New to Macrium: System Image  

My setup: 256 GB SSD holding the C drive "Local Disc C" which includes my Programs among other usual files, 190 GB free of 223 GB. I have my Personal Folders (Documents, Pictures etc., Downloads, Searches etc.) on a 2 TB internal rotational drive D. Therefore these folders on C are mainly empty and their contents are on D. They are backed up elsewhere using FreeFileSync.

I made a SI of of the C drive so that I can get back to where I was when the SI was made. This is what I did:

In Macrium's window I chose the two partitions shown (see attachment) and clicked on "Image this disk...". In the following window I choose the destination as an external USB Hard Drive "A-2" in a new folder which I created: "Macrium SI". In the next window I accepted the defaults concerning Template and Schedules.

But the Define Retention Rules seem not to apply to my task because there are no File backups involved (Documents, Pictures etc., Downloads, Searches etc. see above). I therefore unchecked Full, Differential and Incremental. I noted some info in the next window and pressed Finish. In "What do you want to do now" I unchecked "Save backup ........ XML Backup Def. File" and I pressed OK. A saving action took place with two progress bars, "2 minutes" but it took about 4. I noticed "Backup Type: Full". "Image Completed Successfully, 4m 41 sec. I pressed OK and Close.

In my chosen destination drive "A-2" is my folder "Macrium SI" and inside that is 811E2B34B4C50C72-00-00 which is 15.9 GB (which compares with the 33 GB total used in my C SSD drive).

Q1: Remembering the alteration I made to the backup setup (the second paragraph above this one), is the resulting SI capable of restoring my C drive to what it was on the date I made it (today)?; and:

Q2: Will that restore include my Programs which will run as before?

Thanks.

(The problem of making backups is that you can never confirm that they will actually wok on the day without risking upsetting the System.)

The image you created should restore your C: drive including programs. Are you sure you have backed up all the hidden partitions needed to restore Windows since I would expect to see more partitions on a UEFI boot PC (if you have that)? Reflect has the option to backup all partitions needed to restore Windows and it's useful to use that. You can't restore a working PC without imaging all of the hidden partitions needed to boot Windows. You might also want to consider backing up your user data on drive D. I suggest you also choose the verify option when you create a new image to confirm the integrity of the image file.

Steve C, dalchina, cerebus

OK. I think I have the hang of it now. I have set up a backup routine by clicking on the blue window button "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows", added verification, created an xml file and a scheduled to run at 16:00 every day, and tested it (at a recent time setting) and it works! The fact that the backup routine explicitly mentions "the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" gives me confidence that it will do what I need: to restore only the OS and programs so I could get back to work quickly. I'm very grateful for your advice. Now I'm off to read the manual!

One point remains: I have never found a way to positively test whether any backup will really work, without actually running it and hoping it won't screw up the machine. If you know of a way, please let me know. (Perhaps a restore on to a spare HD and a temporary change to the boot order is the only way.)

Stevekir said:

Steve C, dalchina, cerebus

OK. I think I have the hang of it now. I have set up a backup routine by clicking on the blue window button "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows", added verification, created an xml file and a scheduled to run at 16:00 every day, and tested it (at a recent time setting) and it works! The fact that the backup routine explicitly mentions "the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" gives me confidence that it will do what I need: to restore only the OS and programs so I could get back to work quickly. I'm very grateful for your advice. Now I'm off to read the manual!

One point remains: I have never found a way to positively test whether any backup will really work, without actually running it and hoping it won't screw up the machine. If you know of a way, please let me know. (Perhaps a restore on to a spare HD and a temporary change to the boot order is the only way.)

You could schedule 2 tasks e.g. one for a weekly full backup and another for a daily differential backup. Note you can also backup your user files using Reflect if you wish. You can mount any Reflect image to find any file/folder and copy them if you just need access to a few files in the backup.

That's interesting. Thanks.