Just Used Macrum Reflect for First Time

Mooly said:

Once you have made an image you can archive and move them to other drives (such as external ones) if you wish. Just move the image file as you would any other file. The speed of a backup depends on your hardware and disk drive. 27Gb isn't much tbh in the scheme of a full Windows install with lots of files and programs and so on so it will seem fairly quick. The image file will be a smaller due to Macrium's compression.

What you should now


is do a restore from that image to prove to yourself it all works.

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And if it fails you have nothing! Verifying is safer.

RazorKat83 said:

I'll do a test on the backup later, if I can figure out how to do it. . lol

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Verification tests the integrity of the image file, I have mine set to auto-verify as part of the imaging process. You can at any time verify an image by going to 'Existing Backups', selecting an image, and clicking on the Verify icon.




One simple way to check a backup is to double-click on the .mrimg file and mount the C: drive. You'll be able to explore it in File Explorer.

Neither of the above prove that you have a full and complete backup of the files required to boot Windows, only that the image file is not corrupt.

Mooly said:

What you should now

is do a restore from that image to prove to yourself it all works.

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Well, that's certainly one way to be sure, but there is a safer (and less scary) way to prove that the image works.

If you have Windows Pro and add the optional Hyper-V, then Macrium's viBoot (included with Reflect Free) can boot the image as a Hyper-V virtual machine. If you can boot from the image then you know that it is a full and complete image of your OS.

Bree said:

f you have Windows Pro and add the optional Hyper-V, then Macrium's viBoot (included with Reflect Free) can boot the image as a Hyper-V virtual machine. If you can boot from the image then you know that it is a full and complete image of your OS.

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It only proves the image is bootable. The only sure way would be to swap the HDD or SSD in your PC for a spare one of equal or greater size and restore to that. Verifying is better as it checks every part of the image.

But I would backup every partition, not just the ones needed to boot Windows. I have many GBs of music on a dedicated partition. I include this occasionally but not daily.

Bree said:

Verification tests the integrity of the image file, I have mine set to auto-verify as part of the imaging process. You can at any time verify an image by going to 'Existing Backups', selecting an image, and clicking on the Verify icon.

View attachment 156973


One simple way to check a backup is to double-click on the .mrimg file and mount the C: drive. You'll be able to explore it in File Explorer.

Neither of the above prove that you have a full and complete backup of the files required to boot Windows, only that the image file is not corrupt.


Well, that's certainly one way to be sure, but there is a safer (and less scary) way to prove that the image works.

If you have Windows Pro and add the optional Hyper-V, then Macrium's viBoot (included with Reflect Free) can boot the image as a Hyper-V virtual machine. If you can boot from the image then you know that it is a full and complete image of your OS.

View attachment 156979

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I can't have Hyper-V turned on, as one of my weather software programs will absolutely not work with it being turned on.

RazorKat83 said:

I can't have Hyper-V turned on, as one of my weather software programs will absolutely not work with it being turned on.

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Well, if you really want to test a full restore, then swapping out your C:\ drive for a spare one and restoring to that is one way.

Another (that doesn't require Hyper-V or physically changing disks) is to create a .vhdx virtual disk (using Disk Management) and restore to that. You will be able to run the restore from within Windows, as this new disk will not be in use. It doesn't have to be the full size of the original disk, only large enough to hold the used data from the image. The .vhdx file doesn't have to be on an internal drive, it will work (albeit a little slower) on an external drive.



Once you have restored to the virtual disk you can boot from it as a native boot .vhdx, adding it as another option to your Boot Menu.


When you are done testing you can just boot to your normal Windows, delete the .vhdx file, and delete the extra boot menu entry by running msconfig.exe and going to its Boot tab.

Bree said:

Well, if you really want to test a full restore, then swapping out your C:\ drive for a spare one and restoring to that is one way.

Another (that doesn't require Hyper-V or physically changing disks) is to create a .vhdx virtual disk (using Disk Management) and restore to that. You will be able to run the restore from within Windows, as this new disk will not be in use. It doesn't have to be the full size of the original disk, only large enough to hold the used data from the image. The .vhdx file doesn't have to be on an internal drive, it will work (albeit a little slower) on an external drive.

View attachment 156983

Once you have restored to the virtual disk you can boot from it as a native boot .vhdx, adding it as another option to your Boot Menu.

Native Boot Windows 11 Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX)

This tutorial will show you how to boot a Windows 11 VHDX file natively to dual boot with Windows 10 or Windows 11. Native Boot allows you to create a virtual hard disk (VHDX), install Windows to it, and then boot it up, either on your PC side-by-side with your existing installation, or on a...

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When you are done testing you can just boot to your normal Windows, delete the .vhdx file, and delete the extra boot menu entry by running msconfig.exe and going to its Boot tab.

View attachment 156984

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I have an NVMe drive. . .

RazorKat83 said:

I have an NVMe drive. . .

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So? What relevance does that have?

