Fishface recommends Macrium Reflect for making backup copies of Windows
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From: John Doe on 28 Nov 2009 20:41 "Fishface" <fishface(a)invalid.invalid> 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.
From: Fishface on 28 Nov 2009 21:01 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.aspx?q=volume+shadow+copy+service
From: Fishface on 28 Nov 2009 21:08 Well, I guess a link would have been thoughtful... http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
From: John Doe on 14 Dec 2009 04:53 "Fishface" <fishface(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: > I think it's the Volume Shadow Copy service that makes this possible. > http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?q=volume+shadow+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.
From: John Doe on 14 Dec 2009 04:57
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. |