O.T. Missing Folder/files

My mistake, we're restoring the 780/8500? and then cloning correct?


On cloning, I don't remember that we changed the partition size I think we
did that once before but with the 8200. With the 8500 we've just done straight
cloning.


Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
I should of posted this earlier but here's the
WBM screen:

https://postimg.cc/KR22qbSQ

Robert

There is a diagram here, which helps explain the boot menu.
There really should only be one Macrium item, not two, to my
way of thinking.

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...+Media+Builder

# At the very least, System Reserved has to be intact, for
# this menu to even appear. Hopefully, to boot the WinRE, does not
# require C: to be working. The Macrium CD on the other hand,
# doesn't have these issues, and it should always boot.

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/do...73870&ap i=v2

One question would be, if the BCD is ever rebuilt, will all
those optional materials end up in the BCD again. That I don't
know. The Macrium CD, for example, if you select boot repair,
it does not particularly preserve the structure of the existing
BCD when it builds a new one. It just does a scan, detects the
things it "sees" and adds them.

The Macrium CD should always work. Any other items with the
word "Macrium" in them, will work as long as the storage they
sit on, is not corrupted.

There is no particular performance difference. If a WinRE or
a WinPE boots, the contents are stored in RAM (drive X: ),
and all materials run at RAM speed. The largest item designed
this way so far, is a "Hirens" disc, which stores several gigabytes
in RAM (and then, the machines running such a disc, need at least
that much RAM for the boot to finish).

If you didn't have your CD, you could use a menu item like that,
but it's unclear what issues might arise. Since the OS and X: are
in RAM, you should (in theory) be able to *overwrite* the disk
drive the thing booted from. How kooky is that ? Well, maybe for
once they did a good thing. If the Macrium Restore went half way
and stopped while doing that, you could very well be screwed
(then you'd need the CD to finish the job).

Paul

Robert in CA wrote:
My mistake, we're restoring the 780/8500? and then cloning correct?


On cloning, I don't remember that we changed the partition size I think we
did that once before but with the 8200. With the 8500 we've just done straight
cloning.


Robert

First off, when doing your planning, for a given machine, we prefer
to have the two "working" disk drives. Say you attempt to restore over
the 780. Then we want the disk drive with that emergency OS on it,
to still be available if there is trouble.

You can restore over the existing C: on either machine and test if
you want. Determine if your backspace key is working. My suspicion is,
with the one month old backup, the backspace is still busted. But, you
can test.

You remember in the slide sets I made, you can click the "Back" button,
select a partition and edit the size. So it is possible to adjust
*any* restored OS to the size you want. When restoring the daily driver
disk for the 780, you might want a slightly larger C: than
for the emergency boot C: on the new drive.

To control the size of *all* of them, you restore the partitions
one at a time.

+-----+------------------+
| MBR | First partition |
+-----+------------------+

+-----+------------------+------------------+
| MBR | First partition | Second partition |
+-----+------------------+------------------+

+-----+------------------+------------------+-----------------+
| MBR | First partition | Second partition | Third partition |
+-----+------------------+------------------+-----------------+

You "drag and drop" a partition from the source MRIMG you browsed
to, then place it on the drive you're "building".

When you do a drag and drop restore like that, it's not likely to
boot. That's because, when you "tease" it by doing one partition
at a time, it does not engage its boot repair as a side effect.

When we get here, and have finished this much...

+-----+------------------+------------------+-----------------+
| MBR | First partition | Second partition | Third partition |
+-----+------------------+------------------+-----------------+

now, it's time to shut down and disconnect the drive with the backups
on it. We *don't* want the boot repair to see the C: on the emergency
boot. The next step is to boot with the Macrium CD again, just the
drive inside the 780 is present, now we use the menu item with
"Boot Repair" in it.

Now, we reboot and allow the 780 hard drive to boot, to prove it
all works.

Let's say the third partition was intended to hold backups.
You would likely want to avoid copying excessive amounts of
material from any backup partition. You can use Disk Management
(diskmgmt.msc) to create a new NTFS partition, call it BACKUPS
and format it, and then it's ready to take backups.

That's an example of a "custom restore". Build it in pieces
as you see fit. Click the Back button, highlight the partition,
use the button to "Edit Partition Properties" and you can set
the size you want.

You can fix drives up, after the fact, with things like the
free Paragon Disk Management 14 program, but Macrium can also
do some of these things for you.

