Some coaching for a Macrium Reflect newcomer, please

glasskuter · Mar 2, 2023

@Mitch Here is @Kari excellent step by step tutorial. Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

Mitch · Mar 2, 2023

Thanks for that. I'll go through the tutorial. Can the Bootable Rescue Media be added to any USB drive that has data on it or is the drive formatted before it is installed therefore wiping it? I never thought about the driver issue. Might be better to keep separate USB drives for each PC.
Thanks again.

Scott · Mar 2, 2023

Mitch said:
or is the drive formatted before it is installed therefore wiping it?

Yes, the USB gets formatted and wiped.

Bree · Mar 2, 2023

Mitch said:
Can the Bootable Rescue Media be added to any USB drive that has data on it or is the drive formatted before it is installed therefore wiping it?

If the usb drive is suitable (Fat32 and at least 1GB free space) then the boot files are just copied to it leaving existing data intact. Only if it is unsuitble would it need to be formatted.

Rescue Media Builder will first attempt to non-destructively copy the PE/RE files to an existing partition, then non-destructively create a new partition if necessary. If this is not possible then you will be prompt to destructively format the drive.

Creating rescue media - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

kado897 · Mar 2, 2023

Mitch said:
Thanks for that. I'll go through the tutorial. Can the Bootable Rescue Media be added to any USB drive that has data on it or is the drive formatted before it is installed therefore wiping it? I never thought about the driver issue. Might be better to keep separate USB drives for each PC.
Thanks again.

I believe that when you first create the drive it may be formatted but not usually when updated with a new version.

Mitch · Mar 2, 2023

Thanks all for your help. Appreciate your advice. It's not my thread so I won't mark it closed in case someone else has questions. Shows what a great resource this forum is.
Mitch.

Buddy · Mar 2, 2023

Mitch said:
Thanks all for your help. Appreciate your advice. It's not my thread so I won't mark it closed in case someone else has questions. Shows what a great resource this forum is.
Mitch.

I'm the OP and thanks for leaving it open. A lot of people have helped me here, too, and I REALLY appreciate it.

I'm not quite done. I've got MR started on a schedule of regular images and have created rescue media. Next up, someday before too long, will be testing a restore using viBoot. Gotta close the loop before I mark it solved. That job will, no doubt, have a lot of questions.

SIW2 · Mar 2, 2023

kado897 said:
Personally I do create the boot menu on my machines....it does add an extra step to every startup.

why not use a key press insted of having it displayed ?

kado897 · Mar 2, 2023

SIW2 said:
why not use a key press insted of having it displayed ?

Explain please Si.

SIW2 · Mar 2, 2023

use the oem custom action.

if you dont want to fiddle with bcdedit commands, visualbcd will do it for you.

the entry is not displayed on the boot menu so there is no delay , it is activated by a key press instead.

Download Visual BCD Editor installation files

Download Visual BCD for Windows Vista/7/8.x/10, links to ARCPaths and BootNext utilities.

www.boyans.net

if you want to do it manually, find the guid of the macrium bcd entry which you use for the GUID below
the oemid starts from 0x54000001 and must be sequential, so if you want to add another then the next one will be 0x54000002
the bit in bold is the scancode
for example
F9=4300
F11=8500
bcdedit -set {globalsettings} extendedinput 1

bcdedit -set {bootmgr} custom:%oemid% %GUID%
bcdedit -set {bootmgr} customactions 0x10000SCANCODE0001 %oemid%

then remove the entry from the displayorder so you dont see it
bcdedit /displayorder %GUID% /remove

some oem machines, laptops and similar will already have a custom action set up, so best to check which is the next oemid .

glasskuter · Mar 2, 2023

Regarding drivers and recovery media, this is not only for a Macrium boot disk but when installing Windows with a Windows install drive, many times a drive will not be detected. The reason lies in whether or not the system has IRST (intel Rapid Storage Technology) turned on in UEFI/bios. If IRST is set to on, an IRST driver must either be injected into the boot disk OR manually selected during boot.

If a system is optioned as AHCI, all disks will be detected without IRST driver being inserted during boot.

My understanding is there are 4 instances where IRST MUST be turned on, thereby requiring the IRST driver:
1. You use RAID
2. You have Optane
3. You have 11th generation or up core cpu. Intel has made it mandatory that in 11th generation and up core processors IRST has to be on whether or not you use raid or optane.
4. You use a u.2 nvme drive

People buy these systems and sit fat and happy, not knowing they should be prepared and have the IRST f6 floppy IRST driver on external storage in case of emergency. F6 drivers can be obtained from Intel or your OEM.

