Several Macrium Relect Free Questions...

I have a desktop with Windows 10 Pro and a laptop with Windows 10
Home. Both are on 1803 since they've not been offered 1809 yet.
I have just downloaded Macrium Reflect Free 7.2.3906, backed up
both computers, and made the DVD's for Rescue Media. And I've
successfully booted from both DVD's.

I have the following questions:

1. What does "Verify" do in the context of backup? Does it
check each file to ensure that it is accurately in the image?

2. Must I carefully label each Rescue Media DVD to use it only
on the computer on which it was made, or are they
interchangeable?

3. Is there any way to create a rescue media on a USB thumb
drive with Macrium Reflect? My blank Taiyo Juden discs are
getting long in the tooth, several years old, and I distrust them
more than my thumb drives that are almost all new. I can't see
than Macrium allows me to use thumb drives.

Thanks in advance for your help.

On 12/1/18 11:56 AM, Kirk Bubul wrote:
I have a desktop with Windows 10 Pro and a laptop with Windows 10
Home. Both are on 1803 since they've not been offered 1809 yet.
I have just downloaded Macrium Reflect Free 7.2.3906, backed up
both computers, and made the DVD's for Rescue Media. And I've
successfully booted from both DVD's.

I have the following questions:

1. What does "Verify" do in the context of backup? Does it
check each file to ensure that it is accurately in the image?
Never used it, but if it's anything like Acronis True Image, it simply
verifies that the file (backup) is readable.


2. Must I carefully label each Rescue Media DVD to use it only
on the computer on which it was made, or are they
interchangeable?
Rescue CD is a rescue CD.


3. Is there any way to create a rescue media on a USB thumb
drive with Macrium Reflect? My blank Taiyo Juden discs are
getting long in the tooth, several years old, and I distrust them
more than my thumb drives that are almost all new. I can't see
than Macrium allows me to use thumb drives.
Yes there is, but it's been so long ago I can't give you the directions.
But I have one sitting here beside me on a small 1G thumb drive.


Thanks in advance for your help.

Kirk Bubul wrote:
I have a desktop with Windows 10 Pro and a laptop with Windows 10
Home. Both are on 1803 since they've not been offered 1809 yet.
I have just downloaded Macrium Reflect Free 7.2.3906, backed up
both computers, and made the DVD's for Rescue Media. And I've
successfully booted from both DVD's.

I have the following questions:

1. What does "Verify" do in the context of backup? Does it
check each file to ensure that it is accurately in the image?

2. Must I carefully label each Rescue Media DVD to use it only
on the computer on which it was made, or are they
interchangeable?

3. Is there any way to create a rescue media on a USB thumb
drive with Macrium Reflect? My blank Taiyo Juden discs are
getting long in the tooth, several years old, and I distrust them
more than my thumb drives that are almost all new. I can't see
than Macrium allows me to use thumb drives.

Thanks in advance for your help.

1) When a Verify bombed out here, I think it stopped
half-way through the 1TB .mrimg file. It didn't wait
until the end.

It does sequential cluster backup, with an index file
generated at the end for reference purposes. If your
file is fragmented, then a cluster could be in the
"defective section", for whatever that's worth. I don't
see any attempt at "recovery" of defective .mrimg files.
That's not a feature.

Using a hex editor, you can simulate any failure type
you like (damage an MRIMG on purpose). I recommend a backup
of your System Reserved or Recovery partition, to make such
hex editing and testing "palatable". A 0.5GB test file,
is big enough.

https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

2) If you make a Macrium CD on Machine A, it has hardware
drivers for Machine A. The drivers on Machine B could be
different. The discs are interchangable, for vanilla
drivers such as IDE or AHCI perhaps, on SATA plugin ports.
You could likely do a SATA to SATA restore, with either
of your CDs. But accessing your NAS, maybe only one of the
discs has the NIC driver required. This is why, if you make
a backup with the CD, say from your machine to your NAS, there
is a good chance you'll be able to Restore using the same CD.
If the Machine B disc doesn't have the NIC driver, then you're
screwed on the NAS recovery, and must move the file to a
SATA drive which you install inside the tower.