*******

To erase the 780 main drive, you can do that as follows.

1) 780 main drive only. (*Don't* connect the backup drive, as
that would be confusing!)
2) Boot from Macrium CD.
3) There is a Command Prompt icon on the taskbar. Click it.
It runs as Administrator, so you don't need to worry about
elevation.
4) Now, run "diskpart".

diskpart
list disk # only the one disk should now show
select disk 0 # select the drive from the list, which is 0
clean # MBR and partitions blown away
exit
(Close Command Prompt window)

5) What that does, is make an unambiguously clean main drive,
now ready for Restore. Don't do this, unless you are absolutely
sure you have a good backup image to restore!

Anyway, those are some ideas for "doing things your way"
and getting what you want. Yes, we could just restore
any old thing, and "fix it later", but that takes time,
it slaps the disk heads around moving data blocks, and
it's just not very efficient.

*******

After a disk restore, you can move or resize partitions with
this, but it's a bit clunky. The first thing you have to
figure out, is (purple) "Switch to full scale launcher" before
it's ready to go to work. It's filled with features that
are not enabled (being "free"), but it can move and resize
a bit more than the Windows-provided features (which only
resize). Just use the "Move/Resize" if using this, nothing else.

https://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Pa...-10904411.html

Paul

Robert in CA wrote:
Ok so we select the most recent Mrimg to avoid the loss of data
and I've already put working documents on the Patriot drive for
safe keeping. What about bookmarks? Do I have to save them as
well?

I understand what your saying and perhaps that's what I should be
doing although I'm not using much of my C: drive as you can see:

https://postimg.cc/zHFyRBNP

https://postimg.cc/Yv9vhMsb

https://postimg.cc/q6J3wn1d === Previous Versions enabled ???

https://postimg.cc/gw4dRZLh ("Check now" picture)

Should we check the drive for errors on both computers before we
clone an mrimg? Should I defrag both computers?

I still have (2) Startech cases and perhaps I should dedicate one for all
my personal files as another way to protect my data and just connect it
daily to use it. I would also do it manually so I can see what's going on
but it should be an easy matter. Once we create Win 7 Pro on the spare
HD's I can use one for all my personal data. Basically, it would be the
same exact setup I have now except all my persona data would off this
computer and as you say I would free up this C: drive. Would that make
it run faster?

I went back and checked the 780 mrimgs because the ones I gave you had
old dates and as you noted I create backups every month so there should be
more current mrimgs for the 780 and I found them:

https://postimg.cc/GBDgnwdm


The most current being 3-4-21 for both the 780 and 8500 since I do them the
same day.

So should I clone the 780 ? Then if the backspace key returns we know it should
for the 8500 as well.

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert


You can do a CHKDSK if you want. In File Explorer, you highlight the partition
needing a check, do Properties on it, then under the Tools tab is "Check Now".
To be able to repair C: , the machine may tell you a reboot is required.
At the beginning of the reboot, before C: is mounted, that's when it
can run the check. That could take a while. The basic check just verifies
any linkages. It does not verify that all files are readable.

Your Previous Versions picture, is coming from System Restore points.
So that's the storage area it uses on C: . It has a limited amount of
storage for Previous Versions. The oldest Previous Version is thrown
away, to make room for the latest one.

https://www.howtogeek.com/56891/use-...ve-your-files/

I think that might get backed up, but I haven't verified that.
THe actual storage location, could be vaguely related to
"System Volume Information" at the top of C: , but you're not
allowed to look in there.

Taking materials off C: , the purpose of that is to de-duplicate
your backups a bit. It depends on how many copies of the
materials, make sense to keep. If you do full backups, one after
another, then every one of those has a copy of Downloads for example.

Storing materials in a separate partition, you still have to back up
the separate partition. But, you can alter the frequency of such
backups, to whatever makes sense to you. For example, I have 1.3TB
of stuff off of C: , and that might get backed up twice a year.
I could easily lose newer materials. But being as large as it is,
first I have to find space to store the output :-/

Features such as Incremental Backups in Macrium, make the storage
of backed-up material more efficient. But that's a function in the
paid version.

*******

You can do CHKDSK, before defragmenting, for safety.

When you make backups with Macrium, the clusters are recorded
in cluster-order. The hard drive head does not fly around
trying to trace down chunks in "file name order".

file1.txt cluster 1, cluster 3 === fragmented, two clusters
file2.txt cluster 2, cluster 5 === fragmented, two clusters

Macrium backup order is 1,2,3,5... to the MRIMG.

