Macrium Reflect

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

  1. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Well, unless you really need and will actually use those optional "CBT" and "MIG" components, you're not really missing much. Neither the core backup and restore processes nor their file formats have changed at all, and any other "bells and whistles" changes to the user interface are so minor as to be scarcely noticeable. My own "upgrade" from Reflect v6 was prompted more by curiosity than by anything else. I certainly wouldn't be in any great hurry to spend any serious money on it.
     
  2. ArchiveX

    ArchiveX Registered Member

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    Will Macrium Reflect respond to the above situation (after the v1709 ~ Fall Creators Update)? :doubt:
     
  3. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Not sure what you might have in mind as a response to this particular situation, but the impacts on Macrium Reflect aren't any different in this case than in the past. Macrium provided details about those impacts in this forum post regarding a previous Windows 10 update that did the same thing ... and it probably won't be the last time Microsoft follows that WinRE update pattern.
     
  4. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I think what @ArchiveX is looking for is Reflect to not only understand that one of its partitions has changed in size (and therefore must produce another baseline or FULL reference image), but that any of the reference partitions in a UEFI/GPT BOOTing layout has also changed. This can be difficult without some serious work.

    The biggest problem with these major updates (upgrades?) such as the FALL CREATORs UPDATE is that MicroSloth replaces the original Windows RECOVERY partition (not the System RECOVERY partition built by the OEM) with a new one but leaves the old one to rot on your disk. The new one and the old one usually have the same name but are sized differently. How does REFLECT figure out which one is the Windows RECOVERY Partition in use after the update? Even if it could do that, it would have to change the User's DEFINITION file to specify the newer partition layout... this is a no-no. That DEFINITION belongs (and was specified by) to the USER, not REFLECT. The user must make those changes. But even that's difficult because the User sometimes doesn't even know what or where that new Recovery Partition lives on the disk.

    The new Windows Recovery environment has no steadfast rules as to where it's supposed to be and how it's updated. If the one that already exists is large enough for the upgrade, then the upgrade will only "update" the existing partition (no size changes anywhere) and the existing backup DEFINITION will run as usual.

    If it's not large enough for the new additional code, but is located at the end of the disk and has expansion room (unallocated space) following it, the upgrade will just expand it as needed and the existing DEFINITION will run a new baseline due to the Windows Recovery partition changing in size. In this case the required partitions for full recovery don't change... one just gets bigger.

    In the most common scenario, the existing Windows Recovery partition is located somewhere prior to the Windows OS partition ( C:/ ... no space before of after it) or at the end of the disk (following the OS partition) with no space after it. In both cases the partition is too small to accommodate the upgrade so Windows must create a new, larger Recovery Partition. It does this by carving off needed space from the OS partition and putting it there. The problem with this scenario is that now there's a whole new Recovery partition but the REFLECT Definition file does not know that. See paragraph #2 for issues with this scenario.

    The 4th scenario, which I've never tested, is what Windows will do if the disk is fully allocated with useful and useless partitions (which it does not know are useless) and the OS partition is so full that needed space cannot be carved off from the end of that partition. What are Windows options? Does it compress the OS (if uncompressed)... what happens if it's already compressed? Does it DEFRAG the device (SSD or HDD) to try and gain contiguous free space. I have no idea what happens... maybe just a big warning that the upgrade failed... and no real info for the user as to why it did so (this, sometimes, is typical of Windows).

    There was a mention earlier in this thread that, possibly, Windows has learned how to eliminate past "rotten" Recovery Partitions when upgrades are made... it may not solve the problem initially but should help somewhat as time marches on.

    Who knows... maybe Macrium can dig into the upgrade configuration a bit, figure out what the new baseline of partitions is that's required for a successful BOOTing configuration, and, somehow get the User's permission to change the DEFINITION file.

    Some possible solutions...

    Microsoft
    ----------
    1. Go back to a Legacy-MBR partition configuration under UEFI/GPT, basically hosting the Recovery Environment in the OS partition itself. This is in conflict to why they separated it to begin with... a way to troubleshoot a damaged or unBOOTable OS partition.

