Macrium Reflect after crash

wvbirdman · 1 Week Ago

My Windows 10 Home version 22H2 Lenovo Ideapad crashed a month ago. In settings I chose "reset this PC" and "remove everything". Then I downloaded all my Documents and Desktop from Google Drive. Next I planned to download and install all my programs (if I can remember them all), and set all settings as they were.

Only now do I remember that I made a Macrium Reflect system image in 2019, and I still have the flash drive. I understand Macrium restores Documents, but they would be very old and I would replace them with fresh Documents downloaded from Google Drive anyway.

Macrium mentions "disk image" and "system image" and "partitions", which I don't understand. Before the crash I had lots of programs with lots of customized settings, like Winaero and X-Mouse Button Control. Would Macrium also restore these programs and their settings?

Please advise whether I should continue with my manual restore, or use Macrium. Maybe my Macrium system image is too old to be useful in any case. If I try Macrium system restore and don't like it, is it reversible so I could continue with my manual restore?

Thanks

Ghot · 1 Week Ago

@wvbirdman

If you restore to that 2019 image... it will take everything back in time to when you made that image.

You could also mount the image then just grab the things you want, from the image.

You can find all the Macrium info here, including the manual.

Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper and Hasleo Backup Suite - GUIDES | Windows 11 Forum

wvbirdman · 1 Week Ago

Ghot:
Thanks for your answer, but all of that is a bit over my head. The key question is: Does Macrium restore all programs? With their settings?

Thanks

Bree · 1 Week Ago

wvbirdman said:

The key question is: Does Macrium restore all programs? With their settings?

Yes, it does. But as your image was made in 2019 it will restore exactly what you had back then when you made the image.

Ghot · 1 Week Ago

wvbirdman said:

Ghot:
Thanks for your answer, but all of that is a bit over my head. The key question is: Does Macrium restore all programs? With their settings?

Thanks

Yes.

It will restore all programs, files, bookmarks, the wallpaper... "exactly" as it was back in 2019.
All your settings, personalizations, shortcuts... everything, just the way it was in 2019.
If you were on Windows 10 version 1909... that's what you'll be on again, when you restore that 2019 backup.

If you had a shopping list, on your desktop in 2019, that said: "buy milk and eggs", and you restore to the 2019 backup... that shopping list will be there again, on your desktop.
If you have an infection, today... and you restore to the 2019 backup... it will erase the infection.

The ONLY thing that won't change is the clock and the calendar. They will still say that it's... today.

The only weird thing about this is that most folks don't wait five years to restore from a backup.

For most people, they use backup software like this...

They make a backup around two weeks ago. Then a Windows update breaks something.
So they restore to their 2 week old backup and now Windows isn't broken anymore.

Whatever is on something like OneDrive... will still be on OneDrive, because that stuff isn't ON your computer, it's on a Microsoft computer somewhere. Macrium won't change anything stored on the web.

Let's say you have two hard drives on your computer. One has Windows and the other is where you save things... like pictures.
When you restore from that 2019 backup, it will take everything on the Windows drive, back to 2019.
All the stuff on the storage drive... will still be ON the storage drive though

Macrium only takes the the software on the "Windows" drive.... back in time to 2019.

dalchina · 1 Week Ago

Disk imaging should be regular and routine.
Note that the very act of creating a disk image can detect incipient disk failure or corruption (at least with Macrium Reflect it does).
So that in itself is useful.

A basic way to use disk imaging is:

a. Create a full disk image (e.g. to an external drive)
When you set that up, also create a backup job (Macrium Reflect - a definition file).

That holds details of
- what to image
- where to save image files
- how to manage older files on that backup disk (so you don't run out of space- e.g. by deleting older images).

Regularly thereafter (until a major change when you start the whole process again -e.g. a feature update or upgrading to Win 11)
- use the definition file to create a differential image

What is a disk image?
It is (normally) a file containing a compressed copy of the used part of the partitions you select to be imaged. I.e. everything.

What is a differential image? (You can ask Google that and much more).
It represents the changes between the date it was created and the full image.
It's a smaller file and faster to create than the full image.

Yoiu say you don't understand partitions - please use Google and read up on this.
By default, when Windows is installed (as UEFI - the 'modern' form) it creates 4 partitions on your disk.
A partition is an area on your disk which may be seen in file explorer if it has a drive letter.

If you have on your backup disk e.g.

- your first full image
- differential image 1
- differential image 2
- differential image 3

You can restore the imaged partitions to 4 different dates. That of the full image, or that of any of the diff. images which depend on the first full image.

JLArranz · 1 Week Ago

I'll try to omit complicated, exotic, or out of Windows cases.

