Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect  

ftw1 said:

Using Macrium Reflect Free, I had 3 full images (October, November, and December 2016) and their associated differential images on an external drive. At the end of December, I decided to set up a backup schedule in Macrium Reflect so that at 6 am on the first Friday of each month it would create and save a full image of my C drive. The retention policy I made was to retain two (2) full images, with the purge running after the image. Today is the first Friday of the month, so per that schedule, I was expecting to see on my external drive (which is the target drive) a full image made of my C drive dated today January 6th, along with the full image from last month December. I thought the October and November full images (along with their differentials) would be purged/deleted. But instead what I ended up with was a full image of my C drive dated today (this is what I expected) and the full image and differentials from October (not what I expected). All the November and December were purged/deleted. Ugh! I wasn't ready for my December images to be killed off. Anyone have an explanation what happened and how to fix the schedule on a going-forward basis?

I believe it may be the retention rules. If you have it set to "matching", it probably purged the Nov/Dec and kept the Oct because it was a different set. Try setting it to "all sets" as in attached.

I don't use differentials, myself, but it's sounds like this is the issue.

Maybe someone else ( @Kari ) can clarify. TC

ftw1 said:

Thanks tomcat.
I've made the setting change as you've suggested and we'll see if that does the trick. Love Macrium Reflect, but I don't think it's the most user-friendly program out there. IMO, while it's powerfully flexible, it's also pretty complicated... evidenced by the fact their user manual is 374 pages long!

The retention rules got a whole lot more complicated in V6.

Anyone notice this? I have made recovery media on three different W10 systems (2x64+1x86) - all updating to v6.3.1665 each time. Then, when I go back, it wants to update the rescue media again to the same version, over and over and over.

simrick said:

Anyone notice this? I have made recovery media on three different W10 systems (2x64+1x86) - all updating to v6.3.1665 each time. Then, when I go back, it wants to update the rescue media again to the same version, over and over and over.

Ah... no. Once I create the media and test it, it goes in its drawer. Why do you want to go back to creating a recovery drive, when you finished making it?

Cliff S said:

Ah... no. Once I create the media and test it, it goes in its drawer. Why do you want to go back to creating a recovery drive, when you finished making it?

Cliff, the point is, I update the rescue media because it tells me there's an update available for recovery media when I go to make it, then I make the recovery media, then I check again, and it wants to update again, to the same version I just updated it to.

I make 2: an ISO and a flash drive. That's why I noticed it.

@simrick - try installing MR on top of itself. You'll get a repair option and it will rewrite it's files & dll's, etc. That's fixed goofy problems for me with MR. Something this time going to 1665 thru the auto-update process didn't quite do right. I know it's multiple machines.

P.S. - I had to install MR on top of itself because VSS broke randomly. I do not get your situation when I take the create option. It clicks right thru to this: