I am still running into issues with updating the rescue environment and using a USB stick - my cd test fine but the usb stick fails to load on my Dell pc - since it runs fine on HP I don't know what I did wrong. Is there any trick that relates to Dell systems? Attached are pictures to show diskpart for Dell A (my prime pc) and Bios for Dell A - works fine with CD but does not get automatically to USB and if forced gets error message. The same goes for Dell B but HP works fine with the same stick.
Tried Reflect 7 on a modern (UEFI) PC. On that PC the WinRE images boots fine from both UFD and DVD. However, as I posted before the speed decrease after upgrading from v6 to v7 is dramatic on this PC: * v6: 10 GB incremental image in 3 minutes (Read 950 Mb/s, Write 1.1 Gb/s) * v7: 8 GB incremental image in 50 minutes (Read 2.0 Gb/s, Write 16.7 Gb/s) Clearly something is terribly wrong here and the numbers don't match up. How can I investigate/fix this?
Did either of those Incrementals include a consolidation operation necessitated by your retention policy, which can dramatically increase the job run time? I'm thinking the V7 backup probably did, given that it has a much longer run time despite generating a smaller image, and yet it also has HIGHER read and write speeds quoted. Can you run Full backups just to eliminate variables here? If consolidation doesn't explain it, what is the destination of your backups? If it's a network share, how are you and the target connected to the network? And are you doing these backups from within Windows or from Rescue Media? If Windows, any third-party anti-virus that might be treating V7 differently? Macrium has said that other than introducing CBT, V7 didn't have any changes that would affect the performance of backup jobs.
Did you create this flash drive directly from Rescue Media Builder? If not, have you confirmed that the partition on the flash drive is marked as active, which is required for Legacy BIOS booting as you're apparently using on the system you posted screenshots from? If the HP that's working is using UEFI booting, it wouldn't require the partition to be marked as active in order to work, but a BIOS system would. Otherwise, have you tried a different flash drive? Some combinations of flash drives and systems seem not to work properly. And as a general note, you shouldn't need to mess with your boot order in the BIOS, though. Invoking the F12 one-time boot menu should be enough, and in fact that's preferable. Not only is it faster to do, but if you leave other devices ranked above your hard drive, then your normal boot sequences might take longer as your system looks for those other sources before booting from your hard drive -- and if you change the boot order back afterward in order to avoid that, now you're spending even more time mucking around with the boot order. The F12 one-time boot menu exists specifically to avoid that.
* No consolidation operation in both runs. * The drive I'm making a backup of is 2 TB (filled for about 1.5 TB). The drive holding the backup is identical in size. Doing a Full backup would require removing all existing backups. Something I would like to do at some point anyway, but not with this kind of speed. * The backup is stored on a hot-swappable removable drive enclosure in the PC. So it's from SATA disk to SATA disk. * The backups are made from within Windows (and the PC is not used during the backup). * No third-party anti-virus (just Windows Defender), same anti-malware (HitmanPro.Alert). * Only other major change: v6 was on Windows 10 1803, v7 on Windows 10 1809.
That is indeed a major change. If the previous backup in your set was from 1803 and your test results were from the first backup on 1809, I'm thinking that will have had something to do with it. I have some guesses as to what may have been involved, although I'd still be surprised if the accounted for the degree of difference you observed. Still, I would encourage running a few more tests that don't have an anomalous amount of "churn" on your disk between backups and see how those look.
Note: this 2 TB disk is used as a data disk; it does not contain any OS files (those are on a small SSD). I make an incremental backup on a weekly basis. My guess (it’s a family member’s PC) is that a few Office files are modified and a lot of photos have been added. Since 1809 & Reflect 7 I have made two backups and both were much slower than I was used to.
XIII, The Write speed is higher for v7 than v6 and 16.7 Gb/sec is too great for a HD. Can you check this in subsequent tests?
Jphughan, yes, I used the Macrium rescue builder and checked the stick shows as an active partition. I have encountered the same problem with two different sticks that's why I wondered if the issue is related to Dell. Seems they sometimes need special attention. As for changing the bios, I find it hard to get into the bios at times because it all happens so fast and not every pc has the same command for that. Also some pc have a raid set up, so things end up being different each time. I don't mind a two second delay during boot up to ensure automatic bootup of my rescue media if necessary.
beethoven, Re your #6901 The screenshot "Please select boot device" doesn't have an entry for Legacy USB boot. That's why the UFD won't boot. Have a look in your BIOS, CSM (Compatibility Support Module) and correct this. I agree with jphughan regarding using the Boot Menu. For example, if you have UEFI UFD and Legacy UFD you have to manually choose the correct one. Your BIOS is probably choosing UEFI UFD.
