File and Folder Backup in Macrium Reflect Home (MRH)

cereberus · Jun 2, 2022

Bree said:
No, the one thing you cannot do from the GUI in Free is browse for and find a .mrbak file, the only file type is shows is .mrimg.

View attachment 30608

If you specifically type in the file name of a .mrbak file so that you can select it, Free then prompts you to upgrade to Trial in order to continue.

There are however no restrictions whatsoever in Free if you choose 'Open an image or backup file in Windows Explorer' from the Existing Backup Tasks' list. That can find and mount a .mrbak file.

View attachment 30610

I actually entered *.* in file selection page and could then select .mrbak, but got same rather unhelpful message re. upgrade to trial version.
However you cannot directly restore from gui but you can, as you imply, mount folder and copy files manually using explorer. Simply easier to use context meu as you showed earlier.

Haydon · Jun 2, 2022

Guys, this is what I see in my installation MRFree version 8 with the 30 day trial of MRHome.

I cannot restore from GUI nor from context menu a .mrbak to a New location (external SSD) as I do not want to restore to Original location (source computer) I do not want to mess things up on the source computer. Perhaps the reason why such a restore is not possible is that ReDeploy is not available as per the following.

@cereberus you misread my previous posting as the exact opposite. I want to EXCLUDE 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files' but in making a 'File and Folder Backup' the following is what I see in the backup definitions, and there seems to be no way to make the exclusions in the last 2 lines below. It may be that the 'Hidden Files' and the 'System Files' are filtered out in doing a restore, but that is not really a 'clean' solution, is it?

And as I wrote in my previous posting, I can mount a .mrbak file and copy and paste from it but there wouldn't be ANY restore logs available. I might as well mount a .mrimg file and copy and paste from that, there would be no reason to use a .mrbak file.

If I had a paid licence for MRHome, I would in all likelyhood be able to do a restore of a .mrbak file to dissimilar hardware (using the words of the user guide) and a restore log would be available. This MAY be of value to me as an additional avenue for doing data transfer from an old computer to a new computer, but as I wrote in a previous post, the restore logs of Macrium Reflect are not as good as those of RoboCopy although better than those of File History.

Edit: And that's apart from the fact that I had trouble restoring File History to a new computer what was backed up on an old computer, I tried that too LOL

cereberus · Jun 3, 2022

Haydon said:
Guys, this is what I see in my installation MRFree version 8 with the 30 day trial of MRHome.

I cannot restore from GUI nor from context menu a .mrbak to a New location (external SSD) as I do not want to restore to Original location (source computer) I do not want to mess things up on the source computer. Perhaps the reason why such a restore is not possible is that ReDeploy is not available as per the following.

View attachment 30613

@cereberus you misread my previous posting as the exact opposite. I want to EXCLUDE 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files' but in making a 'File and Folder Backup' the following is what I see in the backup definitions, and there seems to be no way to make the exclusions in the last 2 lines below. It may be that the 'Hidden Files' and the 'System Files' are filtered out in doing a restore, but that is not really a 'clean' solution, is it?

View attachment 30614

And as I wrote in my previous posting, I can mount a .mrbak file and copy and paste from it but there wouldn't be ANY restore logs available. I might as well mount a .mrimg file and copy and paste from that, there would be no reason to use a .mrbak file.

If I had a paid licence for MRHome, I would in all likelyhood be able to do a restore of a .mrbak file to dissimilar hardware (using the words of the user guide) and a restore log would be available. This MAY be of value to me as an additional avenue for doing data transfer from an old computer to a new computer, but as I wrote in a previous post, the restore logs of Macrium Reflect are not as good as those of RoboCopy although better than those of File History.

Edit: And that's apart from the fact that I had trouble restoring File History to a new computer what was backed up on an old computer, I tried that too LOL

Frankly, F&F backup is only og limited use anyway. There are better tools for that out there.

I did not misinterpret your post. I said rather than exclude files, and folders with hidden files , do not include them. I never use F&FB for files on C drive as they are imaged anyway.

I store my data on pure data drives, and use F&FB purely on key folders.

It all comes down to your backup strategy.

Also Redeploy is nothing to do with this. This feature is only included in paid version and not in trial (or else unscrupulous vendors would use free trial to transfer OS to another PC but never pay - this would be harmful to sales).

