Imaging programs

Thanks very much both. I am getting the hang of macrium but still find some things confusing. I just want to make a single system image. So mine has finished now. If someone could talk me through it please?

First page simple - select which drives to image, select destination drive for back up of image. Click next.

Second page a bit confusing. I left everything as default. Some options were pre-set. I left template as "none". Ignored box 2 (add/edit schedules). Box 3 says "Define retention rules". Full and differential were both ticked, so I left it as that and proceeded.

But now I am not sure what I actually have on the back up drive. Is it just an image? Or some kind of parameter that turns the next image into a differential image. I assume a differential image is just anything different from the previous image. The control freak in me doesn't like the idea that an image isn't just a single mirror image of my drive but things can be saved separately and added to the base image.

So the result at the end says this (attached photo). Sorry to ask for noddy explanations but can someone run through what all that means please? I understand it has set some rules for imaging from now on but it's confusing!

So I have since done a macrium backup on son's gaming pc (which was much faster as usb 3 and ssd/hdd to ssd backup driver - took about an hour - plus it was using the trial of the full version - not sure if that made it faster or not).

When doing this one I unticked differential and just left full. So what will the difference be next time? Have I now cancelled differential backups on his PC and only do full ones each time?

I know it is clever and fully automated but I'd like to be a bit more in control and choose to have a full image each time.

A few more questions:

1) The file now on my back up drive. Can I rename it? (Eg so I know the date it was made). It's just a string of numbers and letters right now.
2) If my next image is a differential one and I need to restore, when restoring does it just restore the base and any differential images automatically or do you select what to restore?
3) How do you know which image was made when or after which event you made the image? ie to know which one to restore.

As you can tell I am stuck in old Windows 7 Imaging program habits.

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One more question. The rescue media. Can that be used on any pc or do you need individual ones making for each pc please?

Steve C said:

IMHO Acronis software is poorly engineered and supported. Macrium backup software is far better. I always use imaging in preference to cloning. I also don't believe in using Chinese (e.g. Aoemi) or Russian (e.g. Kaspersky) software.

To make a simple backup of all partitions required to boot windows just select the option shown:

Thank you! Now that is another bit I found confusing. I clicked on the top icon, not the second one! Which might explain why it selected my back up disc as well as the one's on the pc (that wasn't an issue I deselected it but the discs are just named 1 and 2 etc and you can only tell which is which by the size of them - it doesn't say "C" drive etc.).

I assume the second option you highlighted allows you to just select C partion or D partition?

If it's not a silly question, what is the difference between the top option and the second option? The first time I didn't select either, I went to the top menu bar and selected make an image (or something like that) under the Backup heading.

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cereberus said:

This is true mostly but now and then you do find a pc which requires you to add your own drivers but this is pretty rare. If you do customise it, it will still work on other pcs (unless unlucky and you need to add drivers for that pc as well).

Thank you. Well to be on the safe side I did one for both PC's. Especially as one is much newer and has a lot of programs/games on it.

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dalchina said:

You can, but then MR will be confused and not find it next time.

What I do is to create a folder on my backup drive.
E.g.
Lenovo t440s 20H2
That contains my images of Windows build 20H2. Base plus a set of differentials.

When you restore an image, you browse to the image file you want to restore. (Option Restore, Browse...)

If you pick an image file to start from, if that's a differential image, all you'll see is the partitions available.

That what is restored comes from two different files is then not visible or relevant to you.

Please do make use of documentation and youtube videos. Imagine if everyone who started using Macrium asked the same questions...


Generally yes any. It's just a generic boot disk, unless you customise it.

Thank you. Yes I will need to read more. I did quite a bit of googling first but didn't find much in the way of explanation so will check out your links more.

But I think that is why a lot of new users give up on it because it is not self explanatory so much during use with a few confusing options. But I accept it is a good imaging program in terms of reliability (if you select the right options).

Main question for next time - as mentioned above, on one back on one PC I left the default "Full" and "differential" ticked. On the second PC I unticked "differential" and just left it as full. I have no idea what difference it has made (except perhaps when the backup finished it didn't come up with a set of rules). Does that mean my next back up will also be a full one as no rules set for differential?

It is that one area that is confusing me.

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Barman58 said:

I create backups over five night time backup sessions in a week, (this is due to the amount of Data I wish to protect), on Monday I do a full backup of my Windows System Drive ( which would be the second item on the list . On the other four nights I backup sets of specific data (also as full backups, I have the available space so keep at least two full backups of each set), these are mainly on different Physical Disks or Partitions, so would be equivalent to The first item on the Menu shown.

Differential backups are a space saving technique to give a fairly efficient recovery whilst using a small amount of space, I prefer the Single file backup that a full backup scheme gives me, and I have A lot of space (I have multiple USB3.1 External drives of up to Eight Terabytes, and a NAS of 10TB)

For those without the available space the differential Scheme is the way to go

Thank you for explaining that - appreciated. I am still a bit unclear on the difference between the first and second options. I understand that the second option does a back up the Windows system drive. So if I have two hard drives - a C drive with Windows on and a D drive with programs on (as in son's gaming PC), does that mean the second option would only back up the C drive?

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I am not entirely sure what I have backed up now!

Laptop: I selected backup from top menu and then - image. Selected my only disk and proceeded.
PC with two hard disks: Selected top option of the three icons. Both disks were ticked. Proceeded.

I think maybe I need to start again with my backups.