Windows 7 needs a USB3 driver, but not a USB2 driver.
If you can't get the USB3 port to work with your
Machine B CD, then don't panic, as the USB2 port will
work at 30MB/sec.

Think creatively. Some version of Macrium reports the
drivers boiled in, while it is making the media. I don't
know of a way later (short of forensic examination of the
boot WIM), to find out what drivers are there.

3) I have a single 1GB thumb drive here, with the label "Macrium"
on it. So there must be a capability there, or that would not
be sitting in front of me :-)

https://i.postimg.cc/g0CR2th7/macrium-thumb.gif

Here is a picture off the Win10 machine.

https://i.postimg.cc/43gHCHTC/macriu...thumbdrive.gif

If you have an existing Vista+ optical disc, you can
experiment with this to make bootable USB thumb drives.
This could use an ISO9660 as a source.

"Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool
(extracts from ISO9660 file and copies files to USB stick)"

The first link is the README, the second link the download.

http://web.archive.org/web/201201022...usbdvd_dwnTool

http://web.archive.org/web/201110052...B-DVD-tool.exe

If you operate that tool from a 64-bit OS, it can make
32 bit or 64 bit USB sticks from
32 bit ISO or 64 bit ISO files.

Paul

On Sat, 01 Dec 2018 14:01:44 -0500, Paul
wrote:

3) I have a single 1GB thumb drive here, with the label "Macrium"
on it. So there must be a capability there, or that would not
be sitting in front of me :-)

All I had to do was stick a thumb drive into a slot. Immediately,
the USB thumb drive option appeared. Live and learn. The
responses are interactive.

Thanks for all the other info.

Kirk Bubul wrote:
I have a desktop with Windows 10 Pro and a laptop with Windows 10
Home. Both are on 1803 since they've not been offered 1809 yet.
I have just downloaded Macrium Reflect Free 7.2.3906, backed up
both computers, and made the DVD's for Rescue Media. And I've
successfully booted from both DVD's.

I have the following questions:

1. What does "Verify" do in the context of backup? Does it
check each file to ensure that it is accurately in the image?

It does not check files, because you do not backup files. You backup
(image) one or more partitions. "Verify" checks that the image is an
exact copy of the partition(s) you backed up, i.e. it's a test that
nothing went wrong writing to the destination medium (normally a disk).

2. Must I carefully label each Rescue Media DVD to use it only
on the computer on which it was made, or are they
interchangeable?

See Paul's answer. If you get lucky, a Rescue Media medium from one
computer *might* work on another, but better safe than sorry, so label
them.

3. Is there any way to create a rescue media on a USB thumb
drive with Macrium Reflect? My blank Taiyo Juden discs are
getting long in the tooth, several years old, and I distrust them
more than my thumb drives that are almost all new. I can't see
than Macrium allows me to use thumb drives.

Yes, just select 'USB Device' in the 'Burn Rescue Media' dialog, i.e.
the same dialog where you told it to burn a DVD.

Thanks in advance for your help.

A general tip: Just use Help - Help... while in Macrium Reflect. That
will bring you to:

'Macrium Reflect v7 User Guide'
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Macrium+Reflect+User+Guide

For example on that page, one of the topics is 'Rescue Environment'
which brings you to:

'The Macrium Rescue Environment'
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Rescue+Environment

Which says:

"CD, DVD and USB rescue media

You can boot your computer into Windows PE from a CD, DVD, USB stick or
USB attached external hard disk."

I.e. a direct answer to your question 3. and it continues with
'Creating rescue media' and 'Creating a bootable Windows PE USB stick'.

'Creating rescue media' has 'Once I have created rescue media, will it
work on all my computers?', i.e. the answer to your question 2..

And yes, your question 1. is also - somewhat - answered in the User
Guide! :-)

'Advanced Options'
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Advanced+Options

"Auto Verify

Automatically verify the resulting backup file. This will add more time
to the backup process but confirms if the resulting backup can be
restored from."

Hope this helps. Have fun.

