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Is it possible to make the backup into a single file with macrium? I have tried it previously, and found it confusing because it was creating several files and folders.
Last edited by Cerawy; 13 Apr 2021 at 16:35.
Is it possible to make the backup into a single file with macrium? I have tried it previously, and found it confusing because it was creating several files and folders.
Last edited by Cerawy; 13 Apr 2021 at 16:35.
Yes it is. Perhaps you were making incrementals or differentials? Or, you may have been making an image to a FAT32-formatted device. That limits the size of files to 4GB, so Macrium chops the backup into 4GB chunks. You want to have an external drive that is NTFS formatted; that will give you a single file for your image. Image the complete drive, full image, not incremental or differential.
Have you seen our tutorial on using Macrium?
Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect - Windows 10 Backup Restore Tutorials
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Last edited by simrick; 27 Apr 2017 at 09:05.
I'm not really sure if i understand what you mean, but im going to give the tutorial a try and get back with the results.
Last edited by Cerawy; 12 Apr 2021 at 20:48.
When you create the first- base- image of Windows, Macrium will select all the relevant partitions for Windows including the EFI, System, Recovery and 'C:' partitions (for an EFI installation) and create one compressed file (assuming you select option 'Windows Backup')
Thereafter, with the free version (which supports differential imaging, not incremental), each differential image which you could create
- on a schedule
- manually
as you wish, represents the difference between the current state of those partitions and that when the base image was created.
Thus to restore Windows, you would then need the base image and one differential.
By default, Macrium maintains a limited number of differential images (limiting the max amount of storage used for images).
All you do then is keep creating a differential image. You don't need to worry about the number of image files. That's only of interest when you come to restore, when you can restore to any date at which an existing differential image was created, or that of the base image.
Of course then you may wish (and should) to create images of other partitions or disks, so you will then have more than one image set.
Should i select the reserved for the system and ntfs primary options?
Last edited by Cerawy; 12 Apr 2021 at 20:49.
Backup, Backup Windows, should show you a picture of your partitions and those related to your complete Windows installation - that would be necessary for restoration to a new drive should your old one fail is a good way to think about this - should be ticked for you.
The only oddity is that Win 10 upgrades sometimes generate a second Recovery partition (one is then redundant) and Macrium will select both.
I have set it to start but it says it takes 3 hours to complete. Is this normal for macrium?
Last edited by Cerawy; 13 Apr 2021 at 16:36.
If you have a very large drive with a ton of data on it, it could take a long time, yes. Another issue could be the data transfer rate between the computer and the backup drive. This can be due to something as simple as the use of USB2 instead of USB3, or even a failing drive which slows down the read/write process.
In my experience, the "verify" part will take just as long as the backup.