Solved Macrium, Imaging the C-Drive

jro11 · Feb 18, 2024

allan said:
Unless you are replacing the drive, you want to use disc imaging, not cloning. Imaging allows you to recover all or part of the image. Make sure you set the advanced options to validate. And yes, set up rescue media on your boot drive.

1) Why, if I'm replacing a drive, should I use cloning and not imaging?
2) How does Imaging allow me to recover...part of the image? (does it have anything to do with setting the advanced options to 'validate')
3) a) How do I set up rescue media and for what (if the image goes awry?)
b) Why on the boot drive if that's the drive I'm going to write over?

jro11 · Feb 18, 2024

How to use backup software...

1. When everything is working perfectly... make a full Windows backup.
2. Then, if something breaks... restore from the latest backup.
3. Then... try "whatever you were doing" a different way. If it still breaks Windows, then... go to step #2.
4. Repeat until you find a way to get "whatever you were doing", to work properly, then go to step #1.

Really.... that's all you need to do, to be able to use Windows, and NOT have problems all the time.

this is where it's at.

jro11 · Feb 18, 2024

I am currently trying to figure out how to, according to Macrium, create a recovery thumb drive.
And it's not obvious...

jro11 · Feb 19, 2024

Correction,

All the stick drives I have for Rescue Media are rejected.
After formatting them (from FAT to NTFS) all 8 of my thumb drives are rejected for being too small.

What size stick is required and what format?

Ghot · Feb 19, 2024

jro11 said:
What size stick is required and what format?

My Macrium bootable USB stick has less than 1GB on a Fat32 partition.
The rest of the 16GB stick is unallocated.

cereberus · Feb 19, 2024

Ghot said:
My Macrium bootable USB stick has less than 1GB on a Fat32 partition.
The rest of the 16GB stick is unallocated.

You could format rest as exFat to store drivers for example.

Fishmill · Feb 19, 2024

jro11 said:
1) Why, if I'm replacing a drive, should I use cloning and not imaging?
2) How does Imaging allow me to recover...part of the image? (does it have anything to do with setting the advanced options to 'validate')
3) a) How do I set up rescue media and for what (if the image goes awry?)
b) Why on the boot drive if that's the drive I'm going to write over?

If you are replacing a drive, you could use either cloning or imaging....assuming you do in fact have a pre-existing image file to restore. Maybe you don't....in which case you'd have to use cloning.

Imaging creates replicas of individual partitions...whichever partitions you choose to include in the image file. You can later restore one, some, or all of them. Cloning is more of an "all partitions" thing...the entire drive, to include data-only partitions if you have any.

You need the rescue media to start the PC so you can restore an image IF you cannot boot from your boot drive...as would be typical in a drive failure. If your boot drive still works, you would not need "rescue media", but you'd be a fool to assume the boot drive will always work. Use a USB stick for rescue media. As far as I recall, the stick can be very low capacity. Might take a minute or more for your PC to boot from it.

markw51 · Feb 19, 2024

jro11 said:
Correction, View attachment 87635
View attachment 87636
All the stick drives I have for Rescue Media are rejected.
After formatting them (from FAT to NTFS) all 8 of my thumb drives are rejected for being too small.

What size stick is required and what format?

Then use a larger one.

jro11 · Feb 19, 2024

BTW Why do I get this on startup?

jro11 · Feb 19, 2024

Fishmill said:
Imaging creates replicas of individual partitions...

Thank you for all the helpful explanations

Fishmill said:
As far as I recall, the stick can be very low capacity.

That's EXACTLY what I thought would be the case.

markw51 said:
Then use a larger one.

LARGER thqn 58.5 GB?!

Ghot said:
My Macrium bootable USB stick has less than 1GB on a Fat32 partition.

That's what I thought would be the case. (Though I don't know why one would use a FAT or FAT32 or exFat format.)

cereberus said:
You could format rest as exFat to store drivers for example.

Cere always has the most involved, interesting, and least understandable (to ME) solution. I'm assuming you're speaking of the boot (Rescue media) thumb drive?

antspants · Feb 19, 2024

Firstly, I believe a USB should be at least 8GB.That is usually the standard.

I’ll be honest again, jro, you have problems with the simplest tasks, because of this I don’t personally know why you’re being urged to use Macrium. Sometimes the posts I read about it, people are having problems understanding it and seems to me to be over complicated. I personally don’t have time for over comlicated. One should just be able to press start and go.
AOMEI Backuper is probably the simplest of system backups. There is a tutorial in the link @Ghot supplied.

