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Old January 5th 19, 11:47 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Default Macrium Reflect Question

Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Char Jackson
writes:
[]
I'm probably in the minority but I'm one who doesn't make a rescue CD
(actually USB) until I actually need it. Then I use it and promptly
toss the thumb drive back in the pile to be recycled for other uses.
Someone who has a single PC is probably better off creating and
storing a rescue disc but that's not my situation here.

That's my point - "when I actually need it" is too late for a
single-PC user, if "need it" means the PC won't boot, for whatever
reason (hardware drive failure, you've done something silly, or
malware). You can't then _make_ the CD (or USB).
+1

That's one of the benefits of buying an image program already
containing a boot CD as part of its package, like Acronis True Image
(ATI), and you can make a bootable flash drive too. The only problem
I've had with Acronis True Image is that it's become more bloated and
less straightforward in its interface with each succeeding generation.

Well, that, and the fact that when I try to use a flash drive ATI boot
loader on my laptop to do a restore image operation, it wants to
restore the image to D: instead of C:, since it seems to see its own
boot Linux OS as C: - which is very annoying.
That's probably a WinPE disc. The boot drive on those
is normally a RAMdrive at X: .

Linux doesn't use Windows lettering as a rule. A typical
Linux might use /media/mount/partition_label or
/media/mount/hex_string_of letters as names when
auto-mounting.

The Bash shell in Windows 10 might use /mnt/c/windows/system32
as their style. Kasperksy rescue disc might use /mnt/c:
but that's about as close as they get to a Windows name
as such.

Whereas WinPE command prompt will use regular drive
letters, and it peeks into a randomly selected
Windows registry to decide how to do the naming.
If you have two boot OSes, what will it do ?
It's either that, or name the partitions in order
of hardware discovery during boot.

Paul
So you mean I'm kinda stuck with that behavior? It's a bit problematic,
because when I tried it on the Win 7 laptop, even though it did the
restore operation mostly ok, there was at least one weird issue that
remained as a consequence of this "mislabeling" (and I can't recall what
ths anomoly was now).

So I just checked this out again with my Win 7 laptop: That laptop has
one hard drive, which is partitioned into C: for Windows and my
programs, and D: which stores the backup image files (and some other
stuff). When I boot up using the ATI flash drive ISO, it comes up using
C: for
itself, and showing D: for my C: hard drive, and E: for the partition
storing the image. However, as mentioned, it will restore the C:
partition mostly ok, but with at least one weird issue remaining (as a
consequence of the legacy of thinking it's restoring to D:, instead of
C My only possible clean "workaround" to "bypassing that anomaly" would
be
to restore a previous day's registry (if that were usable and
available), which would completely set the record straight as to it
being C:

You can see on this page, their rescue media is booting to X:

https://kb.acronis.com/content/60131

Such media boots to X: (a ramdrive containing a copy of the
booting materials) specifically so C: will be available
for other purposes.


I'm using an older version of ATI (2009) which I don't think has all that
capability.

Perhaps you took an ISO and used Rufus to make USB boot media ?


Yes, something similar to that (see below).

There's probably some other step you didn't mention.


See below, and maybe that helps explain the drive letter discrepancy here.

Microsoft makes boot media as a kit, which the backup
companies can use to make utility OSes out of. It allows
making a dedicated environment for restoration jobs, one
which runs many Windows subsystems but not all of them.
(I don't think VSS is in there, because the perception
of Microsoft is, it isn't needed for utility or offline
operations of various sorts.)

You can do the same thing with Linux - Kaspersky uses
Gentoo for its emergency CD, but you can tell from
the paths used that you're in Linux ( /mnt/c: ) whereas
the ATI media on that web page shows Command Prompt
with the usual back-slash delimited path info.

The largest file on the media of a WinPE or WinRE media,
would be a .wim or .esd file. Which is similar to the
squashfs container of a Linux LiveCD (.wim can be compressed).
Finding a .wim or .esd in \sources would be a hint as to
what kind of media that was (Microsoft media).

Paul


Some of this was bit over my head. (sorry). Also, I'm using a much older
version of ATI (2009), so that's another difference, but anyways, here it
goes:

I looked at my bootable flash drive with the ATI ISO file (that I made ages
ago), and see I put a note in there saying I used GRUB4DOS (which I guess is
similar to Rufus) to make this drive bootable, with the ATI ISO file. And I
guess that's related to what you mentioned above, and is perhaps part of the
problem, and possible solution, for me. I think I had to do this because my
old version of ATI (2009) didn't directly give me the capability of making a
bootable ISO flash disk, and only created the ISO file.

So on my bootable flash drive I have the GRUB4DOS stuff in its own
subdirectory (that I used to make this bootable drive, ages ago). And in
the root directory, I have a file called "grldr", and perhaps more relevant
here, "menu.lst".

I don't really understand what is happening here, but here are the contents
of the "menu.lst" file, which I'm wondering if I can simply modify to solve
this drive letter problem (like to make it X or something besides C, as per
above). But I'm guessing it's not going to be that simple.

So I think if I understand you right, I would have to go back to GRUB4DOS or
Rufus and somewhere in there specify what drive letter to use for the
ramdrive, IF that is even possible. (Like drive X, if that were an option).
But again, I don't fully understand this, and I'm doubting that's an option.
At any rate, here is the menu.lst file.

timeout 10
default 0

title Acronis True Image 2009 Boot ISO
map (hd0,0)/ATI-Boot.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)
boot

title CommandLine
commandline

title Reboot
reboot

title Halt
halt

So in conclusion, I'm guessing I can't simply specify X for the ramdrive
here, and I'm not even sure if I could do that by using Rufus or GRUB4DOS to
start all over again. The other stuff you mentioned was a bit over my head,
so I guess I'm kinda stuck at this point. I can live without it, I guess.


The Rufus GRUB is likely a chainloader.

The environment is "pure whatever" once control is handed
off to ATI-Boot.iso . If ATI-Boot.iso gives X: when
launched from a DVD, it should give X: when
launched from the Rufus USB key.

I can find one thread, with evidence s PEBuilder existed
back in the ATI 2009 era (Bart PE was a PE back in the WinXP
era, to give an idea of when this tech appeared "above-ground").
As well as evidence of a Linux boot ISO in the ATI 2017 era
(has .so and .initrd files). Weird, eh?

Whereas Macrium dispensed with their build-in Linux ISO
around Version 4 or 5 or so, and only uses WinPE style for the
later ones.

Paul
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