Solved Macrium Rescue - How To

john1955 · May 2, 2023

I'm about to pull the trigger on updating to Windows 11 so I did a full backup of my disk using Macrium. Seemed pretty easy so I then made the rescue media on a thumb drive and booted into that and pocked around. I'm not familiar with the terminology so I'm wondering . . . if I decide I need to restore Windows 10 do I select the "redeploy to new hardware" even though it's not new hardware? It seems better than the other choices. Seem silly but I guess it's better to ask now than after the wheels fall off.

uniqfox · May 2, 2023

hey john it'll let you deploy your image to any device you insert the thumb into such as a new machine for instance or an old one. Yet if you wanted to revert to your win 10 image you'd just do it via Macrium itself the rescue environment is only if you're having issues booting into an OS (browse for your saved thumbnail full backup job via Macrium).

Bree · May 2, 2023

john1955 said:
if I decide I need to restore Windows 10 do I select the "redeploy to new hardware" even though it's not new hardware? It seems better than the other choices. Seem silly but I guess it's better to ask now than after the wheels fall off.

No, just select your system image and restore it to the PC's drive.

ReDeploy is specifically for restoring an image to a PC with completely different hardware. You would be restoring to the same PC so it's unnecessary.

Anyway, your screenshot shows you have Reflect v8.0.7279 which is the latest version of Reflect Free. ReDeploy is a premium feature that's not available in the free version.

In fact, I have never found a need to use ReDeploy. I have successfully restored an image from an Intel based PC to an AMD based one, Windows itself is very good at sorting out any new drivers it requires.

Ghot · May 2, 2023

@john1955

See the 3rd picture down...

Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper and Hasleo Backup Suite - GUIDES

How to use backup software... 1. When everything is working perfectly... make a full Windows backup. 2. Then, if something breaks... restore from the latest backup. 3. Then... try "whatever you were doing" a different way. If it still breaks Windows, then... go to step #2. 4. Repeat...

www.elevenforum.com

How ever you get the list of images (on the right side)... just right click the image and choose: Restore.
You can "try" all the steps.... when you do step #5, the Restore begins.

By default Macrium bootable is set to use "Rapid Delta Restore". That will only restore anything that's changed since you made the backup. If you UN-check Rapid Delta Restore... Macrium bootable will restore the "whole" backup image.

Personally, I like to restore the "whole" backup image, not just the changes.

john1955 · May 2, 2023

Bree said:
No, just select your system image and restore it to the PC's drive.

ReDeploy is specifically for restoring an image to a PC with completely different hardware. You would be restoring to the same PC so it's unnecessary.

Anyway, your screenshot shows you have Reflect v8.0.7279 which is the latest version of Reflect Free. ReDeploy is a premium feature that's not available in the free version.

In fact, I have never found a need to use ReDeploy. I have successfully restored an image from an Intel based PC to an AMD based one, Windows itself is very good at sorting out any new drivers it requires.

There no image file to select like there is with Acronis. It did the backup to 6 files so can I pick any one of them? Seems strange and confusing but I read a little bit about WHY they did it this way. And the show up as 6 files in the rescue environment as well

john1955 · May 2, 2023

Ghot said:
@john1955

See the 3rd picture down...

Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper and Hasleo Backup Suite - GUIDES

How to use backup software... 1. When everything is working perfectly... make a full Windows backup. 2. Then, if something breaks... restore from the latest backup. 3. Then... try "whatever you were doing" a different way. If it still breaks Windows, then... go to step #2. 4. Repeat...

www.elevenforum.com

How ever you get the list of images (on the right side)... just right click the image and choose: Restore.

OK, RIGHT CLICK. Got it. Not use to having that kind of mouse support in a rescue (PE) environment. They've come a long way

Ghot · May 2, 2023

john1955 said:
OK, RIGHT CLICK. Got it. Not use to having that kind of mouse support in a rescue (PE) environment. They've come a long way

Yeah, they have.
Bookmark that guide... it has all the "basic" information, links to the User Manual and few other goodies.

Bree · May 2, 2023

john1955 said:
There no image file to select like there is with Acronis. It did the backup to 6 files so can I pick any one of them? Seems strange and confusing but I read a little bit about WHY they did it this way. And the show up as 6 files in the rescue environment as well

You have saved the image to a thumb drive that's formatted as Fat32. There's a 4GB maximum file size in Fat32 so the image has been automatically split into 4GB sections, numbered ...00-00 up to ...00-06. Together they make up one complete image.

Yes, select any one of them to restore and the whole image will be restored.

Ghot · May 2, 2023

@john1955

If you intend to keep using that 500GB USB stick/drive to save your backups to... then you should format it as NTFS.
Then your backups will save as "one" file instead of six.

john1955 · May 2, 2023

Ghot said:
@john1955

If you intend to keep using that 500GB USB stick to save your backups to... then you should format it as NTFS.

I was wondering if that's was the reason for it.
I will reformat that drive and do another backup.

Ghot · May 2, 2023

john1955 said:
I was wondering if that's was the reason for it.
I will reformat that drive and do another backup.

@Bree is 100% correct... FAT32 format has a 4GB file size limit.

john1955 · May 2, 2023

All I can say is . . . THANKS . . . I love this forum.