During the Restoration process, if you resize the restored partition,
it (as a side effect) can defragment a bit. So you can get a bit of
defragmentation during restore, by resizing a partition. The defragmentation
is not "done with a purpose", it's not "perfect", but you'll notice
that it's been screwed around a bit.

None of the defragmentation options work like the built-in
feature in Windows XP. There, the files were shoulder to should,
like a brick wall. The Windows 7 defragmenter doesn't do that.
The Windows XP defragmenter could easily run for 8 hours.
The Windows 7 one, maybe 10-15 minutes (because it doesn't work as hard).

https://i.postimg.cc/zDxRR4yv/jkdefrag.gif

In that example, JKDefrag is being used from the command line.
These are some examples of JKDefrag commands:

jkdefrag -a 1 -d 2 C: # Graphical representation of current fragments
# This is how I can tell how hard it will be for
# any tool to clean up.

jkdefrag -a 5 -d 2 C: # Dumb function, to consolidate free space by
# "shoving all the files downwards". Still needs
# a defrag after this!

(Now, run the Windows 7 defragmenter, which is sorta intelligent)

jkdefrag -a 2 -d 2 C: # Defrag. Run this after Windows 7 defrag for
# best results. It defragments the files larger than
# about 50MB or so, that Win7 didn't process.

-a N The action to perform. N is a number from 1 to 11, default is 3:
1 = Analyze, do not defragment and do not optimize.
2 = Defragment only, do not optimize.
3 = Defragment and fast optimize [recommended].
5 = Force together.
6 = Move to end of disk.
7 = Optimize by sorting all files by name (folder + filename).
8 = Optimize by sorting all files by size (smallest first).
9 = Optimize by sorting all files by last access (newest first).
10 = Optimize by sorting all files by last change (oldest first).
11 = Optimize by sorting all files by creation time (oldest first).

https://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/

https://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/JkDefrag64-3.36.zip # 64-bit version

*******

That backspace key is going to haunt you. It's some application
you've installed, and could have been one of your automatic updates.
I would be surprised, if going backwards had good odds of fixing it.

I just don't know how to debug keyboard issues. Yes, there's a translation
table, but applications can install filter drivers too, devcon might
list such things, but I don't know if there are any additional failure
modes or holes in the scheme where they are messing about. Maybe it could
be caught with ProcMon, seeing some compute activity captured at the
instant the key is pressed. But generally, I don't have a warm feeling
on the topic. ProcMon is always a "needle in a haystack" - analysis
is a pain. And I can't help you from here, because I don't know
what application is doing it, and it's pretty hard to simulate.

(The new versions are Win7 and higher)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...nloads/procmon

I tried a fake test case here with that, and could not find
the trigger event. Already, an easy test, I can't catch it.

Paul

+++++ Two disks were present when the menu was rebuilt,
and now the menu choices are both being shown.
Rebuilding the menu with one disk only present, will fix it.
Macrium boot CD has a "boot repair" menu item, which can be
used to restore normal boot behavior with one disk.

I tried running the boot repair off the rescue cd (ver 7.2) to correct the
WBN screen logon on the 780 but I'm not sure which items to un-tick

https://postimg.cc/p5M2g2BZ

https://postimg.cc/GTPcRZ71

https://postimg.cc/t11pJ1Sk

https://postimg.cc/fSvhpYyz

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
+++++ Two disks were present when the menu was rebuilt,
and now the menu choices are both being shown.
Rebuilding the menu with one disk only present, will fix it.
Macrium boot CD has a "boot repair" menu item, which can be
used to restore normal boot behavior with one disk.

I tried running the boot repair off the rescue cd (ver 7.2) to correct the
WBN screen logon on the 780 but I'm not sure which items to un-tick

https://postimg.cc/p5M2g2BZ

https://postimg.cc/GTPcRZ71

https://postimg.cc/t11pJ1Sk

https://postimg.cc/fSvhpYyz

Robert

If you look in Disk Management, System Reserved is marked "Active"
and "System". It is the Active (Boot Flag = 0x80) partition
that the boot process starts on.

You can see the Macrium menu identified a partition, and it
did that by looking for the Boot Flag. Sometimes the Boot Flag
is not in the right place and needs correction, but this does
not happen too often. If two disk drives were present, there
could be confusion about which one.

