Macrium Reflect. Anyone Using it Any Comments?

What I would suggest is doing a test restore from a system image? However, use another drive for the restore test. Not your primary drive you're using. Therefore, if the image if corrupt, it won't destroy your primary working drive.

May sound unnecessary, but backup software is useless if it can't reliably restore. I've known users who have encountered this issue. Always pays to have multiple backups using different software. I tend to use Windows built-in backup to create a base WIN image - fresh WIN install with all updated patches, AV and Malwarebytes, and secondary browser. Another system image with primary applications installed using third party backup.

sherlock62 wrote:

GordonThree wrote:
I don't know what your OS is, but keep in mind, you'll run into trouble trying to "image" Windows 8 and especially Windows 10.

Disk imaging hasn't been supported by Microsoft since the days of Windows XP.

I agree 100%. Disk imaging is not at all the way to go with Win 10. Those that believe otherwise are not up to speed so to speak with Windows 10.

Would you please explain why disk imaging is not effective as a back up tool in Win 10. I've successfully backed up and re-installed a Windows 10 boot drive twice using Macrium Relect free version. I can't detect any issues but look forward to knowing what the potential problems are.

I previously used Acronis and find Macrium just as easy to work with.

thanks.

mlts22 wrote:
I am not fond of the fact that Macrium Reflect comes from China.

According to their web site, Macrium Software is based in Manchester, United Kingdom.
http://www.macrium.com/company.aspx#aboutus

I just went through this. My Win 10 laptop HDD had a bad sector. Windows could not repair it, despite many attempts on my part. It was still functioning but I wanted to upgrade to a SSD.

Windows Backup would not back up the files because it reported they were on a corrupted drive. It would make a system image to a separate USB HDD I have. But I could not manage to restore it to the new SSD, because I bought an SSD smaller than the original drive. Even though there was enough room, the smaller size is not allowed by the Windows restore.

I bought a USB to SATA cable in order to simply clone the drive directly.

Macrium Reflect, like Windows, would not image the corrupted drive. The software recommended by the SSD maker would not work either, but I forget the failure. That was NTI Echo 3.

I tried and failed with a couple of others.

Finally I found one that would work with the corrupted drive and a smaller SSD. It is DriveClone11 from farstone.com. It was free. It worked but there was a boot error the first time I turned on the SSD. But a repair button came up, I pressed it, and it worked. It's been great since then.

I am not fond of the fact that Macrium Reflect comes from China. It also didn't work well for what I was doing.

I wound up using Veeam endpoint, which is free, and that has worked extremely well.

I use Macrium Reflect to backup my my C: drive to an external hard drive. I also use it to create a boot disk which includes Win PE. If my C: drive crashes or I want to replace it, I boot from the disk and it loads Macrium. From there, I can reinstall everything including the operating system. This has always worked, from XP to to Win7 to Win10 X64, except when I switched C: from a HDD to a SSD because the free version doesn't support reinstalling to dissimilar hardware. For this, I used Acronis.

GordonThree wrote:
I don't know what your OS is, but keep in mind, you'll run into trouble trying to "image" Windows 8 and especially Windows 10.

Disk imaging hasn't been supported by Microsoft since the days of Windows XP.

If it's true that MS hasn't supported imaging since XP, why has MS included a disk imaging utility in every version of Windows since XP?

I have worked with computers for many years and have done many installs. The Win 10 install was the latest Win 10 1607 ISO. I created a bootable USB using Rufus. I did not download the ISO directly from Microsoft so it was probably corrupt. I have used Acronis for many years and have had no issues with it. My version of Acronis wouldn't work with UEFI so I tried Macrium. The image I created with Macrium was the first time I used it and it worked fine.

I agree that when installing an OS it's best to do a clean install. That's what I was doing. I formatted the drive during the Win 10 install.

Tom_M wrote:
I had problems with the Win 10 anniversary upgrade on my tablet so I decided to do a fresh install of Win 10. I formatted the drive and started the Win 10 install. The install would not finish and trashed my tablet. Thankfully I had created an image using Macrium prior. The restore took quite a long time but it went without a hitch.

You did not mention how exactly,you were trying to do that clean install of Win 10. MY guess is, it was your inexperience and how you tried to get Win 10 back on the tablet that was the reason you had no luck with the clean install. I have done a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of Win 10 clean installs and never have not succeeded or "trashed" a device. Done correctly, installing Win 10 is just a process that takes a little time. As for disk image restore.... well, you placed back on the hard drive an image of your ole Windows. Who knows what condition that install was in.. Far, far better would have been a clean install.

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I had problems with the Win 10 anniversary upgrade on my tablet so I decided to do a fresh install of Win 10. I formatted the drive and started the Win 10 install. The install would not finish and trashed my tablet. Thankfully I had created an image using Macrium prior. The restore took quite a long time but it went without a hitch.