    2. Create a large enough Recovery Partition to accommodate many updates/upgrades to begin with. How large should that be... 5gB? So far they just keep slightly increasing its size, causing this imaging configuration mess after each upgrade.

    3. Throw out the Windows 10 paradigm of constantly "upgrading" your System one to two times a year (only kidding here :rolleyes: although I have not adopted Win10 in any of my production environments, only in the test environment).

    Macrium
    ---------
    1. When changes are detected in the "defined" configuration, analyze the changed configuration fully to re-examine/determine the needed required partitions for successful BOOTing and inform users through an imaging error (no new FULL taken) as to what's changed and what they need to do (change their DEFINITION) for success. Yea, this is an effort but if MicroSloth continues on its current path, Macrium really needs to help its users in this way.

    Any other ideas from Forum members...?
     
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I've adopted your approach again save for testing. I have Win 7 on my system and the c: drive is only 1 complete partition. Ironically when I do an upgrade to 10 it really simplifies all the partition stuff on Windows 10
     
  6. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Sorry, but I don't quite understand what you are seeing as a Macrium Reflect restore issue. If you are seeing a new additional Widows Recovery partition, that is a direct result of the Windows 10 v1709 update process and it's not due to anything done by Macrium Reflect. That change (or any other such change to the drive's previous partitioning) can, however, affect the validity of any existing Reflect task definitions for creating backup images of that drive. It may therefore require the user to recreate those task definitions in order re-establish their validity for the intended purposes followed by a new full backup based on the revised task definition. A backup image based on the old task definition isn't going to include the new WinRE partition and, depending on the previous drive layout, it may exclude some others as well.

    I suppose one might "blame" all of that on Reflect's use of sequential numeric partition identifiers in its task definitions, but that's just how it works. There are very good and sound reasons for doing it that way and it's highly unlikely that Macrium is going to change to some other method in the foreseeable future.
     
  7. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Likewise for all of my MBR boot drives including my Windows 10 drive until the W10 v1709 update. That one did add its own WinRE partition although it remains as an MBR setup without any MSR partition.
     
  8. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Arvy, after the v1709 upgrade, did the OS partition remain ACTIVE after the addition of the "new" Recovery partition?

    Methinks they may be headed to a combined environment (Recovery + System Reserved) just so they can completely deal with blown ACTIVE BOOTing OS partitions.
     
  9. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    It wouldn't be impossible using reagentc output, but I somehow doubt that Macrium is going to make any such attempt. Their efforts to keep pace with the current MS W10 update cycle seems to be causing more than enough headaches for them as it is.
     
  10. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Yes, the OS "C:" partition remains as "Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)" as before. Only the WinRE partition was added with no assigned "drive letter" except when booted to a WinPE environment. As for MS's future intentions, I won't even hazard a guess about that. Almost anything's possible and consolidation would be nice I guess.

    __
    P.S.: It also replaced the recovery entry in the boot configuration data (BCD) store, but neither the old one nor the new one is included in the boot menu displayed during system start-up. Unless you add it to the displayed menu yourself, it's only available via W10 Settings > Recovery > Advanced Start-Up. Or by using Shift-Restart.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2017
  11. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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  12. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    They're both correct and, in effect, they're identical. They only appear different because the second one uses the graphical capability of newer (post-Windows 7) versions of the Windows boot manager. I suppose it could be said that that Macrium article is slightly behind the times.

    It might be possible able to modify the first text-based menu to use the newer graphical interface by manually adding a "loader_custom" parameter with BCDedit or a visual BCD editor. I wouldn't recommend it, however. It's a risky manoeuver with a serious potential for unintended consequences.
     
  13. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    I want a modern style, but do not want to edit manually. :)
     
  14. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    If it's left up to the MS Windows installation process, the "style" will always be determined by the Windows and boot loader version that it installs. For Windows 7 and earlier, it will be text-based. For later Windows versions, it will be graphical. If multi-booting several Windows versions, they should always be installed in older-to-newer version sequence. Likewise, if repairing the Windows boot set-up (see this explanation for details), one should always use the Windows Recovery version corresponding to the most recent installed Windows version.

