If Macrium Reflect X is too expensive, what will you switch to?

SIW2 · May 10, 2026

Asus272 said:
I have had a 4 computer paid license for Macrium for years, it's very powerful and dependable. It offers more backup options than most of the competition but can be intimidating for new users. I recently bought a new Asus laptop with a trackpad. Macruim's restore via USB doesn't support the trackpad or the keyboard but neither does Hasleo or Minitool Shadowmaker.

I downloaded a copy of Ashampoo Backup Pro 27 and installed it. I was able to successfully build my recue USB with their software for for my Asus laptop on the first try. Ashampoo Backup Pro builds its recovery USB by creating a bootable, Windows-based environment (WinPE) that includes the necessary drivers for your hardware and a portable version of the Backup Pro software. The process requires the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) to be installed, which Ashampoo automatically downloaded and configured to build the drive. It supports secure boot and bitlocker.

Does it have all of Macruim's bells and whistles? No, but it has the options I need and is simple to use. I bought a license for 3 computers 18 dollars for the year. This company is based in Germany and has been in business for years.

I also use Rescuezilla's linux based highly recommended backup and recovery software, to backup both my linux and windows partitions. Its USB iso contains a GUI interface, rescue environment complete with wifi, browser, disk, terminal and gparted. It's not dependent on the windows operating system or it's drivers to work which makes it a valuable option to have. It just works...

You could import the macrium files into the ashampoo winpe

or

mount the ashampoo winpe, export the drivers, then install them into the macrium/hasleo winpe
dism++ is easy to use for this

https://github.com/Chuyu-Team/Dism-Multi-language/releases/download/v10.1.1002.2/Dism++10.1.1002.1B.zip

Asus272 · May 10, 2026

SIW2 said:
You could import the macrium files into the ashampoo winpe

or

mount the ashampoo winpe, export the drivers, then install them into the macrium/hasleo winpe
dism++ is easy to use for this

https://github.com/Chuyu-Team/Dism-Multi-language/releases/download/v10.1.1002.2/Dism++10.1.1002.1B.zip

I agree that would probably work and I may give it a try as I love experimenting and digging myself out of trouble.... It's the best way to learn and I'm quite good at doing both...

Quandary · May 10, 2026

Asus272 said:
I recently bought a new Asus laptop with a trackpad. Macruim's restore via USB doesn't support the trackpad or the keyboard but neither does Hasleo or Minitool Shadowmaker.

The standard HBS PE build on my ASUS Zenbook did not provide mousepad, keyboard, or wi-fi support. I added the five ialpss2*.inf drivers from the FIleStore on the PC, and e1d65x64.inf from an Intel driver package to the build. Now all function work.

hsehestedt · May 10, 2026

Asus272 said:
Not that easy anymore, I've read all the posts and tried the suggestions pulled the needed drivers out of my 6 GB backup driver file..

I disagree. I could have it working in five minutes or less with most of that spent determining which drivers I need. In fact, I have a folder with nothing but the boot critical drivers for all my systems so I have instant access to those. Since I have taken this one-time only step, I can update any PE based media in under 30 seconds now.

OldNavy · May 10, 2026

The tricky part is working out which are the critical drivers.

kelper · May 10, 2026

I just use a USB mouse.

SIW2 · May 10, 2026

io drivers plus touchpad drivers likely elan or synaptics

drivers in current installtion can be displayed and selectively exported using dism++

dism++ can also mount the relevant wim file and add the exported drivers

the drivers should also be downloadable from the asus website for the specific laptop model

hsehestedt · May 10, 2026

OldNavy said:
The tricky part is workin g out which are the critical drivers.

True, but after you have done it once or twice, it's easy to figure out. Mouse, touchpad, touchscreen are all slow devices, so they typically use a USB or serial I/O interface.

In my opinion, it's a good thing to do a couple of times just so that you will know how to do it easily and quickly should you really ever need to do so in the future. That way you already have the learning out of the way and can avoid wasting that time just when you are really short of time.

