Macrium Reflect Restore

glasskuter · Mar 21, 2022

You can make the process more difficult to understand by using any of these scenarios here, because they work. But the easy peasy way to prove that a backup will work in a demonstration is to to do exactly that. That way, you can make virtual machines and How to create partitions lessons for another day.

But I would stress that backing up to another partition on the same drive is not a preferrable way to go because it won't help you if the drive fails.

Wynona · Mar 21, 2022

glasskuter said:
You can make the process more difficult to understand by using any of these scenarios here, because they work. But the easy peasy way to prove that a backup will work in a demonstration is to to do exactly that. That way, you can make virtual machines and How to create partitions lessons for another day.

But I would stress that backing up to another partition on the same drive is not a preferrable way to go because it won't help you if the drive fails.

Thanks, @glasskuter.

I know I can demonstrate the restore process, but what I'm after is to have each student prove to himself/herself that their backup actually works. Yeah, it's going to be more difficult to teach, because I'm learning too.

I am in agreement that backups should be otherwhere than a partition on the drive where Windows resides. That's why the students all have external drives for their backups. As I said, what I'm going for is to allow the students to restore so they can see how it works, and to be sure it will work.

BTW, the drive I was thinking of partitioning is my 1 TB Internal Data Drive, not the one where Windows 10 & 11 resides.

cereberus · Mar 21, 2022

Wynona said:
Thanks, @glasskuter.

I know I can demonstrate the restore process, but what I'm after is to have each student prove to himself/herself that their backup actually works. Yeah, it's going to be more difficult to teach, because I'm learning too.

I am in agreement that backups should be otherwhere than a partition on the drive where Windows resides. That's why the students all have external drives for their backups. As I said, what I'm going for is to allow the students to restore so they can see how it works, and to be sure it will work.

BTW, the drive I was thinking of partitioning is my 1 TB Internal Data Drive, not the one where Windows 10 & 11 resides.

Nice thing about VHDs is they are just a file and do not affect partitions. Downside is you cannot do a full build upgrade but you do get cumulative updates though.

I have Dev in a vhdx, but I sometimes need to run vhdx in a Hyper-V VM to get updates. If you only have Home, you can enable Hyper-V on Home Install Hyper-V on Windows 11 Home but like everything, do that Reflect Backup first.

Haydon · Mar 22, 2022

Wynona said:
I am in agreement that backups should be otherwhere than a partition on the drive where Windows resides. That's why the students all have external drives for their backups. As I said, what I'm going for is to allow the students to restore so they can see how it works, and to be sure it will work.

It would be a lot simpler if the students had a second external drive to restore to. Either just for practice or for serious in case a student upgrades HDD > SSD

cereberus · Mar 22, 2022

Haydon said:
It would be a lot simpler if the students had a second external drive to restore to. Either just for practice or for serious in case a student upgrades HDD > SSD

I imagine this is simply a cost issue. I would be willing to donate some old hard drives but it may cost too much to send then internationally - maybe some of our friends across the Pond have some kicking around they would be willing to donate (assuming @Wynoma was receptive to idea).

Haydon · Mar 22, 2022

@Wynona herself probably has some old drives that she took out of her computers before recycling. A bigger issue might be the USB-to-SATA cables.

It just strikes me, as it did @glasskuter that the extraneous stuff is more complex than the actual restore procedure itself.

All in all, perhaps @Ghot is right in suggesting to restore to the computer itself. It just takes a strong stomach to do that in a classroom setting (?)

Wynona · Mar 22, 2022

Haydon said:
@Wynona herself probably has some old drives that she took out of her computers before recycling. A bigger issue might be the USB-to-SATA cables.

It just strikes me, as it did @glasskuter that the extraneous stuff is more complex than the actual restore procedure itself.

All in all, perhaps @Ghot is right in suggesting to restore to the computer itself. It just takes a strong stomach to do that in a classroom setting (?)

I have lots of old spinners! Not much in the way of external drives.

However, I've looked at Amazon and off brand externals between 250 & 300 GB can be had for under $25.00, so hopefully not a hardship for the students.

I'm sharing a link to Amazon's off brand externals to see if anyone is familiar with any of them:

Amazon.com : external hard drive

This would be great if they're good enough to be used more than once.

Wynona · Mar 22, 2022

Again, thanks everyone for your input and advice.

I need to get all this information (and there's a lot of it!) into some kind of order because I think it would be mucho beneficial to my students.

f14tomcat · Mar 22, 2022

Wynona said:
Thanks, @glasskuter.

