Macrium Reflect Features

Dear TheMozart,

It is a long story and Nick is a generous man!

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR, there is a law called Sowing and Reaping. Those who are generous and giving, asking for nothing in return, are usually rewarded from different places. And you KOR are a generous man.

I am happy for you KOR, you got a great product. If it wasn't so expensive, I would buy the full version too.

 

That is good news, I am just puzzled as to how my information about Nick help you in this scenario?

 

Thanks for the info. What was the backup media used and type of connection?

 

I took advantage of the BitsduJour deal yesterday and purchased my first copy of Reflect Pro. Considering weaning myself off BESR2010.

I recall when I tested Reflect, I had a good experience. The reason I chose to stick with BESR was due to the way Reflect handles backup to a second destination. BESR will manage the second destination the same way it manages the primary. That means if I have it set to keep x number of full/incrementals, BESR keeps the same on both the primary and secondary destination.

Reflect does/did NOT behave the same when I tested it 6 months back. Reflect does write to the second destination but does not handle management of backup sets (for deletion purposes).

I read through the release notes and it doesn't appear this behavior has been modified. I did mention it to Nick Sills 6 months ago and he thought it was a good feature request. Maybe they'll one day implement it...

Now that I'm a customer, I suppose I should bring this up in their user forums.

 

The backup was made to a seagate 500GB external hard drive connected via USB2 cable.

 

But was the port USB2? Kidding. Thanks for your reply. Good info.

 

Let's say I create a backup using Macrium Free of all my partitions, e.g, SYSTEM, C: and D: and E: etc.

Then let's say I remove SYSTEM partition and now W7 won't boot. Can I use Macrium to restore images which RECREATE the missing partitions?

I was thinking about removing SYSTEM and merging it with C:, as there is an apparent "hack" to enable doing so. But if I mess up, how can I get SYSTEM Partition back again and restore data on it again? Because otherwise I may have to start from scratch again and install W7 from the W7 CDs which will be a huge pain to do as I would have to start ALL OVER AGAIN setting up W7.

 

Welcome my friend.

 

Dear Friend,

The hack I gave you is real easy but sounds complicated.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR,

I can't find your post. Which hack did your recommend?

 

Dearest Brian K,

It was in a PM to him. The one from the Terabyte to get rid of the 100-200mb, "System Reserve Partition", the one you gave it to me.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR, was it this link I should follow?

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

And once the SYSTEM Partition is removed, do I then MERGE it into C: somehow?

And if worse comes to worse and I need to install W7 from scratch, can I then restore macrium images to new partitions, or will it fail like Paragon once did for me and say, "UNABLE TO RESTORE, PARTITION DIFFERENT FROM SOURCE:?

BTW KOR, interestingly, I already have boot menu on my C: and bootmgr. So does that mean I don't need to copy anything across from SYSTEM?

And do I need to use DISKPART FIRST and UNHIDE the partition before I begin following the steps?

 

@TheMozart
The more I think about it the more I think you were just joking around when you talked about wondering how much less time it would be to take an incremental image when the full image only takes you ten minutes. But, just for the heck of it, here are my numbers on my first full image...

Imaging 5 partitions totalling just over 440GB of used space;
Low priority setting;
Highest compression rate setting;
Time includes a full verification;

1hr25m elapsed time
The image file was 317GB

Note that this is the total time per the log. I did not time the process and the only two times which show up in the log are the start time and the total elapsed time. I would like to see more time stamps throughout the log as various processes complete, but they layout of the log is very nice.

Same settings with Acronis, from memory, normally took around two hours.

I performed an incremental backup about four hours later, same settings, and it took 3 minutes.

EDIT:
Oh, I should mention that my images are written to a Linux box masquerading as a NAS device.

