Macrium Reflect

huffman said:

Confusion is running amuck. I got the latest free Macrium reflect. Man is it different. In the past when MR generated a backup file it only did one file. This latest version generated two files. I am NOT sure how that works.

I also created what I think is a rescue disk (used a CD). The only way I know how to test to see if it works is to boot the PC using the rescue disk.
I would do this by putting the rescue disk into the PC, then shut down. I would then start the PC and continueously pressing the
F2 key until the PC started to boot from the rescue disk. This did NOT work; so far I have not been able to get the PC to boot using the rescue disk. I have NO idea what I am doing wrong. BTW this is an HP PC with windows 10.

Any comments are appreciated.

Thanks

To get to the "boot menu" where you can decide what device to boot from.... press the ESC key (or F9 key in rare cases), on an HP computer. Once on the boot menu, you can choose to boot from the optical drive (CD).

The nice thing about the boot menu is that it's only a one time choice. The next time you boot, it will go back to booting from your Windows drive.

On the "boot menu" you may see TWO optical drives. One saying UEFI and the other without the UEFI.
You might have to try both, one at a time, as I don't know if your setup is MBR or GPT.









For example... here's what MY Boot Menu looks like...

CoolRaoul said:

Since Macrium announcement of suppressing the free option I'm in the process of looking for alternative.
I'm currently using it on 4 PC (mine, my wife's, my mother and another relative). It's a typical home usage.
Switching to paid version looks pretty expensive (€115.90 according to Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect for Home Use) and it's not a lifetime licence (looks that even upgrade price from previous major version are not low.)

What could be the better option for my usage then?

That price is for a 4 pc pack and is a perpetual licence inasmuch as you can use it forever but you would have to pay 50% to upgrade to V9 when it comes out.

If you can wait until Black Friday, they usually offer it at 50% off - you would still have two months to get an alternative.

huffman said:

I got the new Macrium Reflect to download and it seemed to install fine.

First thing I did was make a new rescue disk (CD). I am not sure why but when I went to check it (boot PC from rescue disk), am I doing it right. I put the disk into the pc and restarted the pc while tapping the F2 key constantly. I could NOT get the PC to boot using the rescue disk. Strange, I am sure this is how I have done it in the past.

Always before, when making the backup image (system backup) of a pc, I got one file by the name I used. I name them by the date of making the file. This time I got two files named: 1A45BB2B7851F7CC-2.25.2023-00-00 and 9-14-2022-00-00. Both have the extention "mrimg" which is correct (I believe).

I would assume the one with 2.25.2023 in it is the one to use when restoring an image. I am NOT sure about that.

I would appreciatae any help with these issues along with comments about the two files. BTW it is an HP PC with Windows 10.

Thanks

F2 would always not work on modern uefi pcs, especially if fast start is enabled in windows. You should change boot order to boot from usb drive first.

Re dates - you can set up xml file to automatically add dates.

huffman said:

This morning MR saved my butt. Nothing was showing on my desktop. I assume it was caused by some software I had installed earlier.

I ran MR restore using the image I had created a week ago. Holy Moses it did work fine.

I even made a new rescue Media disk. I still can not figure out how to boot from the rescue disk. I have pressed every button anyone has suggested during startup. I was told to press the "Esc" key. That did not work.

When I am booting up, I can see two instructions. One starts "Press any key ..." and I can not see the rest of it. That booted up normally pressing any key. The second instruction goes by so fast I can not read.

Does any one know what these instructions say? Help would be nice.

Thanks much.

There are two ways to boot from something other than the Windows disk.

One is to use the Boot Menu, as I mentioned before.
The other is to go into the BIOS and set the optical drive to be "first" in the boot order.

With the optical drive (CD), set to boot first, every time you boot or restart the computer, it will check to see if there's a bootable CD in the optical drive.

The Macrium Rescue CD is bootable.
That's when you should see the "press any key to boot from CD" message.

Once you press any key... it should boot from the Macrium Rescue CD.
I don't know what the 2nd message you're seeing could possibly be.


To boot from the Rescue CD the other way, is to use the boot menu.
On an HP computer, Pressing Esc or F9 should bring up the boot menu.
Once the boot menu is up, just use the arrow key to move down through the list till you get to the optical drive,
then hit the ENTER key

I have a Macrium Rescue CD as well as a USB stick with Macrium... gimme a few and I'll get a pic of what the boot menu for the Rescue CD will look like..






OK... here is my Boot Menu with a bootable CD in the optical drive.
You'll notice there are TWO optical drives shown. They are both the SAME optical drive.
One is for UEFI boot and the other is for NON-UEFI boot.

On my system I have to choose the UEFI option. YOU will have to try both and see which one works on your system.

To get to the Boot Menu, as I mentioned, you need to hit either the F9 or the ESC key.
With SSDs these days, computers boot really fast.
I have to "gently" spam the F8 key (on MY system - ASUS) to get to the Boot Menu.


Anyway, here's the picture...





On a side note... if I use my USB stick with the Macrium Rescue media... it works the same way.
There's a UEFI option and a NON-UEFI option. I have to choose the UEFI option on MY system.


Also on the Boot Menu... "Enter Setup" takes you to the BIOS.
And if I choose Samsung SSD, it will boot to Windows.


And last but not least... this file will UN-check the box that puts that huge Image ID number on your backups... (1A45BB2B7851F7CC)

1. Go here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Macrium\Reflect\Settings
2. Set: PrefixWithUniqueSetID ...to 0 (zero)


Then you can give your backups, names that make sense.
19045.xxxx are my Windows 10 backups, and 22621.xxxx are my Windows 11 backups.

I always name my backups like this: date // Windows version // note if needed