Help with creating a system image backup

Cerawy said:

Yep, I just tried to boot from the macrium backup file. Didn't work. Completely useless, will try some of the other programs.

P.S this is my first time taking backup so I may make several mistakes.

No one can boot from a Macrium image file. It's not just you.

But they are not "useless".

Do you in fact have an image file with an MRIMG extension saved somewhere on some hard drive?

If that MRIMG file is on a USB stick, can you boot your PC from that stick, as if your SSD did not even exist?

It is possible there is something wrong with your particular Macrium image file.

But that is not the most likely possibility.

It is much more likely that you do not know the proper procedure and that is why I asked you about the details of what you intended to do. It appears you don't know the details.

To be useful, the Macrium image file must be formally "restored" to your prospective new SSD. That's a multi-step process.

Have you investigated that procedure at all? Looked at tutorials? Read the help file?

I can assure you that other imaging programs work in much the same way. You have to restore. Macrium is simpler than most of them.

Confluence Mobile - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

ignatzatsonic said:

Do you in fact have an image file with an MRIMG extension saved somewhere on some hard drive?

Yes, I got the Disk Partition image (.mrimg) from macrium on my usb flash drives.

ignatzatsonic said:

If that MRIMG file is on a USB stick, can you boot your PC from that stick, as if your SSD did not even exist?

I don't think so, I'm having problems getting the boot menu to occour. I have tried F2,F4,F8,F11 and F12. The one time I did manage to bring the boot menu up, I didn't see any options to boot from macrium.

ignatzatsonic said:

To be useful, the Macrium image file must be formally "restored" to your prospective new SSD. That's a multi-step process.

Do you mean I have to install windows, install macrium, and then restore windows from the Disk Partition image (.mrimg)?

Cerawy said:

Do you mean I have to install windows, install macrium, and then restore windows from the Disk Partition image (.mrimg)?

No, you don't reinstall Windows.

It's a process.

With steps.

Explained in many different tutorials, youtube videos, posts on this forum, etc.

Have you looked at any of them?

If your SSD fails, you have to be able to start your PC in order to take the first step.

That would be the first issue facing you. Your SSD is dead. Whatcha gonna do?

You don't "restore Windows from the Disk Partition image". You restore partitions--one or more---however many are represented by that MRIMG file you made.

It's more like: you start the PC somehow, you get to a Macrium interface with it's menus, you tell Macrium that you want to restore your MRIMG file, you find that file within the Macrium interface, and you then tell Macrium to what drive you want to restore.

The method used to start the PC should lead you directly to the Macrium interface. That's the purpose of the Macrium recovery media that you should have made immediately after installing Macrium on your current SSD.

That recovery media MUST be bootable.

That restoration process will re-create the partitions represented by that MRIMG file on your chosen (new) hard drive. That hard drive will then be bootable, just like the original hard drive.

If Windows was on the original drive, it will be on the restoration--ready to use right then, already "installed". If a letter to grandma was on the original drive, it will be on the restoration.

Without this restoration, that MRIMG file isn't very useful.

If it works. It usually does. Not always.

ignatzatsonic said:

That would be the first issue facing you. Your SSD is dead. Whatcha gonna do?

I already replied to that previously. I would buy a new SSD. The point was to be able to restore my old installation of windows on the SSD instead of starting all over again with a fresh install of windows. If this isn't possible then it is pointless and a waste of time. Perhaps in some years we will have software that does this.

ignatzatsonic said:

You don't "restore Windows from the Disk Partition image". You restore partitions--one or more---however many are represented by that MRIMG file you made.

It's more like: you start the PC somehow, you get to a Macrium interface with it's menus, you tell Macrium that you want to restore your MRIMG file, you find that file within the Macrium interface, and you then tell Macrium to what drive you want to restore.

The method used to start the PC should lead you directly to the Macrium interface. That's the purpose of the Macrium recovery media that you should have made immediately after installing Macrium on your current SSD.

That recovery media MUST be bootable.

That restoration process will re-create the partitions represented by that MRIMG file on your chosen (new) hard drive. That hard drive will then be bootable, just like the original hard drive.

If Windows was on the original drive, it will be on the restoration--ready to use right then, already "installed". If a letter to grandma was on the original drive, it will be on the restoration.

Without this restoration, that MRIMG file isn't very useful.

If it works. It usually does. Not always.

I don't understand a bit of what you mean, and it is making the problem more confusing, as if it wasn't already confusing enough. Let's put it to the side for now, and maybe in some years we will have some simple software that can easily restore windows.

Cerawy said:

I don't understand a bit of what you mean, and it is making the problem more confusing, as if it wasn't already confusing enough.

Aye aye, over and out.