Solved Macrium Reflect v8.1.8110 – Unable to create rescue media

wiganken · Sep 15, 2024

15th Sept 2024 – I upgraded from MR Free v8.0.7783 to MR v8.1.8110.

Creating rescue media was problem-free in v8.0 but it fails in v8.1?

I am using a USB-C connected external SSD and I tried it unformatted with no partitions and I also tried it formatted NTFS with only the one partition but no difference. Still fails. The same SSD worked fine with v8.0?

Does anyone know what is happening and how I can fix it please?

antspants · Sep 15, 2024

Do you use Microsoft Defender?
Temporarily disable Defender and try create the media again.

Hasleo is also having problems sometimes when creating the WinPE media, disabling Defender seems to fix it.

wiganken · Sep 15, 2024

Thanks. I use Norton 360 and it wasn't a problem with v8.0. I'll try disabling it anyway and get back.
..........................
Disabling N360 didn't work.

antspants · Sep 15, 2024

I’ve only heard of Defender doing this, fingers crossed though

BrianInEngland · Sep 15, 2024

antspants said:
I’ve only heard of Defender doing this, fingers crossed though

I've never had any problems creating rescue media with Macrium and Defender

Fabler2 · Sep 15, 2024

Create a Fat32 partition, say 2GB, at the beginning of the drive and use that.

wiganken · Sep 15, 2024

Fabler2 said:
Create a Fat32 partition, say 2GB, at the beginning of the drive and use that.

That didn't work but I discovered the problem and fixed it. Solution, in case it helps others: -

It seems that Macrium defaults to using Windows RE since that is what it showed on the first launch of 'Create Rescue Media' but I zeroed-in on the phrase "Windows RE is not available, please choose another option" so I clicked on Advanced>Choose Base WIM and then selected Windows PE11 (WADK). After doing this it worked.

IanMosley · Sep 15, 2024

wiganken said:
I zeroed-in on the phrase "Windows RE is not available, please choose another option"

I'm on v 8.1.8110 and I always use 'Windows RE', with no issue creating MR Rescue Media.

wiganken · Sep 15, 2024

IanMosley said:
I'm on v 8.1.8110 and I always use 'Windows RE', with no issue creating MR Rescue Media.

Agree. Don't know why MR showed Windows RE as unavailable but, as you can see on the first two photos I posted, the new version v8.1.8110 couldn't find it. Hopefully Win PE will work okay.
I tested the rescue SSD and the UI loaded up okay but I have not carried out a restore from it yet.

Need I be worried or should the Win PE environment work as reliably as the Win RE environment when it comes to restoring images?

Froggie · Sep 15, 2024

I always use WinPE, no RE. The PE may be missing some specialized hardware drivers, but if you're restoring to internal and don't have your images located at the end of some strange NAS device, you should be good to go.

BrianInEngland · Sep 15, 2024

IanMosley said:
I'm on v 8.1.8110 and I always use 'Windows RE', with no issue creating MR Rescue Media.

I've only ever used WinRE

wiganken · Sep 15, 2024

Froggie said:
but if you're restoring to internal and don't have your images located at the end of some strange NAS device, you should be good to go

Yes, nothing complicated like NAS drives. I will only be restoring from a USB connected SSD straight to my PC so hopefully will be okay.

Ghot · Sep 15, 2024

wiganken said:
so I clicked on Advanced>Choose Base WIM and then selected Windows PE11 (WADK). After doing this it worked.

And... you need to do it that way so it will boot (w/o disabling Secure Boot), since MS enforced the Black Lotus "mitigations".

Windows Security update for Secure Boot - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Just this part of that article... Create New Macrium Reflect Rescue Media

Personally, I like the WinPE method better.
Since I removed my Recovery partition, long ago... I had to start using the WinPE method.

Works fine on version: 8.1.8110 (UEFI), and on the previous versions.

cereberus · Sep 15, 2024

Easiest way is to simply uninstall Macrium Reflect Home and all its components and reinstall.

Make sure you have a copy of your registration code.

Bree · Sep 15, 2024

wiganken said:
Don't know why MR showed Windows RE as unavailable but, as you can see on the first two photos I posted, the new version v8.1.8110 couldn't find it.

It's unavailable because you don't have a WinRE.wim file anywhere on your system.

I prefer the WinRE rescue media because it includes support for WiFi. To be able to build RE media reflect needs to find a copy of WinRE.wim, the Windows Recovery Environment image that should be a part of every Windows install. However, if you have deleted your Recovery partition without first disabling the recovery environment, then you will have lost your only copy of WinRE.wim. Disabling it would have returned WinRE.wim from the recovery partition to c:\Windows\System32\Recovery for safe keeping.

Macrium said:
Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
Files for the Windows Recovery rescue environment are pre-existing and located on the local file system.

The folowing folders, and sub-folders are searched for file WinRE.wim

C:\Windows\System32\Recovery
<ALL VOLUMES>\Recovery

Rescue Media Builder - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

wiganken · Sep 15, 2024

Bree said:
It's unavailable because you don't have a WinRE.wim file anywhere on your system.

It was there before I upgraded the free v8.0 to Paid-for v8.1. I know this because I had to use the restore function about 2-weeks ago. Maybe the v8.1 install procedure removed it? It's not something I would have deleted. I don't need Wi-Fi support so at least I have a workable restore method using WinPE.

Thanks for the pointer though.

Bree · Sep 15, 2024

wiganken said:
Maybe the v8.1 install procedure removed it? It's not something I would have deleted. I don't need Wi-Fi support so at least I have a workable restore method using WinPE.

Yes, WinPE will be fine.

The v8.1 install wouldn't have touched your WinRE.wim, it's a Windows system file.

There is only ever one copy of WinRE.wim, and Windows only has three possible locations for it. If the recovery environment is enabled it will have been put into the \Recovery folder in the Recovery partition. On rare occasions it's not possible for Windows to make a recovery partition, in that case it will be in C:\Recovery. Open Terminal (Admin) and type reagentc /info. This will tell you if the recovery environment is enabled, and if so the partition it is located on.

If the recovery environment is not enabled, then WinRE.wim is stored in C:\Windows\System32\Recovery, ready to be deployed should you choose to enable the recovery environment.

If it is missing from all the known locations, then it is possible to repair this. You can extract fresh copies of WinRE.wim and ReAgent.xml from the install.wim or install.esd in the sources folder of a Windows install USB or ISO. Put them in C:\Windows\System32\Recovery. 7-Zip File Manager can be used to extract them.

winre-wim-extract-with-7-zip-fm-png.35864

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