If your aim is to use F&FB to transfer files and folders to new pc, just put them in zip file.

If F&FB does not meet your needs, use something else. If that is a showstopper from buying paid version, so be it but then you miss out on its main features that really make it worth buying. Your choice of course.

Little point in discussing any more as your needs and way of working are different to mine.

Haydon · Jun 3, 2022

Well, yeah, I think the biggest difference between you and me is that you don't seem to value logs for data backup/transfer, whereas I do, very much so, especially for large amounts of data. That's why I examine data backup/transfer tools that provide logs, the better the logs, the better the tool for me. For example, zip file for you, but not for me, because there is no log.

The best tool in that sense that I found so far is RoboCopy, but that does not mean that I stop examining other tools. As I wrote in a previous posting, my current ranking is RoboCopy, Macrium Reflect, File History, in that order ,,, and I am still considering other tools, why not? The tools themselves can evolve over time, too, nothing is static.

I think you still misunderstand the issue on the 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files', MR includes them by default if you select a user data folder to backup, and I could not find a way to exclude them. I did not include 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files' to back up user data, why would anyone? MR seems to strip off the 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files' in the restore process, but the obvious question arises why include them in the user data backup in the first place? My guess is that MR does the 'File and Folder Backup' as merely doing a part of the 'Full Disk Backup', i.e. MR does not 'sanitize' the user data backup. A 'Full Disk Backup' has of course 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files', but leaving them there in a user data backup is not a particularly clean way of doing things. I still consider 'File and Folder Backup' of some value, but why not examine just about every tool including MR?

I think ReDeploy not being available to me does have something to do with me not being able to restore to an external SSD, whereas you restored to the source computer and of course did not need ReDeploy to do so.

This is an open forum, BTW, people are free to choose to discuss things or not

cereberus · Jun 3, 2022

Haydon said:
Well, yeah, I think the biggest difference between you and me is that you don't seem to value logs for data backup/transfer, whereas I do, very much so, especially for large amounts of data. That's why I examine data backup/transfer tools that provide logs, the better the logs, the better the tool for me. For example, zip file for you, but not for me, because there is no log.

The best tool in that sense that I found so far is RoboCopy, but that does not mean that I stop examining other tools. As I wrote in a previous posting, my current ranking is RoboCopy, Macrium Reflect, File History, in that order ,,, and I am still considering other tools, why not? The tools themselves can evolve over time, too, nothing is static.

I think you still misunderstand the issue on the 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files', MR includes them by default if you select a user data folder to backup, and I could not find a way to exclude them. I did not include 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files' to back up user data, why would anyone? MR seems to strip off the 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files' in the restore process, but the obvious question arises why include them in the user data backup in the first place? My guess is that MR does the 'File and Folder Backup' as merely doing a part of the 'Full Disk Backup', i.e. MR does not 'sanitize' the user data backup. A 'Full Disk Backup' has of course 'Hidden Files' and 'System Files', but leaving them there in a user data backup is not a particularly clean way of doing things. I still consider 'File and Folder Backup' of some value, but why not examine just about every tool including MR?

I think ReDeploy not being available to me does have something to do with me not being able to restore to an external SSD, whereas you restored to the source computer and of course did not need ReDeploy to do so.

This is an open forum, BTW, people are free to choose to discuss things or not

Saying I do not value logs is patronising - I just do not have a need for it!

Re hidden files - again you are being patronising - of course I understand! My point is I segregate data to another drive so my folders do not have hidden files in them. I avoid your issues in the first place by design.

Re. robocopy - PERSONALLY, I have often found it sometimes falls over e.g. you find it failed to copy some files. I only use it when I want to copy a lot of files as when you use the multi-tasking function, it is much faster than using file explorer.

Regarding Redeploy - Redeploy is run AFTER YOU RESTORE to another pc. Redeploy simply sorts out the drivers on new pc post restoration- it has nothing to do whatsoever with backup and restore mechanisms.

There is no point in discussing any further - good luck in finding a solution that suits you.

Haydon · Jun 5, 2022

Well, someone bailed out, but this is an open forum :)

I came across the following (a) vs (b) inconsistency in my installation of Macrium Reflect Free version 8 with the 30 day trial of Macrium Reflect Home. The host machine runs W10 Pro, OS is up to date as of yesterday, and malware free as per scans with Windows Defender and MalwareBytes as of today.