    Macrium Reflect's WinPE rescue media includes a "Fix Windows Boot Problems" utility that can also perform the equivalent BDC rebuild and boot repair steps automatically if you want to try that. Once again, however, the WinPE build to be used for that particular purpose should correspond to the installed version of Windows, and it should be booted either BIOS-MBR or UEFI-GPT accordingly.

    __
    P.S.: Personally, I prefer using Linux Grub2 or Grub4DOS to make all of my drives very simply and independently bootable for any OS or WinPE version at all -- and for ISOs and WIMs as well. Its plain text-based boot menus are quite acceptable so far as this "old geezer" is concerned. But that's a whole other story. ;)
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2017
  15. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Well, Reflect was telling you that something had changed the layout "geometry" (order, sizes, etc.) of partitions on that drive since that backup image was created. Windows Disk Management may not have shown it, but Reflect saw it and was therefore warning you that you would be restoring a backup image that did not correspond to the current drive layout. Since you went ahead and restored it anyway, that may now have overwritten those changes -- or maybe not if it wasn't successful. You'd need to look at (and maybe post) Reflect's own display of all partitions on that drive.
     
  16. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    I also have that on my primary machine (hasn't always been the case though, it just changed at some point), but I don't want to fiddle with it: Win 10 Pro x64 v1709 16299.19

    (IIRC The text-based menu gives the option to F8 into Safe Mode, whereas the graphical menu requires the normal Win 10 'jump through hoops' to do same? I may be wrong on this, don't want to reboot right now).
     
  17. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    Win10 > Win7
    Yes, I used WinPE10.
    A good idea, you need to be brave and do an experiment.
    Indeed, this option is in the text menu, also optional I configured it on the button F8, like Win7.
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2017
  18. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    There is a system partition 120GB (HDD) and SSD Samsung 850 Pro 128GB. Is it possible to perform a migration to the Reflect on the SSD?
    This option "Clone this disk..." and select system partition only?
    Earlier I successfully performed it in Paragon Hard Disk Manager.
    Thank!
     
  19. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    Just trying to answer what you've asked about the "style" of Windows boot menu and how it might be altered by means other than manual intervention. Changing the menu "style" will make no effective difference at all and it's entirely up to you whether you want to "experiment" with any of it. If you do, it's important to understand precisely what's involved. It's a "bootmenupolicy" entry (either "legacy" or "standard") in the boot configuration data (BCD) store. Cloning certainly won't change that, but a BCD rebuild might. Other than that, you'd need to use BCDedit or a visual BCD editor as I said. Some additional details here if wanted.
     
  20. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    To Arvy
    Very interesting and informative, thanks for the link.
    Added

    And finally I realized, that I myself returned the classic Boot Menu to my Windows 10, when I assigned the F8 Button for booting in Safe Mode with command
    bcdedit /set bootmenupolicy legacy
    The problem with Metro Boot Menu is solved. Thank you very much!
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2017
  21. ArchiveX

    ArchiveX Registered Member

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    @Arvy
    Check your PM.
     
  22. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello,

    A new update has been released, version 7.1.2695...
    Homepage
    Download Page
    Release Notes
     
  23. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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  24. puff-m-d

    puff-m-d Registered Member

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    Hello @Krusty,

    You are most welcome ;) ...
     
  25. Arvy

    Arvy Registered Member

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    There is also a similar update for those who have stayed with Reflect v6. Release notes for v6.3.1849.

    Neither update, however, includes any mention of the bug fix promised by Macrium to correct the problem of the rescue media not "behaving as it should when prompting for network credentials".

    __
    P.S.: In fact, the Reflect v7.1.2695 patch download does not update the WAIKFiles package at all, but downloading and running the v7.1.2695 full installer does. In either case, Reflect's rescue media "wizard" will tell you that a new version is available for updating your WinPE build, but only in the latter case has the newer version actually been installed.

    Jeez, will these guys ever get their production management and patch control lines together?! [Rhetorical question.]
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2017
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