Bree said:

So? What relevance does that have?

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well, you said swap out my C drive for a spare one. . . I don't have an extra NVMe

RazorKat83 said:

well, you said swap out my C drive for a spare one. . . I don't have an extra NVMe

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That's OK. Try the native boot vhdx option instead. You just need a disk, internal or external, that has enough space to create a .vhdx virtual disk file on it.

When you create a vhdx with Disk Management it will be mounted, but unformatted.



In Reflect you can choose this unformatted virtual disk as the target disk to restore your image too.



Once restored you can set it up to native boot from this vhdx, just as if it were a physical disk. It will appear as an extra option in your boot menu.

Native Boot Windows 11 Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX)

RazorKat83 said:

I got the free version. I found it on MajorGeeks

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Make an offer for version 8.1.

I am sure someone on this forum is willing to sell you one that he or she finds surplus to requirements. With version 8.1, you get delta restore which will quickly restore your backup.

pewa said:

Make an offer for version 8.1.

I am sure someone on this forum is willing to sell you one that he or she finds surplus to requirements. With version 8.1, you get delta restore which will quickly restore your backup.

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I can't afford it man. I just lost my mother last week, and i'm having to sell everything that I can sell to try and make a little money to finish paying off the funeral home.

Bree said:

That's OK. Try the native boot vhdx option instead. You just need a disk, internal or external, that has enough space to create a .vhdx virtual disk file on it.
When you create a vhdx with Disk Management it will be mounted, but unformatted.

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I tried this and restored a Macrium Image to a new VXHD image. It even added itself to the Windows boot menu. I'm amazed, as it can access all the partitions on my computer. But creating the image was fast until about 95% when it really slowed down. Restoring a MR image took 16 minutes, slower than normal. But still a fascinating new experience for me.

kelper said:

Restoring a MR image took 16 minutes, slower than normal. But still a fascinating new experience for me.

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If the new .vhdx virtual drive is smaller that the drive in the image, but large enough to hold all the data from the image, then Reflect will resize the partitions to fit, usually by shrinking the C: partition. This adds extra time to the restore.

Native boot vhdx is by far the easiest way to multi-boot on a PC. I use it for all my Insider builds.

pewa said:

Make an offer for version 8.1.

I am sure someone on this forum is willing to sell you one that he or she finds surplus to requirements. With version 8.1, you get delta restore which will quickly restore your backup.

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This is actually not permitted and if detected, it will become unlicensed and revert to the free method.

Your post is borderline breaking forum rules.

So sorry for your loss!
The free version works well enough even on Windows 11.

It is slower but very reliable.

I have often moved a license from one machine to another using the official process. The license terms are only there to cover abuse.

cereberus said:

This is actually not permitted and if detected, it will become unlicensed and revert to the free method.

Your post is borderline breaking forum rules.

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Yikes! Thanks for reminding me. I take it all back.

You could also give Hasleo Backup Suite a try. It is not bad really.

If it wasn't a yearly subscription, I would find the $50 and get it, but I hate subscriptions

@RazorKat83 Very sorry for your loss.

I have been using Macrium for many years for myself and others. I've probably made upward to a thousand images and successfully restored a good number of them. We all approach imaging differently so no one's "way" of doing things is wrong, just not the way the next guy does it. I believe in keeping it as simple as possible. If it's made too difficult or costly, a user will tend to not do it. ANY backup plan is better than none. A backup plan can be as simple or as complex as one makes it be. You will have to take everyone's suggestions and decide for yourself and your own situation what is right for you. So here's a few thoughts from me.

Do I do a test restore of every image I make? No I do not. But I do test that I can boot from every Macrium rescue usb drive I create. I always keep several images to fall back on in case any image will not restore. I do usually mount every image I make in explorer to make sure at the very least my personal files could be read and restored manually even if the entire image could not be restored.

Macrium has failed me once and it was from an image I had copied. Therefore, I never copy images anymore.

What do I image and how often do I do it? For me personally, I image the entire OS drive at least once a month; more often if I make a lot of changes in my OS. For me, my OS is more important than my personal data which is stored on a separate drive which I image every 2-3 months. While its data does change, it's not an excessive amount and nothing I can't afford to lose if push comes to shove. For most people, it's just the opposite. Personal data trumps the OS in importance.

So, how often a user chooses to image and what he chooses to image is subjective to his own drive configuration and needs. Even if you have only one drive you may have chosen to create a separate partition for user data. Maybe you sync your user folders to Onedrive.
We have a lot of folks who don't back up their system drives as often as their data drives and others who are just the opposite because each uses his computer differently. THERE IS NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL. If there is a doubt, image everything.

Where do I store my images? On any other drive of any kind, but NEVER on the same drive I am creating the image from. Yes we're all spoiled by how fast it is to use an nvme or ssd to store our images, but using old mechanical drives work just fine if that's all you have or a large flash drive if that's all you can afford.