You will be asked to identify the Active partition, because
that's where the BCD file for the boot menu goes.

You will be asked to identify all the C: partitions, so they
can be added to the boot menu as boot-time-options.

The four tick boxes a

Reset the Boot Disk ID

This is a four byte field in the MBR, near to the four entry
partition table. The disk may be named ABCD1234 for example.
When cloning a disk, initially two disks have the same
ABCD1234. This is bad. If left this way, the first disk is
"Online", the second disk goes "Offline". Not very useful for
daily work. If ticking this box, a new DiskID is assigned to the
drive needing boot work.

When Macrium clones, the second disk is automatically given a
new ABCD1234, so this tick box is not needed. If duplicating a
disk drive using dd.exe (Disk Dump), then, a new DiskID is needed
and the box should be ticked.

It generally does not hurt anything.

Replace the Master Boor Record (MBR)

That's the boot code, in the first 440 bytes or so.
I'd have to look up the exact number of bytes. There is
boot code in there and the four primary partition table entries,
as examples of materials that are present.

If a disk was zeroed, then partitioned, the boot code would
be missing. But Macrium prepared disks would not usually be missing
this code. If the BIOS simply won't boot from the hard disk, claiming
there is nothing there, you can tick this box.

Replace Partition Sector Boot Code

This is three sectors in the Active Partition. The MBR jumps to
that code. If a partition is "formatted" with a format routine,
the three sectors are lost. Generally, if Macrium clones a partition
or restored from backup, everything there is OK and the tick box
is not needed.

Rebuild the Boot Configuration

This is the one normally ticked. If you're going to use this
feature, Boot Repair, you tick this one, as it's the only option
that makes sense for the feature :-)

So bare minimum, tick the last box. Tick other boxes, if
the first attempt at boot repair, does not work.

HTH,
Paul

I ran the Rescue CD again with the 'Rebuild Boot Configuration' checked
but it booted directly to the desktop and the WBM didn't appear at all. So
I ran the Rescue CD again with all boxes ticked and it still does the same
thing. It boots directly to the desktop.

https://postimg.cc/YLhK62J6

https://postimg.cc/pmNbjHkj

https://postimg.cc/V0BMF1nN

https://postimg.cc/xXWvYsfn

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
I ran the Rescue CD again with the 'Rebuild Boot Configuration' checked
but it booted directly to the desktop and the WBM didn't appear at all. So
I ran the Rescue CD again with all boxes ticked and it still does the same
thing. It boots directly to the desktop.

https://postimg.cc/YLhK62J6

https://postimg.cc/pmNbjHkj

https://postimg.cc/V0BMF1nN

https://postimg.cc/xXWvYsfn

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert


From the Rescue CD, Command Prompt window (which is administrator)...

dir /AH C:\boot\BCD # verify it is there.

bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True

*******

Or, from the running system, using just the regular windows stuff.
You want to run "cmd" and right-click on the returned item and
select Run As Administrator. The following is "online" editing of boot menu.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True

*******

Using the last one from my running OS, this is my result.

https://i.postimg.cc/P5DfBhb7/boot-menu-edit.gif

Paul

I tried it both ways:

https://postimg.cc/Jt5KGSDp

https://postimg.cc/k6c8g318

btw I like your idea of moving all the data to a dedicated external hd
but I was thinking if I do that then I'll also have to create a backup
hd for that, correct?

I realized that I don't need to move anything once we clone the drives
with Win 7 Pro. I just need to delete everything off the 8500, one folder
at a time, correct?
I thought what I would do is take a screenshot of all the folders of My
Documents from the newly created hd that we'll use as a dedicated data
drive and use it to check the folders as I delete them off the 8500 one by
one
Not get ahead of the problem were having with the 780 but how do I
create a backup if my data is on an external drive? Can I do a backup
from an external drive to an external drive? If so, could you please give
me numbered step by step instructions like you did before when we get
to that point?

Since I'm already backing up the 8500 and the 780. I think I should
buy more hd's next month so I have spare hd backup's for all the computers.

Thoughts, suggestions?
Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
I tried it both ways:

https://postimg.cc/Jt5KGSDp

https://postimg.cc/k6c8g318

The first picture is more likely to work.

You need to put some space characters in that command,
to separate the fields.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True


btw I like your idea of moving all the data to a dedicated external hd
but I was thinking if I do that then I'll also have to create a backup
hd for that, correct?