 

HELP KOR:

I get this message when following instructions:

C:\Windows\system32>robocopy h:\ c:\ bootmgr

-------------------------------------------------------------------
ROBOCOPY :: Robust File Copy for Windows

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Started : Wed Jun 06 19:45:56 2012

Source : h:\
Dest : c:\

Files : bootmgr

Options : /COPY: DAT /R:1000000 /W:30

-------------------------------------------------------------------

1 h:\
Newer 383786 bootmgr
2012/06/06 19:45:56 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Copying File h:\bootmgr
Access is denied.
Waiting 30 seconds... Retrying...
Newer 383786 bootmgr
2012/06/06 19:46:26 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Copying File h:\bootmgr
Access is denied.
Waiting 30 seconds...



C:\Windows\system32>robocopy h:\Boot C:\Boot /s

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROBOCOPY :: Robust File Copy for Windows

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Started : Wed Jun 06 19:53:16 2012

Source : h:\Boot\
Dest : C:\Boot\

Files : *.*

Options : *.* /S /COPY: DAT /R:1000000 /W:30

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

6 h:\Boot\
*EXTRA Dir -1 C:\Boot\macrium\
*EXTRA File 1024 bootfix.bin
*EXTRA File 4096 etfsboot.com
*EXTRA File 288 reflect.cfg
100% Newer 36864 BCD
100% Newer 33792 BCD.LOG
100% Newer 0 BCD.LOG1
100% Newer 0 BCD.LOG2
100% Newer 65536 BOOTSTAT.DAT
Newer 485760 memtest.exe
2012/06/06 19:53:17 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Copying File h:\Boot\memtest.exe
Access is denied.
Waiting 30 seconds... Retrying...
Newer 485760 memtest.exe
2012/06/06 19:53:47 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Copying File h:\Boot\memtest.exe
Access is denied.
Waiting 30 seconds...


SOME PLEASE HELP ME... IM WORRIED TO REBOOT NOW!! WHAT CAN I DO?

And will this mess up my EasyBCD BOOT MENU TOO?

 

Did you give the 100-200mb "System Reserve Partition" a drive letter "H"?

Did you unhide it?

Did you open the Command Prompt as "Administrator"?

 

Also did you run...

reg unload HKLM\BCD00000000

 

I took a deep breath and rebooted and it works. Pheeeew!

I think the reason I got the error messages was because the files already existed on C: for some reason in addition to the SYSTEM Partition.

So I proceeded to make C: ACTIVE etc and then deleted SYSTEM.

But I have a question... When I now load Disk Management, It now says I have "200MB UNALLOCATED". So what do I now do with this "200MB UNALLOCATED"? Just ignore it?

And will I not be able to now restore Macrium Images that I created before I removed SYSTEM? Because the Macrium Images contain SYSTEM + C and I suppose C: has changed?

 

Delete it. And, if want to re-size it with C. No longer need.

After this, please post a new image of your drive from "Disk Management".

So that, after that, you need to delete two more and re-size, this is the next step.

 

I have NO IDEA what you just said KOR! What do you mean, "if want to re-size it with C. No longer need."? And what does, "So that, after that, you need to delete two more and re-size, this is the next step." mean?

I did DELETE IT and it now shows up as UNALLOCATED. Even in Macrium it shows up as a 200MB GREYED OUT partition.

So what I do?

 

If you want to, you can re-size your C to include this partition.

Download any "Partition Manger" and you can do this.

Best regards,

KOR!

P.S. After that, make a new screen shot of your "Drive Management", like you did earlier.

Also, maybe you can re-size from "Drive Management" by "Extend Volume" on C. Right click on C in "Drive Management" and you will see the menu. If "Extend Volume" is not greyed out, you can do it there.

 

The best "Partition Manager" I like is "Acronis Disk Director". You can download it and use it as "TRAIL".

Download this, as you will need it what we are doing.

 

I tried Easus Partition Manager, FREE version but it cant merge the * with C:

Are you sure "Acronis Disk Director can?

 

Why it can't?

Schedule a CHKDSK on C, reboot and let the CHKDSK run and try again.

 

Are you under Shadow Mode, while you doing all this?

If you are you are heading for big troubles?