My 2 systems both run IRST, but are of different vintage so different IRST drivers. Rather than making recovery media for each system, I inserted both F6 IRST drivers into my Macrium recovery media. I select which one to use during the recovery process. I have also put both unzipped F6 drivers on a usb drive if windows ever has to be clean installed.

cereberus · Mar 2, 2023

glasskuter said:
Regarding drivers and recovery media, this is not only for a Macrium boot disk but when installing Windows with a Windows install drive, many times a drive will not be detected. The reason lies in whether or not the system has IRST (intel Rapid Storage Technology) turned on in UEFI/bios. If IRST is set to on, an IRST driver must either be injected into the boot disk OR manually selected during boot.

If a system is optioned as AHCI, all disks will be detected without IRST driver being inserted during boot.

My understanding is there are 4 instances where IRST MUST be turned on, thereby requiring the IRST driver:
1. You use RAID
2. You have Optane
3. You have 11th generation or up core cpu. Intel has made it mandatory that in 11th generation and up core processors IRST has to be on whether or not you use raid or optane.
4. You use a u.2 nvme drive

People buy these systems and sit fat and happy, not knowing they should be prepared and have the IRST f6 floppy IRST driver on external storage in case of emergency. F6 drivers can be obtained from Intel or your OEM.

My 2 systems both run IRST, but are of different vintage so different IRST drivers. Rather than making recovery media for each system, I inserted both F6 IRST drivers into my Macrium recovery media. I select which one to use during the recovery process. I have also put both unzipped F6 drivers on a usb drive if windows ever has to be clean installed.

I am not sure it is quite that simple.

I turned off IRST for my optane drive, and I could see the main drive and secondary memory modules as drives.

However, when I tried to turn off vmd controller, pc would not recognise any drives (I had an nvme optant drive and normal nvme drive). My laptop does not even have an AHCI mode.

I still need the IRST drivers even although I have now swapped out the optane nvme for a normal nvme.

I installed Linux and it was quite happy with IRST.

It is a joke that even a basic IRST driver is not part of the standard MS iso!

TraderGary · Mar 2, 2023

I learn new things on this forum all the time. This is the first time I've ever heard of IRST and I've been using a new computer for a year that has an 11th Generation Core i9 CPU that apparently requires IRST being turned on in BIOS. As @glasskuter said, "I'm fat, dumb, and happy". I've never had any drive problems. I'm using two Samsung 2TB T7 Shield Portable SSD drives that I updated firmware on when I got them but I've never added F6 drivers. I've always tried to be up to date on technology. Since I didn't even know what IRST was, is IRST then something that I even need to be concerned with?

kado897 · Mar 2, 2023

SIW2 said:
use the oem custom action.

if you dont want to fiddle with bcdedit commands, visualbcd will do it for you.

the entry is not displayed on the boot menu so there is no delay , it is activated by a key press instead.

Download Visual BCD Editor installation files

Download Visual BCD for Windows Vista/7/8.x/10, links to ARCPaths and BootNext utilities.

www.boyans.net

if you want to do it manually, find the guid of the macrium bcd entry which you use for the GUID below
the oemid starts from 0x54000001 and must be sequential, so if you want to add another then the next one will be 0x54000002
the bit in bold is the scancode
for example
F9=4300
F11=8500
bcdedit -set {globalsettings} extendedinput 1

bcdedit -set {bootmgr} custom:%oemid% %GUID%
bcdedit -set {bootmgr} customactions 0x10000SCANCODE0001 %oemid%

then remove the entry from the displayorder so you dont see it
bcdedit /displayorder %GUID% /remove

some oem machines, laptops and similar will already have a custom action set up, so best to check which is the next oemid .

Thanks Si.

glasskuter · Mar 2, 2023

@TraderGary Depending on how you update your drivers, either from Dell or Intel, it should keep the irst Windows drivers updated.
The latest one on Intel site is here. The f6 pre-boot driver is also listed there. It should also be on Dell site. Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver Installation Software with Intel® Optane™ Memory (11th up to 13th Gen Platforms)

Here is Dell's article explaining why no drives can be detected during windows install on 11-13 generation cpu.

Intel 11th, 12th, and 13th Generation Processors, No Drives Can Be Found During Windows 10 and Windows 11 Installation | Dell UK

Thr release notes on Intel site says something that may or may not apply to your set up. It's kind of confusing to me. "The RAID UEFI version for this release is 18.1.1.5201(VMD)/18.31.3.5434(non-VMD), the driver and user interface version is 18.6.1.1016(VMD)/18.36.1.1016(non VMD) and Intel® Optane™ memory™ and Storage Management (HSA) driver version 18.1.1020.0. For Intel® RST Premium features (e.g., RAID, Intel® Optane™ memory, CPU Attached Storage), it is recommended that both the Intel® RST pre-OS and Intel® RST OS driver components are updated.