Bree · May 2, 2023

The two numbers at the end of the image file name (eg, 00-00) seem a little confusing at first, but they have a defined meaning. They are fully explained here:

Macrium said:
The end of the image file contains a number pair 'xx-yy.mrimg'

'xx' is the increment number.
00 - Full image
01 - first incremental/differential
02 - Second incremental/differential

'yy' is the file number and is always sequential. 00, 01, 02, 03... . This will be different from the increment number only if files have been split. This can happen if files larger than 4GB are saved to a FAT32 file system or you are saving an image to multiple DVDs.

How backup sets are created and maintained - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

john1955 · May 2, 2023

So this has been bugging me for weeks . . . Why did Windows 10 install (from scratch to a new drive) create these two extra partitions that show that nothing is in them. I want to delete them . . . It did the same thing on this computer with a windows 10 install but this computer has 4 partitions on the windows 10 disk but I installed it twice on that drive.

Stigg · May 2, 2023

I've still got a heap of full and differential Windows 10 backups that I moved into a separate Windows 10 sub-folder prior to me upgrading my only computer to Windows 11. The other computers are still on Windows 10.

As others have said, all you have to do to revert back to Windows 10 is to restore a Windows 10 image.

Bree · May 2, 2023

john1955 said:
Why did Windows 10 install (from scratch to a new drive) create these two extra partitions that show that nothing is in them. I want to delete them . . .

They are not empty. They show in Explorer as having nothing in them because your account does not have permission to see the contents of these partitions.

The Recovery partition is the WinRE recovery environment that you can boot to in Advanced Startup.

Boot to Advanced Startup (WinRE) in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to boot to the advanced startup (WinRE) in Windows 11. The Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a companion operating system installed alongside Windows 11, typically in a separate partition, that can help with troubleshooting, recovery, or booting from...

www.elevenforum.com

The EFI partition is essential, it is the boot partition for a UEFI system. Delete it and you PC won't boot up.

If you look at the same disk in Macrium Reflect you will see that the recovery partition in particular is almost full.

The keen eyed will spot that Reflect shows an additional 16MB unformatted partition that doesn't show in Disk Management. This is the Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR) that is present on a GPT formatted drive. This will never be shown in Disk Management.

Microsoft Reserved Partition - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

john1955 · May 2, 2023

What (if anything)

Bree said:
They are not empty. They show in Explorer as having nothing in them because your account does not have permission to see the contents of these partitions.

The Recovery partition is the WinRE recovery environment that you can boot to in Advanced Startup.

Boot to Advanced Startup (WinRE) in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to boot to the advanced startup (WinRE) in Windows 11. The Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a companion operating system installed alongside Windows 11, typically in a separate partition, that can help with troubleshooting, recovery, or booting from...

www.elevenforum.com

The EFI partition is essential, it is the boot partition for a UEFI system. Delete it and you PC won't boot up.

If you look at the same partitions in Macrium Reflect you will see that the recovery partition in particular is almost full.

View attachment 59260

The keen eyed will spot that Reflect shows an additional 16MB unformatted partition that doesn't show in Disk Management. This is the Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR) that is present on a GPT formatted drive. This will never be shown in Disk Management.

Microsoft Reserved Partition - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I could browse one of them in the Macrium Reflect backup but one of them did not have a file system so I could not read it.

Ghot · May 2, 2023

john1955 said:
So this has been bugging me for weeks . . . Why did Windows 10 install (from scratch to a new drive) create these two extra partitions that show that nothing is in them. I want to delete them . . . It did the same thing on this computer with a windows 10 install but this computer has 4 partitions on the windows 10 disk but I installed it twice on that drive.

View attachment 59259

Windows needs the EFI partition. Without the EFI partition, Windows won't boot.
The Recovery partition isn't really needed if you use backup software.

There is stuff on those extra partitions. You can see the space it takes with a free program Minitools Partition Wizard...

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

As an all-in-one free partition manager and disk manager software, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free helps manage disk space safely on Windows 11/10/8/7.

www.partitionwizard.com

I removed the Recovery partition and just kept C: and the EFI partition...

D: and E: are just partitions I made. They have nothing to do with Windows.

john1955 · May 2, 2023

Ghot said:
Windows needs the EFI partition. The Recovery partition isn't really needed if you use backup software.
Without the EFI partition, Windows won't boot.

There is stuff on those extra partitions. You can see it with a free program Minitools Partition Wizard...

Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper and Hasleo Backup Suite - GUIDES

How to use backup software... 1. When everything is working perfectly... make a full Windows backup. 2. Then, if something breaks... restore from the latest backup. 3. Then... try "whatever you were doing" a different way. If it still breaks Windows, then... go to step #2. 4. Repeat...

www.elevenforum.com

I removed the Recovery partition and just kept C: and the EFI partition...

View attachment 59261

D: and E: are just partitions I made. They have nothing to do with Windows.

I've heard of that Mini Tool for a long time so I guess I'll get it.

Ghot · May 2, 2023

john1955 said:
I've heard of that Mini Tool for a long time so I guess I'll get it.

It comes in handy sometimes. I fixed the link in post #18. Now it's the link for Minitools.

Solved Macrium Rescue - How To

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