RollBack MX and Macrium Reflect

I understand that the two don't play so well together.
If I have both installed, and I restore using MR, I understand that I run a risk of an unbootable system.
Question: can I fix that by simply uninstalling RB at its pre-windows screen, where you press "home"?
And then running the MR repair boot tool, if necessary?
Or is that no guarantee to success?
I don't care if I have to uninstall RB and lose my snapshots. I am using the free version anyways, and I don't care about the snapshots. I just want an intact windows system to emerge from the mess, in the rare case that I have to restore using MR.

Hey shmu26-

I waited to see what other suggestions were made, as I'm not sure I understand the issue, exactly. There's not been any thus far, so this is what I was wondering:

Can't you just run each one, one at a time? I mean disable them from auto-starting, then activate / launch them as needed?

I know if you have this set up for scheduled back-ups / snapshots, then that won't work, but just a thought.

Also, IMHO, if don't feel comfortable with RollBack, but want a second layer of back ups, then it might be worth looking into uninstalling it, and installing AOMEI, which is another free imaging program.

b1rd

thanks for suggestions.
The main problem is that an image made by macrium reflect or other imaging software will contain a hidden boot partition that belongs to Rollback RX. You can't get rid of that boot partition just by disabling the program at startup.
So when you do a restore with your favorite imaging software, the boot process gets all confused.

I read a post from someone who was very happy with his macrium-rollback combination, although he was on MBR legacy boot.
So I decided to give it a try with my EUFI boot, using his recommendation to immediately run the macrium boot repair tool, right after restore.

Basically, this worked for me, although I had to run it a couple times, with a boot or two in-between, because Rollback did not get killed. It didn't die until I booted into windows (although windows didn't work quite right), and then tried to restore my system from a Rollback snapshot.
I think the right procedure is to restore the macrium image, immediately run the macrium boot repair tool, and then, if Rollback is still alive, to hit the "home" key when the Rollback pre-windows screen splashes. Then, choose "uninstall". After successfully booting to your desktop, you reinstall Rollback.

The company that makes Rollback RX also makes an imaging software, called Drive Cloner Rx, and they say it plays nicely with Rollback. But they don't have a free edition yet, just a 30-day trial.

As for comparing AOMEI or any other imaging program to Rollback, it's just no comparison. Rollback is so quick and so convenient, you wouldn't believe it. But it runs your whole system inside some kind of a virtualized enviroment or something (I am not techie enough to define it properly), so you can't properly perform on-the-metal functions such as resizing your partitions, modifying the MBR, running TRIM, etc. So if you want to do stuff like that, you have to uninstall and reboot, because otherwise, the Rollback environment will be there between you and the metal, and things can really mess up.

At the end of the day, though, the Macrium Reflect boot repair tool does the job, like I said.

The main problem is that an image made by macrium reflect or other imaging software will contain a hidden boot partition that belongs to Rollback RX.

Ok, I think I get the idea now. I'm not familiar enough with Rollback, so I really don't know.

RollBack sounds a lot like a program that I once used years ago called "GoBack." This would load just before Windows and offered a brief splash screen, which allowed the option to go back in time, even if Windows failed to boot. It did get a big buggy and I subsequently had to boot into Safemode to uninstall it. But it was great when I needed it.

I've always been a bit leery of using programs that load just before Windows in case they get buggy, but Win-10 seems to have more recovery options than the OS I had back then, so it might not become much of an issue if it were to happen.

You also have a built in Windows Imaging utility which you can configure to run daily. It seems to just write the new image over the old one, thus keeping only one image available to save space. If you change the name of the image, it will write another only along side, so you'll have two.

It's no RollBack, but it does offer an added layer of recovery options.

b1rd

b1rd said:

I've always been a bit leery of using programs that load just before Windows in case they get buggy
b1rd

Right. Rollback also has a problem with some of the windows updates. And if you have a HDD, defragmenting the regular way can mess things up. So basically, it is a magic tool if you are willing to take the risk it involves. And you definitely should have a second backup plan.
But it is probably healthier in the long run to resist the urge to tinker recklessly with the PC, than it is to have a quickie way to recover from user-generated mistakes.