And to answer if IRST is something you need to be concerned about. No, not while your system is working. But you do need to be concerned with irst if you ever have to reinstall Windows. I can't find the article again, but I even read where irst even came into play if one cloned their drive. But I don't clone so, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it.

I first encountered all this on my old Optiplex and again on my new Optiplex. Optiplexes have long required irst drivers to be installed pre-boot.

glasskuter · Mar 2, 2023

cereberus said:
t is a joke that even a basic IRST driver is not part of the standard MS iso!

Ain't that a fact!

SIW2 · Mar 2, 2023

@kado897

with visualbcd:

or manually:

find the guid and copy it

then

guid {abbacc9a-b3b2-11ed-a663-18c04d5f80c6}
F6 4000
oemid 0x54000001

bcdedit -set {globalsettings} extendedinput 1
bcdedit -set {bootmgr} custom:0x54000001 {abbacc9a-b3b2-11ed-a663-18c04d5f80c6}
bcdedit -set {bootmgr} customactions 0x1000040000001 0x54000001
bcdedit -displayorder {abbacc9a-b3b2-11ed-a663-18c04d5f80c6} -remove

tapping F6 immediately after the post beep instead of having an entry on the boot menu display

best to check first to see if there is already a custom action set up, if so use the next number in the sequence for the oemid
bcdedit -enum and have a look

oemid 0x54000001 is now being used so if adding another custom action use 0x54000002

documentation:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/oemboot_vista.doc

kado897 · Mar 2, 2023

SIW2 said:
@kado897

with visualbcd:

View attachment 54098

or manually:

find the guid and copy it

View attachment 54099

then

guid {abbacc9a-b3b2-11ed-a663-18c04d5f80c6}
F6 4000
oemid 0x54000001

bcdedit -set {globalsettings} extendedinput 1
bcdedit -set {bootmgr} custom:0x54000001 {abbacc9a-b3b2-11ed-a663-18c04d5f80c6}
bcdedit -set {bootmgr} customactions 0x1000040000001 0x54000001
bcdedit -displayorder {abbacc9a-b3b2-11ed-a663-18c04d5f80c6} -remove

tapping F6 immediately after the post beep instead of having an entry on the boot menu display

best to check first to see if there is already a custom action set up, if so use the next number in the sequence for the oemid
bcdedit -enum and have a look

View attachment 54101

oemid 0x54000001 is now being used so if adding another custom action use 0x54000002

documentation:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/oemboot_vista.doc

Scott · Mar 3, 2023

glasskuter said:
My understanding is there are 4 instances where IRST MUST be turned on, thereby requiring the IRST driver:
1. You use RAID
2. You have Optane
3. You have 11th generation or up core cpu. Intel has made it mandatory that in 11th generation and up core processors IRST has to be on whether or not you use raid or optane.
4. You use a u.2 nvme drive

Is this just a Dell thing? On my self built 11th gen desktop Windows Setup sees all of my drives, including my 3 NVMe drives without IRST being installed or turned on in my BIOS. In fact, I can't find any mention of IRST in my BIOS.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

glasskuter · Mar 3, 2023

Scott said:
Is this just a Dell thing? On my self built 11th gen desktop Windows Setup sees all of my drives, including my 3 NVMe drives without IRST being installed or turned on in my BIOS. In fact, I can't find any mention of IRST in my BIOS.

That I am unable to answer for certain, but I don't think so as in the past I have had HPs that also required IRST. They were earlier than 11th gen, though. TBH, the only experience I have had with it is with OEM systems whose bios are optioned for IRST. When IRST is required their support pages always list it.

Are you certain your setup does not have it. Look in device manager under storage controllers. You may well be running using basic MS storage driver. If it is missing in uefi bios, it's because the Asus folks have not included the option in the UEFI bios version you have installed. That doesn't make much sense though since their own documentation refers to RAID.

The biggest advantage of IRST over the MS driver is RAID. Even in a non-raid environment, from what I have read, Intel claims IRST not only enhances the performance of the drives but also lowers the power consumption of the disks at the same time. They also claim IRST reduces the risk of disk failures in the long run and also improves how they perform. Notice, I said Intel makes the claim. I have seen no proof of it.
If your system is running well without IRST, I don't think I would mess with it as you could get it in a state where it would not boot. If you decide to make changes be sure and backup your system first.

I pulled the manual for your mobo and found the following. This is also addressed in an Asus advisary. [Motherboard] Compatibility of PCIE bifurcation between Hyper M.2 series Cards and Add-On Graphic Cards | Official Support | ASUS Global

Just a moment ago I pointed another user to 2 separate Intel IRST drivers applicable for 11th gen.
Take a look at my response in this thread. Missing my Intel UI in my UEFI

If you decide to pursue the missing IRST UEFI bios feature, I would contact Asus support to get a definitive answer.