(a) Creating a .mrimg file produces no error message whatsoever, specifically there are no error messages wrt the hidden folder AppData

(b) However, creating a .mrbak file where the hidden folder AppData was deliberately included, produces the following error messages wrt the hidden folder AppData

Within Macrium Reflect the .mrbak file verifies just fine, and inclusion of the hidden folder AppData causes problems in other user data backup apps also. However, the log shows the following 'Application error'.

I searched the items appearing in the 'Application error', but I can't tell whether there is an actual issue or not, anyone knows?

Haydon · Jun 5, 2022

FWIW, I stress tested a .mrimg file (by opening files and launching apps in the VirtualBox/viBoot VM with 4 GB memory [host machine has 16 GB RAM] the VM has no network adapter and hence no Internet connection) until I could consistently induce the following BSOD of the VM but the stopcode only says CRITICAL PROCESS DIED which has never happened on the host machine itself.

It could be an artifact of all the software involved, and I hope this isn't something like a manifestation of a hidden hardware fault, comments welcome.

BrianInEngland · Jun 5, 2022

Most important feature of Macrium File/Folder backup - ransomware protection. The full version has a driver that protects the backed up files from being written too or deleted. Attempts to write to the file (ie by ransomware) are blocked. Worth the cost of the software just for this.

Haydon · Jun 5, 2022

BrianInEngland said:
Most important feature of Macrium File/Folder backup - ransomware protection. The full version has a driver that protects the backed up files from being written too or deleted. Attempts to write to the file (ie by ransomware) are blocked. Worth the cost of the software just for this.

That's Image Guardian, isn't it? Does it play nice with MS' own ransomware protection and controlled folder access, there is overlap of functionality.
-----------------
I stress tested MR because backup apps have to work under suboptimal conditions by definition (I don't stress test other apps like that) in case people wonder. I posted stress test results in this and other threads, and in spite of what I wrote, I am under the impression that MR is very robust. In particular, when MR breaks at its limits (any apps has its breaking limits) it does so without harming the host computer, at least that's what I like to believe

Bree · Jun 5, 2022

Haydon said:
That's Image Guardian, isn't it? Does it play nice with MS' own ransomware protection and controlled folder access, there is overlap of functionality.

Yes, but there's little chance of a conflict anyway. By default ransomware protection is guarding your user folders. Your images can't be stored there, they'll be in another partition entirely, probably on an external drive.

Haydon · Jun 6, 2022

Bree said:
Your images can't be stored there, they'll be in another partition entirely, probably on an external drive.

Yes, I have a couple of external SSDs as backup media, each backup medium/SSD has in a first folder my .mrimg files, in a second folder my .mrbak files, in a third folder my File History (+ RoboCopy, etc.)

I understand the last line of the snip below to mean that turning on MIG will make it impossible to update my File History, at least in my current arrangement OUCH

Bree · Jun 6, 2022

Haydon said:
I understand the last line of the snip below to mean that turning on MIG will make it impossible to update my File History, at least in my current arrangement OUCH

What do you mean by 'update my file history'? Image Guardian allows Reflect full access to all your images/logs so anything you did in Free you could still do in Home with Image Guardian turned on.

If you mean deleting/renaming image files using File Explorer, then you could still do that. You just click the 'open ... Settings...' link at the bottom of the MIG notification that pops up, then you can turn it off temporarily to let you do whatever you want.

cereberus · Jun 6, 2022

Haydon said:
Yes, I have a couple of external SSDs as backup media, each backup medium/SSD has in a first folder my .mrimg files, in a second folder my .mrbak files, in a third folder my File History (+ RoboCopy, etc.)

I understand the last line of the snip below to mean that turning on MIG will make it impossible to update my File History, at least in my current arrangement OUCH

View attachment 30837

No, it just means only MIG and optionally Robocopy can access .mrbak backups made by Reflect. It does not affect other backup tools.

The only thing you could not do is delete an existing .mrbak file if you had backed it up in the FHB backup folders but why would you have it there anyway - as you say you keep them in a separate folder anyway.

With all due respect, manuals are often rather ambiguous. Always perform your own tests first.