testing Macrium Reflect image restore completely

Bree said:

Well then (unless you've already wiped that second drive) you are in an ideal position to look and see if Macrium created that folder path and put a log there. If not, look on the root of the C: drive.

I haven't wiped the second drive. I checked C:\ProgramData\Macrium\Reflect and C: on the second drive and poked around a bit in WinPE, but could not find the restore log.

I just did some internet searching and found this description by Macrium Support that explains what happens with logs during WinPE:

When Reflect runs in PE the loaded OS is Windows PE on the 'X:' drive, not regular Windows, so the live 'ProgramData' folder where the logs are written to is a RAM disk, 'X:\ProgramData\'.

To enable PE logs to be visible in Windows, when a Backup or Restore completes, any log created will be copied from 'X:\ProgramData\Macrium\Reflect\' to folder 'C:\ProgramData\Macrium\\Reflect\'.

This may fail for:
1. Dual boot systems, where it's impossible to detect which offline Windows OS the logs are required to be viewed in.
2. If the offline Windows OS system volume hasn't been assigned drive letter 'C' in Windows PE. If another 'active' partition is loaded first by Windows PE then this can confuse drive letter ordering.

Check that 'C:' is assigned to your Windows system volume in PE. Also, check other volumes to see if they contain the folder '\ProgramData\Macrium\\Reflect\'. If you find another volume with this folder then copy the log files in it to 'C:\ProgramData\Macrium\\Reflect\'

So, in my case, it seems I would have needed to copy the log from X:\ProgramData\Macrium\Reflect\ right after the WinPE image restore completed. The C drive before restore wouldn't have had the C:\ProgramData\Macrium\\Reflect\ folder, but after restore completed, it would have, although I didn't check if the restored disk was mounted as C while still in WinPE. This is interesting, as it seems like the failed system drive case doesn't automatically handle saving the restore log file. At least query the user to save the log file, if it can't figure out where to copy it ... unless I've missed something.

grusmarco said:

I just did some internet searching and found this description by Macrium Support that explains what happens with logs during WinPE...

...So, in my case, it seems I would have needed to copy the log from X:\ProgramData\Macrium\Reflect\ right after the WinPE image restore completed.

Thanks for finding that, it answers my questions.

For answers to other questions that may not even have occurred to you yet, I find the online user manual invaluable (available to download as a pdf) and the Knowledge base.

Macrium Reflect v7.2 User Guide

Macrium Reflect 7.2 Knowledgebase

grusmarco said:

... I'm just not sure the 2x restore made sense. 🤷

A thought has just occurred to me. If you had ticked 'Verifiy image before restore' it would make sense.

Bree said:

A thought has just occurred to me. If you had ticked 'Verifiy image before restore' it would make sense.

Thanks for the idea, but I did not choose verify image at any time.

Here's some additional evidence related to WinPE10 2x slower restore:

Keith:
Why does the WinPE based full restore take twice as long as the normal backup in Windows even if I created a backup with no compression? I'm running Windows 10 version 1607 and am using the latest v6.3 rescue media.

Froggie:
Keith, I saw the exact same thing when using PE10 vs PE3.1 to restore images. I brought it up in the forum but never received what I would call a definitive answer to the issue.

I originally thought it had something to do with disk caching in PE10 (W10 WinPE) but couldn't prove it to myself. I wanted the speed so I went back to the PE3.1 and made sure all needed drivers were available, I've been using that ever since.

The WinPEs are all a bit slower than your LIVE WIndows (I know not why) but PE10 was really a lot slower than the rest when restoring.