SIW2 · May 10, 2026

Not difficult to make a fairly simple pe build with a menu that can contain multiple programs

I use pecmd for the menu I expect it could be done with hta or something else

rough example:

clicking the relevant button launches the program

e.g.

the menu says

Code:

ITEM Button5,L8T106W195H40,WINNTSETUP,EXEC %programfiles%\winntsetup\WinNTSetup_x64.exe,%programfiles%\winntsetup\WinNTSetup_x64.exe#0

it is essential to get the commas in the correct places

the button number,
ITEM Button5,

button position and size Left Top Width Height,
L8T106W195H40,

name on the button,
WINNTSETUP,

command to execute when the button is clicked,
EXEC %programfiles%\winntsetup\WinNTSetup_x64.exe,

icon on the button
%programfiles%\winntsetup\WinNTSetup_x64.exe#0

the winpe default ramdisk letter is X so %programfiles% expands to x:\program files

SIW2 · May 10, 2026

Just needs 4 small files in winpe windows\system32

winpeshl.ini ( small text file which tells winpeshl.exe to instruct pecmd.exe to load pecmd.ini )

Code:

[LaunchApp]
AppPath="Pecmd.exe Main %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\Pecmd.ini"

pecmd.exe
pecmd.ini ( contains commands pecmd.exe will execute. For example SHEL PECMD.EXE LOAD %CURDIR%\PEMENU.WCS )
pemenu.ini or pemenu.wcs ( they are both text files just with different extensions )

glasskuter · May 10, 2026

As far as touchpad drivers being "critical" I never have understood why anyone who owns a laptop doesn't have a plain ol' usb corded mouse hanging around for emergencies.

SIW2 · May 10, 2026

you can give it whirl with this small basic example

unzip example.zip (attached below)

open a wim e.g macrium boot.wim or hasleo backup boot.wim with 7-zip

then use mouse to drag into the 7-zip window the two folders program files and windows

7-zip will ask if you want to add them

click Yes

Quandary · May 10, 2026

glasskuter said:
As far as touchpad drivers being "critical" I never have understood why anyone who owns a laptop doesn't have a plain ol' usb corded mouse hanging around for emergencies.

I have one of those mini USB keyboard/mousepad devices that was used with my TV Box. Works like a charm when the equivalent devices on laptop are non-operational.

hsehestedt · May 11, 2026

glasskuter said:
As far as touchpad drivers being "critical" I never have understood why anyone who owns a laptop doesn't have a plain ol' usb corded mouse hanging around for emergencies.

Usually, I do. But when traveling, I like to go minimalist and carry along as little extra baggage as possible. And with all the crazy testing that I do, I sometimes have the need to perform a clean install on the fly away from home. On a laptop, this would not be a problem because you have the built-in touchpad and keyboard. But I sometimes travel with a Mini PC instead.

I know that I'm an exception, my use cases are very different from most people, so I agree that this may not be a big deal for most individuals.

kelper · May 11, 2026

But my laptops' touchpads do not work when I boot into some PEs.

cereberus · May 11, 2026

kelper said:
But my laptops' touchpads do not work when I boot into some PEs.

True enough but many do not realise that you can set off a restore from Windows with Macrium Reflect and pc will boot into WinPE session (provided you have added it to boot menu) and do the restore with no input needed in winpe mode.

Of course, this only applies if Windows is fumctioning.

hsehestedt · May 11, 2026

kelper said:
But my laptops' touchpads do not work when I boot into some PEs.

Do you need any help with that? If you give me your exact model, I can look at the available drivers and tell you the most likely course of action to resolve that.

TIP: Once you identify what driver(s) you need, you can simply create a folder on the root of your PE media called $WinPeDriver$ and drop the drivers in there. PE will automatically load those drivers, and the associated devices will work in PE. You could get fancy and inject the drivers into your PE image, but why bother? This is so easy it takes mere seconds.

As an example, this is what my $WinPeDriver$ folder looks like. Note that I have drivers in here for multiple systems. Normally I would drop in the driver(s) for only the system I am currently working with.

kelper · May 11, 2026

@hsehestedt
Thanks for the offer. I did try this earlier but there seem to be many drivers required. I'm happy to use a USB mouse. I don't know why Macrium don't design the GUI so people could use the keyboard to navigate - some fields just can't be reached with TAB and or the cursor keys, so you can't select a specific image to restore. I'll recheck Hasleo and Macrium X today to see what works.

MikeWilliams_UK · May 11, 2026

Hasleo is great AND works on my server as well as my Window 11 machine.

kelper · May 11, 2026

On my Acemagic LP15Pro, the keyboard and touchpad work in both Hasleo and Macrium X's PE.
On my older Acer SF114, the keyboard and touchpad work in Hasleo, but I can't boot into Macrium 8.1's PE.

Glad I checked! I've just updated 8.1 and the boot menu and it still won't boot. I'll have a happy morning running SFC and DISM!

SFC /SCANNOW fixed it for me. The touchpad and keyboard work in Macrium 8.1.

If Macrium Reflect X is too expensive, what will you switch to?

If Macrium Reflect X is too expensive, what will you switch to?

Ashampoo

Hasleo

Veeam

Acronis True Image

Paragon

Aomei Backupper

EaseUS ToDo

R-Image

Mini Tool Partition Wizard

ShadowProtect

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