A challenge for the pro's. Can you help identify a reg key please.

I think I would mount the image in question and check if the files are there. You can do that in Disk Management by attaching a VHD and browsing for the largest .vhdx file which is described as a Hard Disk Image File. After mounting you will probably need to assign a drive letter. ** when you are done, make very sure you use the "Detatch VHD" option on the left end of the Disk Management line to dismount the image.

If the files are present, then for some reason it wasn't reimaged fully. If the files aren't there then they may not have been on one of the Critical partitions and were not part of the image at all.

dalchina said:

Both Aomei and Macrium provide boot media. Then there's O&O DiskImage (commercial, some giveaways), and here's a review of commercial programs:


The Best Disk Imaging Software of 2016 | Top Ten Reviews

And one few use but was strongly recommended (free version of commercial product) is
Veeam Endpoint (free). Like Macrium free, it only provides incremental backup.

I've never heard of Veeam before. I'll certainly take a look. Thanks for that :)

Before I totally write off Macrium I'm just going to do a bit of investigation, because it suddenly occurred to me that there might be some default file exclusions that are pre-set. I had a problem a few years ago with Acronis not restoring LibreOffice correctly (spell check was always broken on the restore) and it was due to an excluded file type. Once you knew... one click and it was fixed. So I must look into that first.

Needhelpwithwin said:

So let me see if I understood: Your tests shows that AOMEI is the best solution till now? Sorry I never did a system image before that's why I was about to use the built in Windows 10 one cause it would be simpler or whatever but since it is a little messed up I have no problem in trying AOMEI.

All I'm saying is that AOMEI doesn't give the error I'm seeing with both Windows and Macrium. There might be some other issue I haven't noticed (although I hope not).

Fwiw, AOMEI has a very easy to use interface. Yes, you just install the software (reboot after initial installation even though it doesn't request it) and away you go. I use disk images all the time for various reasons and you have to be confident they will work correctly.

Saltgrass said:

I think I would mount the image in question and check if the files are there. You can do that in Disk Management by attaching a VHD and browsing for the largest .vhdx file which is described as a Hard Disk Image File. After mounting you will probably need to assign a drive letter. ** when you are done, make very sure you use the "Detatch VHD" option on the left end of the Disk Management line to dismount the image.

If the files are present, then for some reason it wasn't reimaged fully. If the files aren't there then they may not have been on one of the Critical partitions and were not part of the image at all.

Thanks for replying. Hmmm... so that sounds like it would certainly help with diagnosing the issue, although as a user, whichever stage it fails on is still an issue with the product in question I guess.

More......

I commented on this problem to Macrium and shortly afterwards received a nice reply suggesting to try again but this time with a 'VSS option' selected as shown in the image below.

After trying this a couple of times I can tentatively say that this seems to overcome the issue and that the problem is not present when now making images and restoring them.

Full marks to Macrium for responding so swiftly.

I think VSS is a feature of Windows which is designed to help the process of backing-up the operating system while you're still using the operating system.

I suspect the problem stems from a file or registry key being locked for access, because you're still using Windows at the time, in such a way which prevents Macrium and presumably Windows' own System Image from backing it up.

I also bet that if you booted from a Macrium recovery drive, and ran the backup while not using Windows, you wouldn't have the problem

I enquired further and again Macrium were very helpful. This is part of their reply and in response to this, I confirmed to them that the issue is indeed present in W10's own utility.

..................It sounds like the problem could be with Volume shadow Copy. Reflect primarily uses this to create a snapshot, if the issue is also present in the "built in" Windows backup utility this confirms the cause. Enabling the option to "Exclude all VSS Writers" will force Reflect to use a basic writer or fail back to using our custom snapshot mechanism.

If you are not running a server with Exchange and SQL you will not notice any difference................

Mooly said:

I enquired further and again Macrium were very helpful. This is part of their reply and in response to this, I confirmed to them that the issue is indeed present in W10's own utility.

If the problem is related to VSS that's why AOMEI works OK cause it comes with it enabled by default: Use VSS


and sorry dalchina I forgot to quote Mooly post cause it was him that said AOMEI had no problems and it made me choose this program to make my images :)


So Mooly since your image on Windows 10 worked OK using AOMEI and you are more used to this stuff I guess I can use AOMEI to make my images without problems right?

Little question about the backup mode: Should I use System Backup or Disk Backup?