first time using macrium

smoothnobody · Friday at 2:50 AM

when creating rescue media i noticed an option for windows boot menu. does that create a partition so i don't have to use a USB to restore an image? can i make my image hidden or put it in a folder or does it have to be in root directory?

wiganken · Friday at 3:17 AM

smoothnobody said:
i also noticed an option for windows boot menu. how does that work?

All that does is to add the option to boot from a source other than Windows on C: drive. See photo and in the 'Boot' tab there would be a second line of text under the 'Windows 11...' text. This would probably be the USB rescue media.
I selected 'No boot menu' since I want Windows to boot normally 99.9% of the time. I don't want to have to select 'Boot from Windows' 99.9% of the time that I switch on the computer.
If I want to boot from USB rescue media I insert the USB media and switch on the PC pressing F9 immediately repeatedly (On my other device it is F12 that I have to press so yours may be different). This causes a menu to show listing boot source options. Selecting the USB media will launch the Macrium WinRE UI.

FreeBooter · Friday at 3:18 AM

It's good idea to have bootable Macrium Reflect rescue media just in case you can't boot your computer to boot menu.

Scott · Friday at 3:35 AM

smoothnobody said:
i noticed an option for windows boot menu.

It'll give you a dual boot menu.

glasskuter · Friday at 5:33 AM

Even if one adds Macrium to his boot menu, one should ALWAYS create a Macrium recovery usb drive. And it is very important that after you create this drive that you make sure you can boot from it.

Bree · Friday at 5:50 AM

smoothnobody said:
when creating rescue media i noticed an option for windows boot menu. does that create a partition so i don't have to use a USB to restore an image?

As others have said, it adds Macrium rescue to the boot menu. No. it's not another partition, the boot files are put in C:\boot\Macrium. You should always make a USB too in case the drive fails completely.

smoothnobody said:
can i make my image hidden or put it in a folder or does it have to be in root directory?

You can make the image files anywhere you want. I put mine on an external drive with a folder for all the images, and inside that an individual folder for each of my PCs.

The only restriction is that you cannot put the image on any of the partitions you have chosen to image.

TraderGary · Saturday at 1:59 AM

I've used Macrium Reflect for a number of years and decided not to have a Windows Boot Menu. I might choose the Macrium Boot option maybe once out of a hundred bootups. Having to make a menu boot choice every time I start my computer is too much of a nuisance. If I want to restore a Macrium Image, it's easy on my Dell to simply tap F12 and choose to boot from my USB drive.

Steve C · Saturday at 2:29 AM

The Reflect boot menu option loads more quickly especially if you have a SSD. However, the files are stored on your system drive (C:) so you still need the Reflect USB recovery drive in case your system drive C: fails. I set the boot menu delay to 3 seconds using msconfig so the boot menu is not displayed very long.

Topgundcp · 2025-06-15T07:38:52-0400

Steve C said:
The Reflect boot menu option loads more quickly especially if you have a SSD. However, the files are stored on your system drive (C:) so you still need the Reflect USB recovery drive in case your system drive C: fails. I set the boot menu delay to 3 seconds using msconfig so the boot menu is not displayed very long.

Instead of having the dual boot menu, you can create a 2GB parttion, FAT32 format on another internal disk. Copy the content of the USB rescue disk to it so any time you want to boot from macrium rescue, select it from boot menu just like you boot from USB stick.

Steve C · 2025-06-16T02:23:31-0400

Topgundcp said:
Instead of having the dual boot menu, you can create a 2GB parttion, FAT32 format on another internal disk. Copy the content of the USB rescue disk to it so any time you want to boot from macrium rescue, select it from boot menu just like you boot from USB stick.

Good idea.

pietcorus2 · 2025-06-16T04:18:39-0400

My Macrium-resque is on a Ventoy-stick , with Macrium, AoMEI, Hasleo , etc. on it .
Fast boot , and possible to select a resque-program ........... :wink:

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