I realized that I don't need to move anything once we clone the drives
with Win 7 Pro. I just need to delete everything off the 8500, one folder
at a time, correct?
I thought what I would do is take a screenshot of all the folders of My
Documents from the newly created hd that we'll use as a dedicated data
drive and use it to check the folders as I delete them off the 8500 one by
one
Not get ahead of the problem were having with the 780 but how do I
create a backup if my data is on an external drive? Can I do a backup
from an external drive to an external drive? If so, could you please give
me numbered step by step instructions like you did before when we get
to that point?

Since I'm already backing up the 8500 and the 780. I think I should
buy more hd's next month so I have spare hd backup's for all the computers.

Thoughts, suggestions?

I like your enthusiasm, but you don't want to fall into
a trap like me, and end up with way too many hard drives
around the house :-)

You could partition a hard drive like this. You don't
have to keep the Downloads on an external drive,
you can just keep a partition next to C: . The
advantage of this, is with C: being unloaded occasionally,
you can keep C: from getting too big.

+-----+-----------------+-------------+----------------+
| MBR | System Reserved | C: 100GB | D: Data 800GB |
+-----+-----------------+-------------+----------------+

Maybe C: gets backed up once a month, D: is backed up once a year.
My illustration, is to show that you can have two kinds of files,
and have different backup practices for each.

But really, you have a good scheme as is. A backup is
a couple hundred GB so it hasn't gotten completely
out of hand.

If you purchased Macrium, then you could use a feature
called "Incrementals Forever", and your first backup would be
around 200GB, but the next month, the backup might only be 5GB.
That's because the combination of the two, 200+5 is read
back, to prepare the Restore later. Incremental backups
rely on more than one backup file being intact. The
"Incrementals Forever" feature, adds to that, the
squashing of the 200+5 thing, down to the
approximately 200GB it really represents, then
adding more incrementals on the end. It's
a kind of sliding window of incrementals.

The purpose of all this manipulation, is to
make the backup drive last longer, and hold
more months of backup. By not doing the Free
Version "Full" all the time, some space is
saved. Incrementals de-duplicate, so if
mypicture.png is already stored in a backup,
it does not have to be recorded a second time.
The Incremental feature keeps track of which
files belong in the Restore, based on any
time point you select for restoration.

Again, that's an example of how some people
arrange their backups.

Now, me, I just use "Full" ones like you,
and I occasionally toss some, to make room
for new ones.

But in any case, when making backups, the
temptation is to hold onto too many backup
images, buy too many hard drives, spend long
hours moving files from one big drive to another
and so on. It can easily turn into a zoo.
And I don't want you to make the same
mistakes I've made (with the buying drives thing).

When I make suggestions, I'm trying to give examples
of various ways you can slice a pie. But not
everyone likes their pie that way, and you have
to think through the consequences of these
ideas, to their logical conclusion.

You had a decent collection in that picture you
showed me, because you had a series of monthly
backups. And say the backspace key problem, wasn't
fixed by restoring last months MRIMG. You could
go back a second month, and test there.

Only on one occasion, did I need to go back
two years, and I did move forward again later,
when via Googling, I found another solution
to my problem, and then I didn't need to keep
using the two year old restore. Would I keep
monthly backups for two years ? The demonstrated
need shows that once you have a year of backups,
you can keep just one of them per year so
that is your "yearly". So maybe a couple yearly
ones, and a bunch of monthly ones.

Jan 2019
Jan 2020
Jan 2021
Feb 2021
Mar 2021

Maybe later in the year it looks like

Jan 2019
Jan 2020
Jan 2021
Apr 2021 == ditched a few monthly ones, so quarterly
Jul 2021
Oct 2021 \
Nov 2021 \___ Monthly for the most recent
Dec 2021 /

And maybe that will fit on a single 2TB drive.
And those can be "Fulls", like you're making now,
because the storage device has just enough room
for the proposed backup set. No need to purchase
Macrium, within those constraints.

Since you're no longer using Windows XP, you
can use huge drives for backups. The ones you're
using now, seem reliable enough, and there is nothing
wrong with them. You can get drives, like 14TB,
you prepare those with GPT partitioning on
Windows 7 and you're allowed to have one giant 14TB
partition. But I don't buy drives that big, because
it takes too long to move the data off them.
The biggest drives I have today are 6TB. That's
enough to hold two 3TB sets of backups for me.