Macrium mentions "disk image" and "system image" and "partitions", which I don't understand. Before the crash I had lots of programs with lots of customized settings, like Winaero and X-Mouse Button Control. Would Macrium also restore these programs and their settings?

A physical disk will always have 1 or more partitions. In Windows Vista, XP and before, Windows by default installs using only one partition usually called C: that occupies all the disk. Since Windows 7, Windows may use several small partitions besides the main C: one (depending on how it has been installed etc), but many users won't notice it and they think their disk as just "C:". If a restore is done, those additional partitions have to be restored as well, they go "all together". Although technically it's possible to restore only one or more but not all of them, imaging utilities ease correct practices, for instance prompting to include all necessary OS partitions in the backup.

Most partitions will have a drive letter (C:, D:,...) and a filesystem, so that the user can browse the files. Others (most times the additional partitions besides C: that modern Windows versions may have) don't have letter and cannot be accessed through Windows file explorer with "normal means". Sometimes these are called "hidden partitions".

Bear in mind that RAM is volatile, its contents vanishes once the computer is shut down. All info stored in a computer fron Windows session to Windows session is in the disk. Two equal computers with the same disks and contents in them, will behave the same when turned on. The same goes if you manage to change the disks contents as it was some days or weeks ago: the computer will behave as it did then.

Besides this or these OS partitions, a computer may have non-OS partitions, also called data partitions:
- Other not-Windows disks with either 1 or more partitions each. These include internal and external/removeable disks. USB sticks belong to this category.
- Other not-Windows partitions in the disk that has Windows.

An image is a file that has inside all the necessary info to restore the contents of one or more partitions as it was when the image was taken. For example all partitions in a disk, or all Windows partitions. Restoring Windows partitions has the effect of going "backwards in time" in the behaviour of Windows. Restoring data partitions doesn't have that effect and has fewer use cases. In general, an image of a data partition has the same use as a copy of its files (imaging utilities let you mount an image as if it were another disk/partition so that you can recover individual files or folders instead of recovering the whole contents).

As images are files, they must be in some partition, that must be different from the imaged one. Hence, to use this kind of software, you need the Windows installation (with its one or several partitions as said) and a data partition for the images. Images can be done compressed to not use as much disk space as the imaged partitions (I mean used space here, moving a Windows install to a larger drive/partition doesn't increase the size of the image). This usually means other disk, what provides redundancy (if the Windows disk fails, the one with the images should survive in general; backup strategies, how much they cost and what do them protect against and what they don't is another whole point, and I won't treat uses of several user partitions in the same disk, that requires partitioning software).

Please advise whether I should continue with my manual restore, or use Macrium. Maybe my Macrium system image is too old to be useful in any case. If I try Macrium system restore and don't like it, is it reversible so I could continue with my manual restore?

You would have to do a "modern" image just in case, restore your 2019 image, see if it's useful, and if it isn't restore the modern image. I've recently had to restore an image somewhat ancient (1 month and a half), the restore was successful but the antivirus took a noticeable time to update its definitions, Windows 7 did a 25 MB update in Defender definitions (most times they are 1-3 MB) and re-run the monthly KB890830, and I had to restore a Thunderbird profile from a backup (this is just a folder called Thunderbird; in this system I have an SSD for Windows and an HDD with two data partitions, one for files and folders "like Thunderbird" and other for the Macrium images of the SSD; I store "many" of these because the HDD is big and I don't need that disk space for anything else, it's nearly impossible that I have to restore an image done say in October 2023 having like 5-6 more modern ones, but I don't have reasons to delete ancient images either).

wvbirdman · 1 Week Ago

Ghot: A through and simple explanation, perfectly suited to my level. Thanks.

Dalchina: A bit more complex. The only thing I don't understand is you say:

"a. Create a full disk image (e.g. to an external drive)":

Is this a disk image that is created on a USB flash WITHOUT using Macrium? How do I do that?

JLArranz: A bit over my head, I will return to it as I go along in this process. Great suggestion to make a Macrium image of what I have now.

All three:
It seems to me that I should:
1) make a Macrium image of the partial manually restored system I have now just in case
2) restore the 2019 Macrium image I have.
3) if I like it, I can delete all the 2019 Documents and replace them with fresh Documents from my Google Drive; update programs and tweak settings as needed
4) make a Macrium image of the resulting new system
5) if I don't like the 2019 Macrium image, I can go back to the image in (1) above
6) if all fails, I reset Windows and manually restore everything. (My current manual restore only has about one hour of work invested in it.)
7) follow Ghot's tactful "most folks" suggestion, and make at least monthly Macrium images

Much thanks to all three of you