Macrium has let me down... but was it my fault?

Long story short. I fancied trying the Dev 24H2 build (as a 100% clean install) and one of the first things to do was make a backup of the clean install. I have the paid for version of Macrium Home V8 and all seemed to go well. Having messed a few things up I went to restore the clean image and although it seemed to go OK and reported the restore successful it was not.

Booting up gave a warning message on the initial Dell splash screen of 'Diagnosing Problems' and 'Repairing your Computer'. No good. I was always returned to the blue options screen where you can select various repair options. Nothing worked. Popped the USB media back and tried a repair from there. No good.

It was as quick at this point to wipe all drives (take to unallocated space) and reinstall again and that is where I am at now. All working well but I don't want a repeat of the failed backup experience. I have actually now made an initial image using the old 'W7 Backup and Restore' feature and will also make a new Macrium image.

One thought. There are two internal drives and Bitlocker is enabled by default on all and I realise now that when I installed Macrium the first time and made the backup that Bitlocker would still be encrypting all the drives as it takes about an hour so to finish. So I made an image of a moving target and also saved the image to a moving target.

Could that be the reason it failed ?

I have used Macrium many times for backups and restores and never had an issue in the past.

Is this of any help?: -

Thanks for the link. I've backed up and restored many times before with Bitlocker on the same PC and with an identical disk structure and never had issues before.

All I could get on reboot following the restore was the Dell Splash Screen and the 'Diagnosing your PC' message which then automatically led to this. Nothing worked and no clue what had gone wrong:

I don't have a fix but have you considered disabling Bitlocker?
Some people have Bitlocker enabled out of habit but don't really need it.
It may not fix the issue this time but it would remove one possible complication in any future issues.

Good luck.

It is an option I suppose but I have a lot of business files and so on on here and I quite like the added protection All my USB drives are also using Bitlocker-to-Go.

This really is the first time I've ever had any problem at all, I couldn't quite believe it had failed so spectacularly.

I know at some point I will have to test this again for real but I'll try and have a few more options up my sleeve when I do.

Hope someone can help you find the cause and the fix.

You may want to post your issue over on the Macrium Support Forum. Lots of helpful folks there.

Mooly said:

Booting up gave a warning message on the initial Dell splash screen of 'Diagnosing Problems' and 'Repairing your Computer'. No good. I was always returned to the blue options screen where you can select various repair options. Nothing worked. Popped the USB media back and tried a repair from there. No good.

Click to expand...

Just a guess... there might be a conflict with some DELL Utility software, and Macrium Reflect.

Scenario...

You install Windows and make your backup.
Then you start tweaking things. While you're doing that, the DELL Utility software, updates something in the background, something that the DELL Utility software thinks should never be removed once updated.

Then your Win 11 tweaking goes bad, and you decide to restore from your MR backup.
So you do the restore, but then the DELL Utility software "sees", that the important update it did is gone.

So, the DELL Utility software thinks Windows is broken and starts running it's own "Diagnosing problems and Repairing your computer". Nothing is really "broken", it's just that the DELL Utility software thinks...
"I just did a DELL update and it gone. Oh no !".


If you don't have any DELL Utility software, running, then just disregard this.

Thanks @Ghot

At the point the backup was made there was nothing Dell specific installed by me. The only Dell utility I do install is the Audio part of the 'Dell Optimiser' because that is needed to configure the headphone and line in sockets depending what you want to use them for.

Mooly said:

Thanks @Ghot

At the point the backup was made there was nothing Dell specific installed by me. The only Dell utility I do install is the Audio part of the 'Dell Optimiser' because that is needed to configure the headphone and line in sockets depending what you want to use them for.

Click to expand...

Yeah... it was just something I thought about.