Question about system image backups

yesir360 · 18 Sep 2022

So I've been thinking about system images and it occurred to me that wouldn't restoring a system image technically be "force shutdowning" the pc?

Supposing I take a system image with macrium reflect while the system is running. The system then uses volume shadow copy to make sure file changes don't make it in. What if I took the image while it's making critical changes (two files need to be written and it has only written one)? Would it break when I restore the image?

Even if it wasn't making critical file writes, as far as the system knows, one second it's on the desktop running a browser and the next (after restoring the image) it's booting up again. Wouldn't this be similar to a forced shutdown or is there something else at play?

dalchina · 18 Sep 2022

I would expect the partition to be restored as was when image creation was initiated irrespective of changes.

Naturally it wouldn't be a good idea to start imaging your system if it's in the middle of processing a Windows Update.
To restore an image of C: I'd normally boot your PC from MR's boot disk, but you don't have to... if you start from MR's GUI when logged in as normal:

the computer boots into a memory-resident Windows PE environment before restoring the system partitions and restarting to the restored system state.

yesir360 · 18 Sep 2022

Yep, I know that much. I'm just saying that if you made a system image while browsing websites and then one day restored it, the system would at essentially one second be inside the operating system doing things and the next would be booting up the restored system image. You can't just restore an image and be already on the desktop without booting to it.
Kind of similar to if you were browsing websites, did a forced shutdown then booted it up again, correct?

And yeah I wouldn't start an image while it's downloading updates but who knows what windows is writing when you decide to image.

I suppose one can just make an MR recovery usb, boot to that and then create the backup from there to avoid any potential problem...

dalchina · 18 Sep 2022

And thank you for your reply.

yesir360 · 18 Sep 2022

So everyone else has been doing these "forced shutdowns" huh... wonder if anyone's bricked a system by restoring

Steve C · 18 Sep 2022

dalchina said:

I would expect the partition to be restored as was when image creation was initiated irrespective of changes.

Naturally it wouldn't be a good idea to start imaging your system if it's in the middle of processing a Windows Update.
To restore an image of C: I'd normally boot your PC from MR's boot disk, but you don't have to... if you start from MR's GUI when logged in as normal:

Related to that, last week I had a power glitch which shutdown the PC in the middle of updating the game Read Dead Redemption 2. Windows was fine on restart but the game wouldn't work. Reflect to the rescue by mounting the latest image file and copying back the main RDR2 folder before the glitch.

Try3 · 18 Sep 2022

yesir360 said:

What if I took the image while it's making critical changes (two files need to be written and it has only written one)?

It's that moment of initiating the making of the image that is the state of the disk in that image.
Images do not contain the contents of RAM so they do not care what the computer was in the middle of doing.

yesir360 said:

Even if it wasn't making critical file writes, as far as the system knows, one second it's on the desktop running a browser and the next (after restoring the image) it's booting up again.

It's that moment of initiating the making of the image that is the state of the disk in that image.
Images do not contain the contents of RAM so they do not care what the computer was in the middle of doing.

yesir360 said:

Wouldn't this be similar to a forced shutdown or is there something else at play?

I do not understand this analogy.
I do not understand exactly what "this" is.
I do not understand in what way creating a system image is similar to a shutdown.

Denis

Ghot · 18 Sep 2022

@yesir360

As far as I know, just about all backup software takes a "snapshot" of the drive at the start of the backup operation.
So that's the only time you have to "stop what you're doing" while making a backup.
Macrium even tells you when it's taking the "snapshot".

IF you restore a backup from within Windows... yes the computer will have to reboot to complete the restore.
IF you reboot into the Macrium Rescue media and perform the restore... you are already outside Windows.

cereberus · 18 Sep 2022

There is no way doing a restore can brick pc.

A backup is a snapshot in time of a working OS. What ever happens after that is irrelevant. Obviously Windows has to shutdown to boot to WinPe/Re mode to do the restore.

Like any shutdown, this cannot happen if there are ongoing activities that need to be finished.

Worst case is you initiate a restore with (say) Word open, and you have unsaved updates?

Obviously if the backup was made before any new Word updates, it would revert state of Word at time of backup if Word document was part of backup. Short of saving Word document on another drive, it is unavoidable to revert to an earlier version of file. I will check I have got this right.

If the file was on a separate partition, you could would only lose unsaved data since last backup. Saved data would not be retained.

Key question is if you set up restore from Windows, and agree to automatically reboot, does it warn you Word is till open like a normal shutdown, and give you a chance to save file (not on a partition not in backup set). I will test this.

spunk · 18 Sep 2022

To avoid any conflicts, Create a Bootable Rescue Flash Drive in MR. Boot the computer to the MR Recovery Flash Drive and then create an Image File of the Whole Disk that C: is on, and Save that to an External HDD.
Since your booting from the flash drive, there will be no chance of Hard Shutdowns or Windows Updates to confuse the backup.