Solved Macrium Reflect - using mrauto.exe in a batch file

kelper · Sep 19, 2023

I would like to boot into Macrium Recovery on my USB HDD and then run mrauto.exe in a batch file but I can't get it to work.

I have mrauto.exe and my batch file in F:\ which is the USB HDD

This is what I put in the batch file

mrauto.exe -b F:\Acer Swift 1 -t full 1:1,1:2,1:3

This works within Windows when mrauto and my batch file are on C:\ drive, but does not work in MR recovery

Except is creates a folder called Acer and names the backup Swift! I can live with that.

OAT · Sep 19, 2023

kelper said:
I would like to boot into Macrium Recovery on my USB HDD and then run mrauto.exe in a batch file but I can't get it to work.

I have mrauto.exe and my batch file in F:\ which is the USB HDD

This is what I put in the batch file

mrauto.exe -b F:\Acer Swift 1 -t full 1:1,1:2,1:3

This works within Windows when mrauto and my batch file are on C:\ drive, but does not work in MR recovery

Except is creates a folder called Acer and names the backup Swift! I can live with that.

Please use double quotes when using space(s) in path names.

hsehestedt · Sep 19, 2023

I may be wrong on this and you may need to test it, but from a batch file wouldn't you typically call an executable with a "start" like this?

start mrauto.exe -b "F:\Acer Swift 1" -t full 1:1,1:2,1:3

kelper · Sep 19, 2023

Macrium have just told me that mrauto.exe won't run in the PE or RE recovery environments.

I've never heard of the start command. But I'll give it a go!

OAT · Sep 19, 2023

kelper said:
I've never heard of the start command. But I'll give it a go!

start is useful in a batch file with multiple commands to execute.
The use of 'start /w' waits for one command to finish before moving on.
If Macrium told you it will not run, then that won't help you.

kelper · Sep 19, 2023

I tried using MR to convert the backup xml file to a MS-DOS batch file but it just looped, repeatedly verifying the C: drive. Never mind, I'll just do my backups manually as the USB HDD is not normally connected to my laptop.

hsehestedt · Sep 19, 2023

kelper said:
Macrium have just told me that mrauto.exe won't run in the PE or RE recovery environments.

Ahh! That's good info. You would think that this would be one of the places most likely to benefit from the use of the command line. Hopefully they refine that capability in version 9

.

kelper · Sep 19, 2023

I only tried this because a backup from Macrium's recovery envirinment on my USB HDD is at least 50% faster than running it in Windows or using the MR recovery in my laptop's boot options.

hsehestedt · Sep 19, 2023

kelper said:
I only tried this because a backup from Macrium's recovery envirinment on my USB HDD is at least 50% faster than running it in Windows or using the MR recovery in my laptop's boot options.

You are doing precisely what I wish more people would do - experimenting with and testing backup and recovery methods. I think that far too many people never plan ahead and the only time they consider recovery options is AFTER they have had a potential data loss event.

BrianInEngland · Sep 19, 2023

hsehestedt said:
You are doing precisely what I wish more people would do - experimenting with and testing backup and recovery methods. I think that far too many people never plan ahead and the only time they consider recovery options is AFTER they have had a potential data loss event.

I always check that the Macrium recovery drive will boot whenever they've released an update.

hsehestedt · Sep 19, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
I always check that the Macrium recovery drive will boot whenever they've released an update.

That's a start and is better than nothing

.

I know of a major bank that lost millions of dollars because they had a backup plan for which they did not test recovery procedures. Turns out that they were unable to restore a backup when the need arose. Ooops!

kelper · Sep 19, 2023

Presumably, if you have a fast computer and a large disk, you could test your ability to restore a backup into a virtual disk? Virtualisation is too slow on my computers because they have only 4GB of ram and limited disk storage. People like me can only trust that their backups will work unless they are happy to completely reinstall if the restore fails.

hsehestedt · Sep 19, 2023

kelper said:
Presumably, if you have a fast computer and a large disk, you could test your ability to restore a backup into a virtual disk? Virtualisation is too slow on my computers because they have only 4GB of ram and limited disk storage. People like me can only trust that their backups will work unless they are happy to completely reinstall if the restore fails.

Understood. Sometimes to difficult to find the resources to test restores. But I consider it a necessary part of the cost of a computer

.

Use a dedicated 4TB drive that I use for nothing but misc. stuff like testing a restore by restoring to that drive, then sticking it in my machine and verifying that I can boot from it.

Bree · Sep 19, 2023

kelper said:
Presumably, if you have a fast computer and a large disk, you could test your ability to restore a backup into a virtual disk? Virtualisation is too slow on my computers because they have only 4GB of ram and limited disk storage. People like me can only trust that their backups will work unless they are happy to completely reinstall if the restore fails.

You don't actually need virtualisation or have to create and run a VM in order to test restoring to a virtual disk. Though you can do it that way, as I have described here:

Testing Macrium Reflect restore using VirtualBox virtual machine

When making your first Macrium Reflect image of your PC the final test that the image is full and complete would be to boot from the Reflect rescue media and perform a full restore. This is not something you'd want to risk trying just as a test, so many do not do a restore until circumstances...

www.elevenforum.com

The bare minimum you need is Diskpart to create and mount a .vhdx virtual disk that you could test restoring to. The commands to create and mount a 128GB disk are:

create vdisk file=C:\temp\test.vhdx maximum=128000 type=expandable
select vdisk file=C:\temp\test.vhdx
attach vdisk

You can use DISKPART from a command prompt, so you could use it from within Windows, as I have done below, or from a command prompt when booted from your WinRE or WinPE Reflect recovery environment. You could create the .vhdx anywhere, on an external usb drive with plenty of free space would work well.

Once mounted Reflect could restore to the 'Msft virtual disk' just like any other drive.

kelper · Sep 20, 2023

I must give that a go but with only 4GB of RAM....

Solved Macrium Reflect - using mrauto.exe in a batch file

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