I know I can demonstrate the restore process, but what I'm after is to have each student prove to himself/herself that their backup actually works. Yeah, it's going to be more difficult to teach, because I'm learning too.

I am in agreement that backups should be otherwhere than a partition on the drive where Windows resides. That's why the students all have external drives for their backups. As I said, what I'm going for is to allow the students to restore so they can see how it works, and to be sure it will work.

BTW, the drive I was thinking of partitioning is my 1 TB Internal Data Drive, not the one where Windows 10 & 11 resides.

Wynona, if you're looking for a warm and fuzzy notification that all is well, how about showing them the option to email themselves with a "Hurrah! It worked" email upon successful completion?

Just a thought..........................

Bree · Mar 22, 2022

Wynona, the email alert TC suggests would certainly provide a 'warm fuzzy' confirmation, but it is a Premium feature. It can only be used in Reflect Free if you upgrade to the 30 day trial, and you'll get an offer to upgrade if you try to use it. It's quite safe to upgrade, even if you never intend to buy. At the end of the trial it will prompt you to purchase, and if you decline it will revert to Reflect Free.

Reflect Free v8 - email premium feature.png

Wynona · Mar 22, 2022

f14tomcat said:
Wynona, if you're looking for a warm and fuzzy notification that all is well, how about showing them the option to email themselves with a "Hurrah! It worked" email upon successful completion?

Just a thought..........................
View attachment 25092

Nice one, TC!

So, if it tells me "all is well", does that mean the backup will restore as advertised?

My main concern is that I want my students to be sure they can restore if necessary.

And I do like Haydon's suggestion to restore to an external drive.

Wynona · Mar 22, 2022

Bree said:
Wynona, the email alert TC suggests would certainly provide a 'warm fuzzy' confirmation, but it is a Premium feature. It can only be used in Reflect Free if you upgrade to the 30 day trial, and you'll get an offer to upgrade if you try to use it. It's quite safe to upgrade, even if you never intend to buy. At the end of the trial it will prompt you to purchase, and if you decline it will revert to Reflect Free.

View attachment 25095

Not a bad idea at all, Bree! Maybe they should know what they're missing by using only the free version.

glasskuter · Mar 22, 2022

Maybe I'm missing what you are saying but wouldn't a visual make it more effective. If they can see it, they'll believe it.
Let them each make a file, take a funny photo if they have a camera, install a program, whatever.
Make a backup. Physically delete the file, photo, or program and clean recycle bin so they can verify it's actually gone.
Restore the backup so they can see what was deleted has returned.

glasskuter · Mar 22, 2022

I don't know how you teach but, when I taught at the senior center, I actually planned my lesson with an outline, and made written step by step tutorials (in large fonts) that I passed out before we actually went over whatever that days' lesson was about. It seemed to keep me and the class on track. They could follow along as I went over it, make their own notes, and have something they could refer back to later. They considered it a security blanket.

They saved them all as did I so they were already prepared the next time I taught a similar class, or if a member lost his and wanted another copy. I haven't taught in a number of years and I really miss it. Health issues won't let me any more.

Haydon · Mar 22, 2022

Wynona said:
And I do like Haydon's suggestion to restore to an external drive.

Thanks for liking my suggestion @Wynona

That suggestion actually came from my own circumstance. I am still evaluating MR as one of my backup and restore tools, but I am beginning to like it more and more. If I decide to adopt it as a tool in my toolbox, I will buy a dedicated external SSD to test restore to it, test boot from it, surf the web a little with it, etc. at least once in a while and who knows, it may bail me out one day although I hope that will never be the case

Bree · Mar 22, 2022

Haydon said:
I am still evaluating MR as one of my backup and restore tools, but I am beginning to like it more and more. If I decide to adopt it as a tool in my toolbox, I will buy a dedicated external SSD to test restore to it, test boot from it, surf the web a little with it, etc.

Another nice test of a Macrium image is to boot it up as a virtual machine using viBoot (included in Reflect Free). Starting with v8 you can also use VirtualBox with viBoot, in v7 it only supported using Hyper-V.

Haydon · Mar 22, 2022

Bree said:
Another nice test of a Macrium image is to boot it up as a virtual machine using viBoot (included in Reflect Free). Starting with v8 you can also use VirtualBox with viBoot, in v7 it only supported using Hyper-V.

My goodness, I'm afraid I would need tutorials to get into such goodies