Macrium Reflect

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

  1. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    Some of the icons are in zone 1, and some of the icons are in zone 2.
    After restoring from the image, all the icons that were in zone 1, for some reason, moved in zone 2, then I have to manually drag most of them into zone 1. I created a backup copy of the specified registry key, and now I return all the icons to their places with a double click on .reg.
    In other words, Reflect does not restore the state of the specified registry key.
    ScreenShot_109.png
    v1809 works well, but too much energy is required to bring in an acceptable state in terms of telemetry and updating the way the user wants, and not Microsoft.
    If in the classical sense, then I use ClipDiary or Comfort ClipBoard.
     
  2. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

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    Installed the trial today. What would be the best place on Wilders to get "support"?

    (for now: I chose VSS at install; yet backups don't start because PHYLock is waiting for the drive to stop writing...)
     
  3. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I use VSS now, after years of being faithful to PHYLock. In Settings, PHYLock/VSS tab, I have...

    PHYLock Settings, a tick in Disable Usage (6 greyed out boxes below)
    VSS Settings, a tick in Use VSS When Available (no ticks in the 2 Excludes and ticks in the next 2 boxes)

    Just start a thread in this forum if you need advice.
     
  4. Tinstaafl

    Tinstaafl Registered Member

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    For the first question, your backup image file size will generally be the same size or less as the used space on the source drive. That is because the image doesn't include the free or un-allocated space from the source drive, just the allocated sectors. So if you had actually only used 200GB of space on the 1TB drive, that would result in a backup image less than 200GB (Macrium also does some data compression on the image file). So you should be able to predict the size of the backup drive you need by the number of full images you wish to retain, multiplied by the size of the used space on the source drive.

    The Macrium restore process will attempt to recover the disk to it's exact original state from the image, including all of the free space. So it is aware of the size of the original disk, the backed up partitions, free space, etc. That's why it's call an "image". The difference between imaging and cloning is that cloning makes an exact copy of the drive onto another physical drive, so no restore needed. That will require full use of the target drive. Cloning is not so practical for backups, but better if you are just upgrading/swapping drives in your computer.

    So If you are restoring the image onto the original source drive, you will have no problems at all with partition size. However if you are restoring to a replacement drive, it should be the same capacity as the original, or larger. If you find yourself in that situation, it will be time to read the manual. ;)
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2019
  5. Tinstaafl

    Tinstaafl Registered Member

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    Scratching my head on that one. I'm not quite sure if that's even possible. I would think something else has changed your registry key, but have no idea what that might be.
     
  6. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    The only way I can think that might happen would be if that key were modified or purged within the VSS snapshot as part of snapshot creation. For example, I know that the Windows Search index database is deleted from VSS snapshots because it can grow quite large and can be recreated automatically when it's missing, so I guess Microsoft decided it wasn't worth including in snapshots. Maybe this registry setting was similarly excluded from the contents of the snapshot? Someone who's determined to learn the answer could mount a backup that was captured using VSS (as opposed to one captured from Rescue) and then mount the registry hive within that mounted image to see how that key looks, but I'm not curious enough to do that myself, particularly as my system is set to always show all system tray icons anyway.
     
  7. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Hi guys.

    I had to replace a failing 256GB system SSD.
    I was able to clone it to a new and bigger 512GB SSD using Reflect. It completed successfully.

    The only problem was that there was a lot of unallocated space left, and the unallocated space was non-adjacent to my new drive.
    So, I had to use a third party partitioning tool to rectify it.


    Now, my question is: Could Reflect had done this all in one step without me requiring to do it in two steps using a third party partitioning tool?[/QUOTE]
    I want to fill the larger SSD and not leave unallocated space like last time.
     

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    Last edited: Feb 7, 2019
  8. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    I am about to clone to a larger SSD, and I don't want to leave any unallocated space.
    There are 3 partitions there. System Reserved, Operating System and a Recovery Partition on the right which the Windows installer must have created as I built the computer myself. Do I need that Recovery Partition? If I do, can I put the operating system on the right so I can extend it to maximum to avoid unallocated space?

    The last time I did a clone, I had to use a third party partition tool afterwards to extend unallocated space because my OS partition wasn't adjacent to the unallocated space because of the Recovery Partition.

    Below is a screenshot of the drive in Disk Management, and the Reflect clone window. Do I need that one on the right?

    Disk Management - C Drive.jpg

    Macrium Reflect Clone.jpg

    MiniTool says the Recovery Partition can be deleted safely.
    I don't even know what it would contain on my drive.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2019
  9. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Hadron, I'd keep the Recovery Partition as it contains useful files.

    Restore the 100 MB SRP. Then restore the Windows partition and expand it in Macrium so 500 MB of Free Space is at the end of the drive. Restore the Recovery partition into this free space.
     
  10. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Too late, Brian. But thanks.
    For anyone else, below is what I have done.

    I only cloned the System Reserved and the Primary OS partition, then extended the Primary OS partition out to the full extent of the drive.
    It made it easy without having the Recovery Partition sitting to the right.

    I did some research about the Recovery Partition, and it appears that a Windows 10 major update creates it.
    Other reasons for them are manufacturers put them there, but I built this one, so it must have been one of the Windows 10 upgrades.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2019
  11. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Yes, you could have done all of that in one step, and Macrium's own "Cloning a disk" page from their manual explains how -- direct link here, take a look at Steps 4 and 5. Macrium's documentation in general really is worth reading, fyi. The trick is that instead of simply choosing "Copy selected partitions", you drag and drop the partitions you want to clone, working left to right, and after dropping a partition you want to resize, you resize it as desired before continuing to drag and drop any subsequent partitions. Note that the resize option allows you define the new size in terms of actual size OR how much free space to leave after the partition, the latter of which is handy if you need to drag down additional partitions afterward.

    As for the Recovery partition, it's true that if you use Reflect regularly you may not need it, although you do if you want to use BitLocker on a Legacy BIOS system. But you could have solved your unallocated space problem even after the fact and retained the Recovery partition by doing the following:

    - Deleting your Recovery partition (or capturing an image of it if you no longer had another copy elsewhere)
    - Extending your OS partition by the desired amount MINUS the space required to restore the Recovery partition
    - Use Reflect to clone/restore just the Recovery partition into that remaining space at the end of the disk.

    In fact if you were to shrink your OS partition now by the required amount, you could still do that.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2019
  12. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    OK.
    I have plugged the old drive back in and shrinking the new drive at the end by 500MB as suggested by Brian. I'll will then attempt to clone the Recovery Partition on the end in the unallocated space.

    I guess that is one of the things that you guys are suggesting.
    I tried going back into Reflect and using clone, but it wouldn't allow me to shrink anything to add the Recovery Partition, so I am using MiniTool Partition Wizard.
     
  13. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Can I extend that recovery partition to fill up the unallocated space? 22.9 MB.
     
  14. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    This is it now.

    Partitions.jpg
     
  15. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Reflect's clone wizard won't resize any partitions that already exist on disk. You can only use the resize options on partitions that you are "staging" for an actual clone operation, i.e. ones that don't yet exist. But yes you can certainly extend a Recovery partition to fill a bit more space, which it seems you already did.
     
  16. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Thanks jphughan.

    Yeah. I extended it. Tidier. :)
     
  17. taotoo

    taotoo Registered Member

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    Just for the record, Macrium emailed me a new CBT driver and the problem went away.
     
  18. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Nice! There was another case in the Macrium forums here where Macrium provided a special CBT driver build that resolved the user's issue. I would guess the next public Reflect release will have a new CBT driver incorporating these fixes, and it's been a while since we've had a Reflect update, but maybe Macrium is taking extra precautions here given that CBT has proven to be a bit of a problem child since it was introduced, to put it mildly. It's been responsible for BSoDs in certain situations and then of course the infamous period of a few weeks where CBT had a bug that caused all backups that used it to be created corrupt. I recognize that the time savings it offers can be significant for cases where several backups are captured each day and/or when imaging large partitions that have high data churn, but I don't even install it on the systems that I use or support because the benefits just aren't meaningful in the use cases I'm involved with, especially relative to the drawbacks that have surfaced over time.
     
  19. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

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    The MRCBT fix was released end of December: mrcbt.jpg
     
  20. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Funny, I got CBT with v6 as part of the beta and it has be flawless. I love it as I let hourly's run and they take about 40 seconds, and they have proven very helppful.
     
  21. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

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    I’m still completely baffled by the random results on my PC. A self-test and surface scan of the HD did not reveal any errors, so I tried Image for Windows instead of Reflect. First results were promising: a full clone of my 4 GB data partition was done in 48 seconds (the same operation in Reflect, also today, took 18 minutes!). However, I then tried to clone the changes (only) of my media partitions (should be between less than 50 GB). This took I4W 2 hours and 6 minutes!

    I wish I could find the logical explanation for this...
     
  22. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    XIII,

    Can you post the ifw.log entry related to this backup? Perhaps in another thread.
     
  23. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

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    Unfortunately I already uninstalled I4W...

    Might try again next week.
     
  24. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Can I check what you did? You mentioned "clone the changes (only) of my media partitions"? I assume this was a Changes Only backup of several partitions and was preceded by a Full backup of those partitions. Can you recall the rough sizes of the full backup and the Changes only backup? Did you use the "Faster Changes Only Backups" option when you created the Full backup?
     
  25. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

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    No, in I4W terminology this was a “Copy” (not a “Backup”), of changed sectors only.
     
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