At least use both. Macrium & AOMEI
You can make a system image with AOMEI into a created folder on the image destination drive to keep it separated like drive/AOMEI/

Bree · Feb 19, 2024

antspants said:
I’ll be honest again, jro, you have problems with the simplest tasks, because of this I don’t personally know why you’re being urged to use Macrium.

No one is 'urging', we're just responding to jro's post #1 that states....

jro11 said:
....I purchased (a 4-pack of) Macrium Reflect.

markw51 · Feb 19, 2024

Bree said:
No one is 'urging', we're just responding to jro's post #1 that states....

He does seem to over complicate even the simplest of tasks. Not sure if it’s deliberate or not.

antspants · Feb 19, 2024

Bree said:
No one is 'urging', we're just responding to jro's post #1 that states....

And I am going to assume he bought it because…

jro11 · Feb 19, 2024

Macrium Rescue Media Builder in progress.

And I am going to assume he bought it because…

Everyone here recommends it. Latest version, therefore latest documentation. 4 computers to image...
Rescue disk successfull

Fishmill · Feb 19, 2024

jro11 said:
Macrium Rescue Media Builder in progress...

First task when it finishes:

Attempt to boot from it. You can or you can't. If you can't, it is totally useless.

You'd select the USB drive as a boot device from the boot menu...accessible early in your boot process, most likely using an F key.

If it boots your PC, it will lead you slowly to the Macrium interface....from which you could make an image file immediately.

jro11 · Feb 19, 2024

Ejected Rescue Disk.
OK here's the tricky part:

Essential question: Should I image the complete (all partitions) drive?
You know the issue with the C (bitlocker) partition

After the image, I will be reformatting the C-drive and then installing a Win11 Local Drive (I understand "Local Drive" to mean an install avoiding MS 365 and OneDrive (i.e., not an install requiring the deletion/uninstall of OneDrive or MS365)

I don't understand BitLocker. Do I need to get any information from BitLocker before I blow that partition away?

(I'm starting to like Macrium Reflect

...Attempting to boot from the Rescue Disk.

antspants · Feb 19, 2024

jro11 said:
Essential question: Should I image the complete (all partitions) drive?

Yes

jro11 said:
I understand "Local Drive" to mean an install avoiding MS 365 and OneDrive (i.e., not an install requiring the deletion/uninstall of OneDrive or MS365)

Hey?
Local drive means C: Unplug other drives before installing Windows. Are you thinking of Local Account? Doesn’t matter if it’s a local account or a MS account, you’re still going to get MS365 Offers and a OneDrive install. Deal with that later.

jro11 said:
I don't understand BitLocker. Do I need to get any information from BitLocker before I blow that partition away?

I thought that drive was discussed?
The only thing you needed to do was ensure that ALL of your personal files were backed up externally.

Fishmill · Feb 19, 2024

jro11 said:
Ejected Rescue Disk.
OK here's the tricky part: View attachment 87711
View attachment 87712
Essential question: Should I image the complete (all partitions) drive?
You know the issue with the C (bitlocker) partition

After the image, I will be reformatting the C-drive and then installing a Win11 Local Drive (I understand "Local Drive" to mean an install avoiding MS 365 and OneDrive (i.e., not an install requiring the deletion/uninstall of OneDrive or MS365)

I don't understand BitLocker. Do I need to get any information from BitLocker before I blow that partition away?

(I'm starting to like Macrium Reflect

...Attempting to boot from the Rescue Disk.

You say you don't understand Bitlocker.

Then why is it enabled? Why bother with it at all?

My first impulse would be to disable it before making an image. Then re-enable it after that image is restored, if ever.

But for all I know, imaging a Bitlocked partition may be completely doable and transparent or completely impossible. What does your Macrium manual say about it?

You say "should I image the complete (all partitions) drive". That's the typical choice, but we don't know your motivations for using Macrium at all.

There is a choice at the upper left of the Macrium interface to "create an image of all partitions necessary to restore Windows" or words to that effect. That should work if your goal is to recover your Windows install from a bad situation.

antspants · Feb 19, 2024

Fishmill said:
but we don't know your motivations for using Macrium at all.

Yes, we do.
Jro is making an image of C in case his new install of windows goes astray. Like everybody should.

Solved Macrium, Imaging the C-Drive

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