Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect  

Neptune:

The imaging process just creates a huge file with an mrimg extension. It can be treated like any other huge file. No special requirements, folder, or format. It can be saved anywhere there is enough space EXCEPT on a partition contained in the image file itself......that is, if you choose to include both C and D in the image, you can't save the image file on C or D.

Normally, you'd make and restore an image while booted from your system drive. The USB recovery media method is needed when your system drive is unavailable for whatever reason......it died, it's alive but you can't boot from it, etc.

The paid version has a few features you might consider, but they may well not be useful to you. I used the free version for close to 10 years without incident.

Thanks for the reply ignatzatsonic, I thought it was required process at some point like if you don't use USB rescue media, don't you have to reboot to restore and select rescue media from windows boot menu or something like that?

If your system drive is working well and you have installed Macrium on it, you would:

Boot normally.

Open the Macrium application just like you'd open any other application.

Select the task you want from Macrium menus.

The task would typically be to make an image or to restore an image. You then follow prompts, navigating as necessary. It's fairly intuitive, but you ought to practice making an image or 5 just to understand the process.

The restore image menus are a bit more complex than the make image menus.

You wouldn't "select rescue media" precisely because your system drive is working well.

You COULD use the rescue media if you insisted, but it's slower. Might take a minute to even get it loaded. If you did choose to use rescue media, you would arrive at the same Macrium interface you would see if you booted from your system drive and ran Macrium from there.

You should of course make rescue media and confirm it will in fact boot your PC. If it won't, it's useless and you could end up in a major bind if you can't boot the system drive.

Once you give the final "go ahead and do it" command, it's automated. You'd just watch the progress bar. It would reboot if you are restoring.

ignatzatsonic said:

If your system drive is working well and you have installed Macrium on it, you would:

Boot normally.

Open the Macrium application just like you'd open any other application.

Select the task you want from Macrium menus.

The task would typically be to make an image or to restore an image. You then follow prompts, navigating as necessary. It's fairly intuitive, but you ought to practice making an image or 5 just to understand the process.

The restore image menus are a bit more complex than the make image menus.

You wouldn't "select rescue media" precisely because your system drive is working well.

You COULD use the rescue media if you insisted, but it's slower. Might take a minute to even get it loaded. If you did choose to use rescue media, you would arrive at the same Macrium interface you would see if you booted from your system drive and ran Macrium from there.

You should of course make rescue media and confirm it will in fact boot your PC. If it won't, it's useless and you could end up in a major bind if you can't boot the system drive.

Once you give the final "go ahead and do it" command, it's automated. You'd just watch the progress bar. It would reboot if you are restoring.

I haven't done any Restore Image process yet I don't know how it works but from the tutorials after clicking Restore Image button doesn't it popup "This restore must be completed in win PE rescue environment create rescue media and add to windows boot menu..." (I created full C backup) Do you mean it's possible to not use rescue media boot option and just create image, click restore image, it restarts pc in restored state without boot options?

kado897 said:

I didn't want to complicate things but you can instigate a restore of the system drive from a running system if you have created the boot menu. MR will automatically reboot to the rescue environment before beginning the restore. I personally have never done it that way but I am assured that it works.

That's what I thought in order to restore you need to create rescue media USB or add to boot menu? either way you have to boot from win PE right? Do you always use boot from USB rescue media method?

see comments;

veryneptune said:

I haven't done any Restore Image process yet I don't know how it works but from the tutorials after clicking Restore Image button doesn't it popup "This restore must be completed in win PE rescue environment create rescue media and add to windows boot menu..."

Yeah, I restored an image a week ago and saw something like that. I said yes to it and all went well. I rarely restore--maybe 8 times in 10 plus years.

Do you mean it's possible to not use rescue media boot option and just create image, click restore image, it restarts pc in restored state without boot options?

All I meant was that you do NOT have to use your rescue media USB stick to restore in normal circumstances.......e.g. when your boot drive is working well. The stick is optional, but slow.

The most confusing part of restore (to me) is if you want to restore only SOME partitions, not ALL.............but I've never personally wanted to do that.

You can even make a single image file containing partitions from 2 totally different drives. Never done that either. It would just add to my confusion. I don't image my data at all.

I don't want complications or doubt when I'm in the middle of something critical like that. I want simplicity.