I have a system image of Windows 10 on computer A I want to restore it onto empty space on the hard disk in computer B Also computer B runs Windows 10, and has a single hard disk Which partitions of the system image should I restore? How to set up the booting? My goal is to be able to boot into the Windows installation of my choice. I am aware that there are potential driver issues and licensing issues, so let's just leave that part aside for now.
If you click this menu on computer A, it will show you which partitions should be restored on computer B.
^ The partitions that should be backed up to ensure Windows can boot if you restore that backup onto an empty disk are not the same as the ones you’d have to restore to essentially turn an existing, working single boot system into a dual boot system. You definitely do NOT want to have two full sets of on the same disk partitions as Aldist suggests. Shmu26, if you have a working setup on the target PC, you’d only need to restore the Windows partition from the old PC. Then you can use a tool like EasyBCD to modify Windows Boot Manager to add a boot option for that restored partition. You might also have to ReDeploy that partition to allow it to boot properly on your different hardware, but ReDeploy is only part of paid Reflect.
Thanks. I am wondering whether the Reflect boot repair tool could be used in place of EasyBCD. I am guessing that the Reflect boot repair tool should find the second Windows partition, and be able to set BIOS to boot to it. Once I get past that stage, I imagine I could use Reflect to create a Windows boot menu, which should give me the choices I need. Do you think that will work?
I don't think the Fix Boot Problems wizard accounts for multi-boot setups. If you run that and select the Windows partition you just restored, you'll likely end up only being able to boot that partition. And Reflect definitely does not handle creating Windows Boot Manager entries for separate Windows installations. It only manages an entry for its own Rescue environment. As for your BIOS, you don't rely on the BIOS for typical dual boot configurations, and that isn't even an option when both are on the same disk. The way it normally works is that your system/BIOS always boots to the same location, which a Windows Boot Manager instance. That instance is then aware of the various boot options, such as multiple Windows environments, which is how it can give you a menu to choose which one you want. If you used the BIOS to manage your multi-boot setup, you'd have to muck around with your BIOS boot order or invoke a one-time boot menu option every time you wanted to boot a non-default environment, which is a lot less convenient. But again that isn't even workable for a scenario where everything is on a single disk. System that boot in Legacy BIOS mode always boot from the partition marked as "Active" on the target device, but there can only be one partition marked as Active at any given time. And systems that boot in UEFI mode boot to a partition containing a file located at \EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi (unless you manually create a boot entry option to target another file). And in a typical setup that file would be located on the EFI partition on a disk, and there's only at most one EFI partition per disk. You would not have separate copies of that file on each Windows partition, and in fact since the UEFI spec doesn't even require NTFS support (it's only optional and not widely implemented), a UEFI system typically wouldn't be able to boot directly to a Windows partition anyway even if it did have that file. That's why the EFI partition is formatted FAT32. The system boots to that bootloader on that partition it can read, and then Windows Boot Manager turns around and loads the desired Windows environment.
So I did it and it works. (Initially I needed to attach a USB mouse, because the trackpad didn't work yet, and a ethernet cable, because the wifi wasn't set up yet.) The little issue I have is that the EasyBCD boot menu only appears if, in EasyBCD settings, I choose the second Windows installation as the default one. If I do that, I see the boot menu, and I can choose between the two. But if I set the original Windows installation as default, no boot menu.
I’m not sure what’s going on there, but try setting the second installation that has the menu as the default in EasyBCD, then while booted in there, open MSConfig and go to the Boot menu. If you have two options there, change the default there. That might get you the menu and the first installation as default.
What happened to macrium reflect 8 FREE version? I thought it was to be offered late summer, but it's now October, and still nothing is on macrium.com.
You can download a trial of the Pro version, then end the trial. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree MajorGeeks has a download link. https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/macrium_reflect_free_edition.html Or use this link. https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v8/ReflectDLHF.exe
Thanks. I tried https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v8/ReflectDLHF.exe It didn't work. It downloaded and ran an installer, but it was the older version 7. I guess macrium has finally gotten rid of the free version starting with version 8. I don't want a bootleg or cracked copy. I wanted to download directly from macrium, so I didn't try majorgeek or others.
Download as on the picture, the download goes directly from the Macrium website, these are the official links for the Free version.
I have the free version of MR v8 installed on two machines. @aldist has suggested MG site, or as I posted above, you can download the trial of v8 Pro, then disable the trial.
You just have to change the version number for each Macrium Reflect FREE update. Example for the latest version below. The full link above is cropped. Code: Macrium Reflect FREE Edition v8.0.6161 32-bit: https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v8/v8.0.6161/reflect_setup_free_x86.exe 64-bit: https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v8/v8.0.6161/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Why? A consolidated backup does not retain all backups that were involved in the consolidation. Consolidation allows older Incremental backups to be PURGED in a way that does not break subsequent Incrementals in the chain, or it can be used to merge an Incremental into a Full in order to update the contents of the Full to the state of the Incremental, at which point the separate Incremental file gets deleted. But since the older backups are no longer available after consolidation, I don't see why you'd want to retain their comments.
For example, the backups have comments like this, although I usually have them more detailed. Inc1: "Before installing Microsoft Office 2016" Inc2: "KB40423 uninstalled" Inc3: "Hard_Configurator installed and configured" After consolidating these backups, the comment will be from the most recent one: "installed and configured Hard_Configurator" The information about the other changes that were included in the consolidated backup is lost.
Ok, but you also lose older comments in backup strategies where older backups are simply deleted, as is the case with older Fulls and Differentials. Comments from those backups aren't carried over into the oldest remaining backup. The comments are part of whatever backup they were added to, and therefore they go away when that backup goes away. I don't see why you'd expect Reflect to start behaving differently just for Incremental backups by creating a cumulative "change log" of comments. Again, consolidation exists because you can't simply delete older Incrementals without breaking newer Incrementals in the same chain. But with consolidation, it becomes possible to do that, just as you can purge older Fulls and Differentials without breaking newer backups. The mechanism is different, but the end result is the same. I don't think the goal is or should be for consolidation to lead to a different end result in terms of comment retention. And then of course there are cases where this wouldn't even make sense. If you had a comment that said, "This backup is being created just before installing application XYZ", it wouldn't make sense to carry that comment into some later backup, since it wouldn't be accurate for that later backup.
THANK YOU SO MUCH HADRON !! It worked like a champ. Now all I have to do is make new rescue usb drives. Where did you find these? I want to bookmark that location. Or at least learn how to find the hidden Macrium links when version 9 comes out Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.
So with Reflect 8, we can do multiple incremental backups in a day and it's neat. However, now we have dozen of backup files per day. While I know we can mount an imagine file to browse for files, what we're missing is an actual Search ability. A way to search with a filename to see in which image file it has changed/added/deleted/etc. Unless I'm missing it... Does Reflect8 offer an ability to actually search and see which image file I need to mount?