On Sat, 01 Dec 2018 10:56:30 -0600, Kirk Bubul
wrote:

I have a desktop with Windows 10 Pro and a laptop with Windows 10
Home. Both are on 1803 since they've not been offered 1809 yet.
I have just downloaded Macrium Reflect Free 7.2.3906, backed up
both computers, and made the DVD's for Rescue Media. And I've
successfully booted from both DVD's.

I have the following questions:

1. What does "Verify" do in the context of backup? Does it
check each file to ensure that it is accurately in the image?

May I suggest that you download the User Guide and then read page 205.


2. Must I carefully label each Rescue Media DVD to use it only
on the computer on which it was made, or are they
interchangeable?

I use the same DVD for my X32 PC and my X64 PCs. I don't need three
DVDs.


3. Is there any way to create a rescue media on a USB thumb
drive with Macrium Reflect? My blank Taiyo Juden discs are
getting long in the tooth, several years old, and I distrust them
more than my thumb drives that are almost all new. I can't see
than Macrium allows me to use thumb drives.

Start Macrium Reflect on your PC then select "Other Tasks". Here you
will find the option to "Create Rescue Media". This will allow you to
"Select Device" from the following options:

1. Removable USB Flash Drive
2. CD/DVD Burner
3. ISO File

Thanks in advance for your help.

You're welcome.

Kirk Bubul wrote:

I have a desktop with Windows 10 Pro and a laptop with Windows 10
Home. Both are on 1803 since they've not been offered 1809 yet.
I have just downloaded Macrium Reflect Free 7.2.3906, backed up
both computers, and made the DVD's for Rescue Media. And I've
successfully booted from both DVD's.

I have the following questions:

1. What does "Verify" do in the context of backup? Does it
check each file to ensure that it is accurately in the image?

2. Must I carefully label each Rescue Media DVD to use it only
on the computer on which it was made, or are they
interchangeable?

3. Is there any way to create a rescue media on a USB thumb
drive with Macrium Reflect? My blank Taiyo Juden discs are
getting long in the tooth, several years old, and I distrust them
more than my thumb drives that are almost all new. I can't see
than Macrium allows me to use thumb drives.

Thanks in advance for your help.

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...d+backup+files
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...ation+Failures

It is unlikely you are doing a sector-by-sector (physical) copy into an
image backup file. You are doing a file (logical) copy to build an
image file. Despite that some users think "image" means a physical
backup of a drive, that's not what it means at all. Only a
sector-by-sector backup is a physical backup.

After the backup completes, the program reads the image for each file
and compares that hash against another created by reading the source
file. This would not work (many files would fail the comparison) unless
VSC (Volume Shadow Copy) was not used. VSC allows accessing a read-only
snapshot that it created and the files within that snapshot are what get
put into the backup image, and the shadow copy of the file is what gets
compared against what got stored in the image backup. The verify checks
that what got stored in the image backup matches after the backup that
its hash still equals the hash on the shadow copy of the file

Without VSC or similar technology, files that changed during the backup
would fail a verify to the copy saved in the backup. VSC was added back
in Windows XP. Before VSC, image backups had to be done with a
quiescent OS; that is, the OS could not be running to ensure it and none
of its installed software would makes file changes. You booted to the
backup program (which ran its own OS), so the OS+app partition was
untouched during the backup.

The verify operation only does reads. It reads the file in the image
backup to create a hash, rereads the shadow copy of the source file to
create a hash, and checks the hashes are equal. It does not do any
writing. For some folks, saving backups without /testing/ them to work
properly means wasting time doing the backups. A corrupted backup is
useless if it cannot be written (in a restore operation). Alas, that
means you need some spare drive space somewhere to test the writes when
restoring from a backup; however, that tests the destination media will
write, not the original or source media.

You only care that verification doubles the job completion time when
you're sitting there waiting for the job to end. If you schedule the
backups (to ensure you actually have some instead of relying on
unreliable humans to run backups at important deltas in the state of the
computer) then you don't care about extra time because you're not there,
like the backup is running while you are sleeping or away at work.