The pricing curve for drives, sometimes there's
a kink and sometimes not. When they're linear
with capacity, then there isn't a lot to be gained
from buying huge ones. If there was some economy from
the bigger ones, it might be more fun to buy them.
But if a big drive costs $500, who needs that exactly.
It's like buying a steak which is too big for one
meal, and some going to waste. And if the big drive
breaks, now you're out $500 (unless you want to
pursue the warranty, and at that price, you have
an incentive to do so).

If there was a Free backup with Incrementals,
I'd be testing that for myself :-) But that tends
to be a paid feature.

I think you're in pretty good shape as is. You're
making backups. If you get ransomware, there's a chance
you'll be able to recover from it. You won't be like
the guy in another group - he tells me he's got data
files that end in myfile.xls.osiris and that osiris
thing means "ransomware". And the guy has no backups.
It took *months* for him to do clean installs,
try and tip computers upright and so on. It was a
real mess. That's the only case of ransomware I've
heard of in the newsgroups. How did he get it ?
He opened an email from GoDaddy domain registrar,
with an attachment called "invoice" and when he
clicked on the "invoice", ransomware took over.
The email wasn't from GoDaddy, it was forged.
And why did the forgers send it to him ? When he
registered his GoDaddy domain, he used his real
email address (and the registration can be
seen publicly). The perps just grab all the
email addresses from those registrations, and
they "spray" all the victims with "invoice" emails.
That was the infection vector. Email.

Paul

It worked!

https://postimg.cc/1fjXxbbM

https://postimg.cc/BL4Qc31Z

If I were to create a partition I still would want to backup my data
monthly because I do allot of work that requires it. It seems for my
purposes what I'm doing now is the best fit for me. As you say I 'm
in pretty good shape as is.

I thought about increasing the HD size for the external hd's but even
if I stepped up to 4 TB I would never use that much. You saw my hd
and how much free space I still have. I do the same as you and just
delete older ones as needed.

That scenario about the guy opening up the email and invoice is exactly
what happened to my sister after I told her not to open it! I'm very careful
with emails. I never open emails if I don't know who they're from and I
don't use my real name (why do people do that? Its nuts? ) I have all my
family and people I know on one email account and I have another
separate email account for everything else and I set the filters very high.
If I get any spam I block the senders so now I hardly get anything.

I learned my lesson the hard way and since you were with me every step
of the way you remember what a nightmare we went through trying to
restore the 8200 and the 300+ updates to bring it back. Luckily we found
a SP1 file so we could build off of it but afterwards I vowed never again
and you helped created the backup system I now have including the spare
power supplies, making all the backup and recovery CD''s and picking out
the 780.

So are we good to go in trying to restore the 780 with the 4-3-21 mrimg?


Robert

Robert in CA wrote:


So are we good to go in trying to restore the 780 with the 4-3-21 mrimg?

Make a backup of what exists on the 780 first. Then, if you don't like
what happens with the 4-3-21 restore, you have options.

Paul

The new mouse(s) arrived and I switched the 8500 mouse with a
new one thinking it might be the cause of problem I've been having
and I think it is. So far it's acting normally and not opening or closing
things I don't want it to. I did have to adjust the speed of this one as
it was way too sluggish at first and I felt it in my wrists immediately.

I started the 780 backup but ran out of space on the external hd so I
had to delete some older Mrimgs. During this process it showed this
for Mrimg 3-4-21which we wanted to use to restore the 780.

https://postimg.cc/xJ3PhGcB

So it looks as if I'll have to go back further for the 780 Mrimg 2-1-21 to
restore it.

While restoring the 780, I had a 'Build rescue media boot menu' pop up.
I didn't know what to do because this isn't in your instructions you gave
me previously so I cancelled the restore.

https://postimg.cc/nXXn00CS

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
The new mouse(s) arrived and I switched the 8500 mouse with a
new one thinking it might be the cause of problem I've been having
and I think it is. So far it's acting normally and not opening or closing
things I don't want it to. I did have to adjust the speed of this one as
it was way too sluggish at first and I felt it in my wrists immediately.

I started the 780 backup but ran out of space on the external hd so I
had to delete some older Mrimgs. During this process it showed this
for Mrimg 3-4-21which we wanted to use to restore the 780.

https://postimg.cc/xJ3PhGcB

So it looks as if I'll have to go back further for the 780 Mrimg 2-1-21 to
restore it.

