Macrium Reflect Free Questions

Rescue media (stick, CDR etc) is created to be bootable and so that really precludes using it for anything else as far as I know.

Restoring an image wipes all that was previously on the partition (it formats it first) and so anything made after the backup was created is gone. Easy answer to that one is to make daily differential backups which add any changes made since the original was created to a second file. When you restore you jut pick the date ( the backup) you want to restore to.

You should also back up user data separately (for added security) using other means to a suitable drive/stick etc.

If you have a lot of user files that change then using Windows own File History (although that's supposed to be being dropped...) or another equivalent could be worthwhile as a sort of running backup. You can save that info to a second partition for convenience BUT YOU MUST still copy stuff over to external media once in a while to guard against anything happening to the PC or its drive.

You can then restore your main drive if needed and copy back any recent changed files. You should never be more than a few hours away from your last user file backup for safety.

Good luck with the backups

att: Wiley Coyote
" Can I make a Rescue Stick on the same USB Stick I put the Image on ? "

Although I personally wouldn't use Macrium this way, as a possible scenario, if it is necessary to put the image on the bootable USB stick, you would first create a bootable USB stick and then when creating the image, have Macrium split the image in "Advanced Options" into fat32 4GB chunks, which could be put onto the USB stick say in a separate folder. In future when you need to upgrade the bootable USB, you would need to create an ISO image instead and then mount the ISO and copy/replace the boot files on the USB.

I personally do not think USB sticks are reliable enough to be trusted with storing whole Disk Images. Plus, it is easier/convenient to just use a separate bootable USB stick when updating Macrium Versions, and keep the Disk Images on a separate hard disk or SSD.

das10 said:

att: Wiley Coyote
" Can I make a Rescue Stick on the same USB Stick I put the Image on ? "

I have a rescue stick (128 gig) $25 on Amazon with my images I use to setup computers. I make the rescue disk first and put a folder on the drive for images.