I use primarily Dell systems and I've never had a problem getting them to boot from Reflect USB devices, except for PCs that I found didn't reliably boot from any USB devices at all. Speaking of, can these Dell systems boot from USB devices that contain other bootable environments like Windows installers? Dell always uses F12 for the one-time boot menu, and I basically just press that key rapidly as soon as I power the system on or as soon as the display goes black for a restart and I never miss the boot menu that way. Not sure what to tell you about your systems though. Update your BIOS? Make sure the flash drive is connected directly to a USB port rather than through a hub? Try other USB ports on the system in case some are controlled by a different chipset on the motherboard? That's not correct. The USB device entry already shown in the boot order list is for Legacy booting, and the fact that both UEFI and Legacy are listed together in the one-time boot menu means that UEFI CSM is already enabled. UEFI systems (at the least all of the ones I've seen) do not have a generic "USB device" entry for UEFI booting among their boot options. That only exists for network and optical devices. USB devices are treated as storage, which means that the only entries you'll find in the UEFI boot order are the ones that have been registered into the UEFI firmware, because boot entries for storage need to point to a specific bootloader file on a specific partition of a specific device. This means that in order to boot from a USB device in UEFI mode, you're basically FORCED to use the one-time boot menu, because the one-time boot list is populated dynamically based on the devices that are connected at the time. The UEFI spec defines "\EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi" as a standard bootloader file path, so if a particular USB device has that file, it will be listed in the one-time boot list -- but it will be identified by a specific device, not a generic. But it still won't be listed in the UEFI boot order list within the BIOS setup, even if the USB device is attached at the time, because it's not a permanently registered boot path that CAN be reordered. (Yes, technically you could register your USB device's bootloader file to have it appear in your boot order, but that would be a huge pain.)
Brian, not sure I understand or quite likely my original screenshots are not clear. My main pc that is causing the problem is shown in the screenshots under 6901 as the one next to diskpart, ie no uefi. The screenshot with uefi relates to the HP pc that works fine.
Jphughan, thanks - the BIOS sequence is not my prime focus. I am happy to go the f12 path but the outcome at the moment is the same. I don't remember the exact warning but will test it a bit later and take a photo. Have not tried to use the ports in the back to see if that makes a difference.
My bad. I assumed the UFD was plugged in. beethoven, can you look at that Boot Menu again with the UFD plugged in?
Fair enough. I'm still curious if you can get USB booting working on those systems when they have something like a vanilla Windows Setup environment on them. It would be good to figure out whether this is a USB booting issue or a Rescue Media issue. One other thing that occurred to me: What is the capacity of the flash drives you're working with? I remember I worked with Dell OptiPlex 980s a long time ago that specifically supported USB booting because they had an entry for it in their boot order, but I never got it actually working when I needed it, and I think it might have been because I was using too large a flash drive, since I've read that can create an issue on older systems. I never ended up digging into that one because I didn't have a flash drive smaller than 64GB at the time and ended up using network booting to solve the immediate issue, and then we ended up retiring those systems before I could revisit it. I realize the way you select USB booting isn't a priority at the moment, but as I explained in my reply to Brian K, getting into the habit of using the one-time boot menu is a good idea because you may end up having to do that when you start using systems that use UEFI booting.
JP - the flash drives I am using are not really big at all - the one in question is only 8gb. I also tried the back port but only found out that I am not that agile anymore I also took a photo of the error message coming up when using f12 and trying to go via usb - see attached
Ok, so once again, are you able to boot other environments from a flash drive, such as vanilla Windows installers? Also, have you tried disconnecting all other USB devices (except keyboard and mouse if this is a desktop system)? I’ve seen cases where this generic “USB device” boot option that doesn’t specify an exact device can fail when certain other devices are attached.
Have you tried creating a Macrium rescue iso, you can then use the Rufus utility (google and d/l, install) to make a bootable USB stick either for uefi or mbr systems. It takes only a little over 500 MB space so 8GB is overkill. do you have drivers for both HP and dell systems on the rescue build?
I don't have any experience in using a flash drive for booting at all. I am using cd without issues and just get tired of constantly having to burn a new one when using a stick would be easier. Will try your suggestion to disconnect all other usb to see if that makes a difference but can only do this tomorrow or much later today as I am working off site today.
I am using the macrium rescue iso without problems, it's just the stick that won't work on this pc (fine on a different set). I may consider playing with Rufus though worry that it may become more complicated that I feel comfortable with. The size on the stick is not really important nowadays, I just want it to work easily.
Makes sense. Rufus is a good suggestion, although I personally doubt it will change anything because Rescue Media Builder seems to set up flash drives properly anyway, regardless of the drive's state beforehand. But if you want an easy way to test another bootable environment, you can download Windows 10 directly from Microsoft here, and it includes a tool that will turn a flash drive into a bootable source to install Windows. Obviously you don't have to actually install it, but it would at least give you another data point about USB booting on that system. I have a feeling this will be one of those systems like the older OptiPlex 980 I mentioned earlier that indicated support for USB booting in its BIOS but didn't seem to work, at least not with any configurations I tried that I'd already validated on other systems. I wish I'd had a chance to debug that one back then!