While restoring the 780, I had a 'Build rescue media boot menu' pop up.
I didn't know what to do because this isn't in your instructions you gave
me previously so I cancelled the restore.

https://postimg.cc/nXXn00CS

Robert

https://forum.macrium.com/14596/XML-...1-is-not-valid

"A new Full should correct the problem
or you can edit the XML file"

If you were attempting a backup, using an existing (defined) backup
from the list of backup setups, then you need to make a new Full
and select the partitions you want backed up. You can only reuse
an existing definition from the menu, if it continues to match
the disk you are backing up. If you make too many changes, you
have to (somehow), make the disk match some definition file.
Editing the XML file sounds a bit over the top to me, when
the GUI can create another one for you.

*******

The existing backups (during Restore) are also going to be compared
to how the disk is partitioned currently. That's if you were partially
restoring the setup on there.

https://i.postimg.cc/CLQ47Rxn/restore-shows-config.gif

The image there, says "you can drag and drop". You're allowed
to restore one partition at a time, resize the partition
(don't make it too small though or there won't be enough
slack to boot).

You're in full control in a sense. But you have to keep your
wits about you.

If restoring one partition at a time, it is always possible the
system won't boot afterwards, but no problem, as the Macrium
CD has the boot repair menu, and putting a new MBR boot code
on it will probably fix it up.

When you restore, you can completely blow away the original
disk contents. Just tick all the boxes, select the disk you
want to use, click Next and away it goes. If it asks you
what configuration to keep, you would want to keep the
partition structure as defined in the backup.

But if you need to shoehorn like-partitions-in-like, you
can do that. Or even, click Back and resize the partition as
desired.

Using the Command Prompt window available in the lower left
of the Macrium screen during CD restore, you can even use
diskpart to clean off a disk drive.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
clean
exit
(close Command Prompt)

But if you're going to do that, you have to be damn sure
you're erasing the correct disk. The Macrium Restore is
marginally safer (as typically, the DiskID shown in the
upper pane of the Restore, will match the DiskID of the
disk you select for restore. As that's the disk it came
from in the first place.

*******

The "Make Rescue Media" thing happens, if you update the
version of Macrium, but have not made a new CD. I would
think any Version 6 CD should restore any Version 6 backup,
but I haven't tested that. But the newer versions can
have a different feature set, and if you made a backup
using Version 7 loaded on the C: drive, it would be
expecting a lot for a Version 6 CD to do the restore.
If running Version 7, I'd want at least one Version 7
CD kicking around the room. Then it's not going to
complain about the version, during the restore.

Since both my machines are roughly the same class,
a CD I make on one of them, typically works OK for the
other. Your machines would be in that ballpark as well,
as the 780 is 64-bit and has mostly modern peripheral
interfaces. Maybe the network driver might not work on
both, but then, you don't use restores from network shares,
and won't be facing a networking challenge as a result.
Your strategy uses external USB holders of backups, and
all that your CD needs as a result, is the appropriate
generic USB2 or USB3 driver (or both). And one of the
more modern choices of the list of WADK kits in the
Make Rescue Media menu, will give you something that
works on both machines. USB being generic, and say,
a Windows 8 era or Windows 10 era WADK download, will
have drivers for both USB2 and USB3 from Microsoft.

That has nothing to do with the OSes you're restoring,
which are both Windows 7. The boot CD does not "sniff"
the OS being restored, for such purposes. It's when the
Rescue CD is being prepared, some of the modern WADK
choices have the right drivers to mostly bring up the
hardware on your two machines. Then one CD is "good enough"
for both. I don't like to waste media here, as I suspect
if I go to the store, the selection will be extremely
poor. Since you can't buy a DVD drive at retail now,
there's hardly a reason for Ritek to continue making
DVD blanks. There are still some BluRay drives,
which burn all three disc types, but there aren't
a lot of choices left there either. So the small cake
box of media I have left, that's just about it.

Paul

I don't understand what it means that the restore must be
completed in the Windows PE rescue environment? I thought
I was in the PE mode when I connected the external hd?

I understand that the partitions don't match up but I'm not
understanding what you mean by a new full? If I drag and drop
from the external to the C: drive I have to do it for all the partitions ,
making each the same size, correct?

This is getting beyond me,.... I didn't realize I had to partition.

I'm not sure how to proceed at this point.

Robert