that I can't even guess which WinPE recovery scenario might need drivers installed on a live system. It looks more like an oversight.
    The former beta testers remain, and they have a connection with the development team.
     
  16. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    No, the problem scenario involved booting the Windows environment that no longer had those drivers available. That could cause the system to blue screen. It had nothing to do with the WinPE environment performing the restore itself, but rather booting the environment you had restored. But again, I don't remember the exact problem case that Macrium described that was avoided by keeping those files around afterward

    Of course those beta testers remain. And they have been instructed to report any future issues in the normal sections of the forum, just like everybody else.
     
  17. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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  18. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    It's kind of messy. Install three different versions of Reflect one by one and get
    mrigflt.sys
    mrigflt.sys_
    mrigflt.sys__
    mrcbt.sys
    mrcbt.sys_
    mrcbt.sys__
    The C:\Program Files\Macrium folder is also not deleted during uninstallation.
     
  19. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    Unfortunately, WinPE10, and even its latest version WinPE10_2004, does not contain a complete set of drivers that are required for a backup...:(
    Perhaps you have your own Driver-Pack that contains the missing drivers?
    I mean these drivers, https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...el-Optane-Memory-10th-and-11th-Gen-Platforms-
    and also this post of yours https://forum.macrium.com/45598/Restore-from-SD?PageIndex=1 Perhaps any drivers should be added as well? If you do not have such a Driver-Pack, then perhaps you can make one?
    I think Macrium will then have a big competitive advantage over other backup software!
    I am asking you this question because who, if not you, will make Driver-Pack the best?
    If there are licensing restrictions, perhaps you will write detailed instructions so that the user can make a personal Driver-Pack, "at your own peril and risk"?
    Thank you!
     
  20. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    The Windows Recovery partition can be customized on each system, including having additional drivers relevant to your system injected into it. This is BEFORE Reflect even touches it. So that could be why Rescue Media builds based on WinRE have drivers that are useful for your system built in even if those drivers are missing from newer WinPE 10 releases.

    In terms of creating a driver pack though, I don't think that would be feasible, and even if it were, it could become quite large and would be mostly bloat for a large chunk of users. Reflect already supposed to examine your own system to add any additional drivers that are necessary for that system. I'm not sure exactly why that isn't working in this case, although the Intel RST driver can be challenging. Intel has reused the same PCI DEV ID for multiple generations of RST controllers, so that can cause older RST drivers to be considered valid for newer controllers even though those older drivers won't actually work properly. So that strange choice on Intel's part might be causing Reflect to determine that the built-in RST driver is suitable for your system's RST controller. However, Reflect also recently introduced a way to deal with this, in fact this new feature was my own suggestion to the Macrium team a while ago, and it was finally implemented. If you open Rescue Media Builder and click Advanced > Devices & Drivers, select the Intel RST controller, and click Update Driver > Use host driver. That will force Rescue Media Builder to pull the RST driver out of your Windows environment rather than relying on the one built into WinPE.

    If for some reason that doesn't work here, the manual way to add drivers would be to go to C:\boot\macrium, then open the Drivers folder for the WinPE/RE Rescue build you want to customize. In there you'll find a few more subfolders for various device types. Inside any of those subfolders, you can create a new subfolder with any name you want, like IntelRST, and then copy the necessary driver files into that new subfolder. From that point on, Reflect will include those drivers in any future Rescue Media builds that use that WinPE/RE version, even if it doesn't think those drivers are necessary or applicable to your system. In the case of Intel RST, you would want to download the "F6 floppy" version (that's a reference to the old Windows XP Setup days....) since that contains the raw drivers without any installer packaging. Good luck!
     
  21. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    Everything is much simpler ... VMD Intel (R) Rapid Storage Technology Driver is missing in WinPE10_1709 / 1809/1903/2004.
    This driver is also missing in Windows 10...
    However, without this driver, the Windows 10 bootloader does not see the NVMe SSD, so it is impossible to install Windows 10!
    https://www.asus.com/en/support/FAQ/1044458/
    This is a pretty funny situation, especially if you paid $ 1,500 for a new laptop. :D
     
  22. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    The VMD variation of the driver is relatively new in the life of the Intel RST controller history, so I guess the Win10 built-in driver library hasn't caught up. It's a constant game of cat and mouse. But it's not especially unusual to need storage drivers when installing Windows if you've got a brand new system. It happened even more often back when Windows only got major updates every few years rather than every 6 months. For example, Windows 7 has no native support for NVMe or USB 3.x, and since users held onto it a lot longer than expected, needing manually provided drivers to install it onto new systems became pretty common. The USB 3.x issue in particular was a challenge, because on some systems that only had USB 3.x ports, it was possible to boot from a Win7 flash drive in a USB 3.x port since the system firmware controlled the USB interface during boot, but after the system handed USB control over to WinPE 3.1 (Windows 7 Setup), then you would lose USB access since it didn't have built-in support for USB 3.x controllers. So at that point, Windows 7 Setup would be unable to see the flash drive that it had just booted from. The fix was to inject the necessary USB 3.x drivers into the boot.wim file of the Win7 setup media, but that was a bit of a chore. (The NVMe limitation had two possible workarounds. One was to use the RST controller, in which case the NVMe interface was abstracted from the OS, but then you still needed the RST driver. The second option was to get the Windows 7 hotfixes created by Microsoft that added native NVMe support to Windows 7 and inject them into the boot.wim and install.wim files of your install media, but that again was a bit of a hassle, and those hotfixes were never officially offered through Windows Update. They had to be manually downloaded and were advertised as not having the same level of testing and support as regular updates.)

    I'm sure that in a year or so once that system is no longer cutting edge, installing whatever version of Windows 10 is current at that time won't require any manually provided driver. Or like I said, depending on the storage solution you're using, you could just switch the system to AHCI mode instead, which disables the RST controller completely and instead gives the OS direct access to the storage interface, and since Win10 has native support for NVMe, you wouldn't need an additional driver at that point.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2021
  23. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    Ok, sorry for wasting your time, thanks!
     
  24. jimminy

    jimminy Registered Member

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    Yoornk, have you been to minsk tractor factory?
     
  25. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    New version is released: https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v8/v8.0.5942/details8.0.5942.htm

     
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