Use Macrium Reflect Rescue Media to Fix Windows Boot Issues

cereberus · 27 Nov 2021

I do not see how Reflect can cause this issue. If the winre partition is not active, you cannot create a winre version of reflect - you can only create a Winpe version.

All Reflect does is create a bcd boot entry if you select to add a boot entry.

Reflect does not alter the winre. It has probably got deactivated somehow as @SIW2 says. My experience of that is that it is usually related to a windows upgrade.

In any case, why would you want to recover Windows images if using reflect as it supersedes the unreliable windows image backup system (a deprecated feature). MS have wanted to kill this off for years but never actually take the final step yo do so.

DocDJ · 28 Feb 2022

I have used MR to create bootable media on a 2 TB USB drive (NOT A stick), with 2 partitions D (FAT32 Macrium boot) and P (NTFS - eventually will have MR partition images). Drive is configured as MBR. Flipping Secure Boot on/off has had no effect. The PC STARTS booting from the USB drive (I can see its light flashing), then the PC reverts to booting from my C drive. Rationale for the NTFS ptn for data is to avoid dozens of 4K files for backing up my 500GB C drive. Also tried setting D as "active". MSI Z390 MEG ACE, Intel 9700K, Windows 11 Pro 21H2, Macrium Reflect free 8.0 build 6584.

Any tips greatly appreciated.

cereberus · 28 Feb 2022

DocDJ said:

I have used MR to create bootable media on a 2 TB USB drive (NOT A stick), with 2 partitions D (FAT32 Macrium boot) and P (NTFS - eventually will have MR partition images). Drive is configured as MBR. Flipping Secure Boot on/off has had no effect. The PC STARTS booting from the USB drive (I can see its light flashing), then the PC reverts to booting from my C drive. Rationale for the NTFS ptn for data is to avoid dozens of 4K files for backing up my 500GB C drive. Also tried setting D as "active". MSI Z390 MEG ACE, Intel 9700K, Windows 11 Pro 21H2, Macrium Reflect free 8.0 build 6584.

Any tips greatly appreciated.

It is not really a good plan to have the Reflect Boot Media on same device as the drive you intend to backup files to. You will need to upgrade Reflect moderately frequently, and it is too easy to make an error, and could end up losing backups.

Flash drives are so cheap, I strongly recommend you use them instead.

If you are going to use two partitions, I would wipe drive completely and start over, creating rescue drive anew. Once created, test it works ok, then shrink the fat32 partition to say 2GB, then add an exFAT or NTFS partition.

DocDJ · 01 Mar 2022

How often would you expect Macrium to REQUIRE an update that I would really have to apply to my bootable partition? For various reasons, I have about 20 USB sticks and while they are handy, maintaining a list of what is currently on each one is a nuisance. If I have to re-apply MR to my drive once every 2 years, that would NOT be a problem, since I could just do a fresh backup afterward if it gets messed up. More of a nuisance would be searching for TWO sticks if I needed to do a restore. And while the system stick could be small, my data runs to terabytes. Sticks can't beat the price!! (My weekly backup drive is 5 TB, but most of the data is fairly stable, so just keeping it offline is sufficient protection - I just REALLY don't want to have to do a clean install).

PS. I have a different drive just for a rolling backup of data every couple of days. That drive is protected by a physical USB switch, just in case of a ransom-ware attack. My system backup is only plugged in every couple of weeks or so, because I can always download system updates. I also plan to backup data on that bootable drive too, but that would only be a monthly capture.

PPS. You're not paranoid if they REALLY ARE out to get you.

- - - Updated - - -

I connected my USB rescue drive to my laptop and after using Windows' "recovery" options to change the boot sequence the drive booted into Macrium as expected. Changing the sequence on my desktop's mobo, it still attempts the USB boot, but drops back to Windows HDD boot.
UPDATE: using the Windows recovery options to "boot from a device", it worked. So the question is now, "how can I make it boot from my drive before it tries to boot from the Windows HDD, if I don't have a working system to use to change the recovery option?"

- - - Updated - - -

For MY mobo (MSI MEG Z390 ACE) and keeping backups on the Macrium Rescue device, running Windows 11:

Connect and Format my USB Rescue drive (NOT a USB stick) as MBR
Use Macrium>Other tasks>build rescue disk, then do the build.
Use my favorite partition program (Minitool Partition Wizard free) to create an NTFS partition after the Macrium Boot partition. Give it a drive letter NOT normally found on my system (I have 7 permanently attached drives with 9 total partition letters in use). I chose drive letter P
Create a Macrium backup task to "Create an image of the partitions to restore Windows", set the destination for the backup as the newly created partition on the Rescue drive.
Do the backup, selecting the partitions you really want backed up (I didn't want ALL my partitions backed up this way, just the system itself.
Get to my UEFI (BIOS) setup, set Boot Configuration>CSM boot mode will now show as LEGACY+UEFI boot, set UEFI USB hard disk as 1st device in boot sequence with UEFI HDD in2nd position, Set Secure boot>off.

USB drive now boots directly into MR with access to backup partition (P). Since ptn P is NTFS, a FULL backup file will be one restorable file per ptn saved, instead of dozens of 4GB blocks, which is the max size MR can write for a FAT32 disk.

Try3 · 28 Apr 2022

Kari,

When trying to understand why a user was having problems using the Macrium boot disk for startup repairs, I noticed that this tutorial & the MacriumKB article differ / appear to me to differ.
Macrium Reflect Boot disk - Fix Boot Problems - MacriumReflectKB

Perhaps it's a v8 thing.

If any of you Macrium users are able to jump in and help the OP then you'll do a better job than I can.
Problem starting computer - TenForums

All the best,
Denis

cereberus · 28 Apr 2022

Try3 said:

Kari,

When trying to understand why a user was having problems using the Macrium boot disk for startup repairs, I noticed that this tutorial & the MacriumKB article differ / appear to me to differ.
Macrium Reflect Boot disk - Fix Boot Problems - MacriumReflectKB

Perhaps it's a v8 thing.

If any of you Macrium users are able to jump in and help the OP then you'll do a better job than I can.
Problem starting computer - TenForums

All the best,
Denis

The tutorial is based on UEFI. The menus are a bit more complicated for legacy bios. I will have to remember how to do it.

Try3 · 28 Apr 2022

cereberus said:

The tutorial is based on UEFI. The menus are a bit more complicated for legacy bios. I will have to remember how to do it.

Ah, OK - I saw the MBR/Bios section was not in the tutorial but remained unsure because I've never used a Macrium boot disk myself.
The MacriumKB article shows both so I haven't misled that OP by suggesting that she follows that guide.

Thanks,
Denis

cereberus · 28 Apr 2022

Try3 said:

Ah, OK - I saw the MBR/Bios section was not in the tutorial but remained unsure because I've never used a Macrium boot disk myself.
The MacriumKB article shows both so I haven't misled that OP by suggesting that she follows that guide.

Thanks,
Denis

Hi Sue,

Here are the screen you should see - you just basically click keeping all defaults.

My experience is if this does not work, you are usually out of luck.

Use Macrium Reflect Rescue Media to Fix Windows Boot Issues

Macrium rescue boot rolls over to normal boot