Fishface recommends Macrium Reflect for making backup copies of Windows

"Fishface" wrote:

John Doe wrote:

Have you used it?

Yes! I got my extended family and friends using it, and I made
my employer buy it.

Does it automatically hide the copy so that any operational
partitions on the target drive remain the same letter?

Uh, what? It creates a file, not a hidden partition.

Okay, that is good. Managing partitions is not really necessary
since there should be no need to tell the program where the copy
is supposed to go back to. Apparently it also makes an exact copy
of the boot sector, something I have been suspicious of. Over the
years, the boot sector and/or the BOOT.INI file have caused
problems here, and I believe they should simply be copies that go
with the copied Windows installation and therefore not cause
problems. The typical disk manager might not be targeted well
enough towards the specific process of making backup copies of
Windows. Hopefully the thing will work well at least through
Windows 7.

Out of curiosity... Is there some sort of command that Microsoft
has blessed us with that helps to make such a copy? I seem to have
heard something about that in the recent past. I am impressed that
Macrium Reflect does not need to jump out of windows before making
the copy.

The file can be on another drive, or a network drive, or a DVD
set, or, cough, a CD set. I guess you could have a hidden
partition. TweakUI would hide a drive letter, as I recall.

Does it make a recovery boot CD?

Yes. You can make a bootable pen drive, too.

Does it work with SSD drives?

I don't see why not.

Seems to work so far. There was some space left over on my SSD
drive while working the program (but that extra space disappeared
by reboot time).

Looks good. A little funky looking, but good.

John Doe wrote:
Out of curiosity... Is there some sort of command that Microsoft
has blessed us with that helps to make such a copy? I seem to have
heard something about that in the recent past. I am impressed that
Macrium Reflect does not need to jump out of windows before making
the copy.

I think it's the Volume Shadow Copy service that makes this possible.
http://search.microsoft.com/results....w+copy+service

Well, I guess a link would have been thoughtful...

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

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"Fishface" wrote:

I think it's the Volume Shadow Copy service that makes this possible.
http://search.microsoft.com/results....w+copy+service

Apparently it allows browsing and copying files from the image,
that is useful and might make Acronis Disk Director obsolete here.
The only restores I have done are from the backup CD, they went
perfectly, but I have not tried doing a restore by right clicking
on the backup file. Even if using the CD were necessary, it would
be no big deal because restores are done infrequently.

This looks like a good opportunity for anyone who wanted to do the
Windows backup stuff like I do, but prefer fewer complications and
less risk. I will post a note if anything goes wrong here.

Currently, I use a small primary hard drive and a larger secondary
hard drive. One major question I have is whether it works reliably
using a single hard drive with two partitions, one for Windows and
one for the copies (and whatever other data). Having two hard
drives is a good idea but of course many people do not.

John Doe wrote:
Currently, I use a small primary hard drive and a larger secondary
hard drive. One major question I have is whether it works reliably
using a single hard drive with two partitions, one for Windows and
one for the copies (and whatever other data).

Yes, except for the fact that if you lose that hard drive, you lose the original and the backup.

Having two hard drives is a good idea but of course many people do not.

You can always add an external.

John Doe wrote:

Apparently it allows browsing and copying files from the image,
that is useful and might make Acronis Disk Director obsolete here.

The free edition seems to be limited to browsing one image and it
requires a reboot to reset. It won't "Detach" the image. At least, that
is how it behaves in the 64-bit version.

The only restores I have done are from the backup CD, they went
perfectly, but I have not tried doing a restore by right clicking
on the backup file.

I can't imagine that you could restore your system drive from within
Windows-- but I never tried that.

John Doe wrote:

Currently, I use a small primary hard drive and a larger secondary
hard drive. One major question I have is whether it works reliably
using a single hard drive with two partitions, one for Windows and
one for the copies (and whatever other data). Having two hard
drives is a good idea but of course many people do not.

I have done that, but since my Raptor got the click of death, I really
don't trust that method. I made a bootable Linux pen drive with
Parted Magic, like this (but I don't think this was my original source):

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-par...ation-windows/

....to create another partition where once there was but one. I did that
on three computers, I think...

"Fishface" wrote:

John Doe wrote:

Apparently it allows browsing and copying files from the image,
that is useful and might make Acronis Disk Director obsolete
here.

The free edition seems to be limited to browsing one image and
it requires a reboot to reset. It won't "Detach" the image. At
least, that is how it behaves in the 64-bit version.

Right... Windows must be restarted in order to remove the drive
letter that is produced when a backup copy is browsed. That is
noteworthy IMO, but probably not a problem here.

The only restores I have done are from the backup CD, they went
perfectly, but I have not tried doing a restore by right
clicking on the backup file.

I can't imagine that you could restore your system drive from
within Windows-- but I never tried that.

The way my (problematic) disk managers have done it is to restart
and use some operating environment, before getting back to the
desktop, that is outside of Windows proper.