Macrium CBT. What do the icon colors mean?

So i stumbled across a discrepancy in macrium across two of my pc's

One has the CBT little person Icon showing in blue. However on my laptop and my main pc, the CBT icon isnt blue but grey.

Why the difference? What do the colors mean?

klepp0906 said:

Why the difference? What do the colors mean?

Blue indicates the CBT data is valid, grey that another OS (eg, booting from a usb) may have modified the drive and the CBT data cannot be relied on.

When MRCBT is first enabled, it captures an internal NTFS attribute that represents the number of times that the file-system has been restarted. By tracking changes to this value, MRCBT can detect if a volume has been modified in any environment where MRCBT is not operating (e.g. on another computer or operating system).


When MRCBT is enabled and Reflect detects that the Restart attribute correctly sequenced, the subsequent incremental and differential image can be generated by comparing the changed block database (created by MRCBT) on the logical volume with that stored in the previous image in the chain. This is indicated by a blue running-man icon displayed in the Reflect UI...


If Reflect detects that the Restart attribute is not correctly sequenced, the subsequent incremental or differential image will be generated using the traditional method. This is indicated by a grey running-man icon displayed in the Reflect UI.

Macrium Changed Block Tracker - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

Bree said:

Blue indicates the CBT data is valid, grey that another OS (eg, booting from a usb) may have modified the drive and the CBT data cannot be relied on.


Macrium Changed Block Tracker - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

Ugh, so only one pc of 3 has the blue which sounds like is the ideal/proper.

How would one address this to return it to blue?

klepp0906 said:

How would one address this to return it to blue?

From the KB...

If Reflect detects that the Restart attribute is not correctly sequenced, the subsequent incremental or differential image will be generated using the traditional method. This is indicated by a grey running-man icon displayed in the Reflect UI.

The CBT has lost track of the changes, possibly due to a dual-boot system, or booting from a usb. The next incremental or differential will save the changes by the traditional method, after which CBT will be able to track any further changes and will remain blue, or at least, will do so until you boot from another OS.

Bree said:

From the KB...

The CBT has lost track of the changes, possibly due to a dual-boot system, or booting from a usb. The next incremental or differential will save the changes by the traditional method, after which CBT will be able to track any further changes and will remain blue, or at least, will do so until you boot from another OS.

so if i were to do a full backup, then run an incremental immediately after the fact it should return to business as usual? Thank you

If you already have a full then just another incremental would do it. The key is that once a backup has been made, then CBT can track any subsequent changes.

Bree said:

If you already have a full then just another incremental would do it. The key is that once a backup has been made, then CBT can track any subsequent changes.

huh. i wonder why it got wonky then. Certainly didnt boot to any other OS or boot from USB. perhaps the changing of my sata/nvme driver did it as ive been updating those trying to peg down why my drives wont sleep which is the single worst problem to try and diagnose in modern win10 ><

thank you for pointing me in the right direction :)

klepp0906 said:

...perhaps the changing of my sata/nvme driver did it...

That sounds very likely to be the reason your CBT lost track of changes.