Macrium ReflectComments on:

By: TK

TK — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:24:06 +0000

Just recently I wanted to upgrade my laptop HD from 60G to 250G and keep the vista recovery partition and all the data on the C: drive as is… I spent quite a bit of time searching for and trying various drive cloning utilities and nothing I found would preserve the file systems properly.

As a last resort I decided to give this giveaway a try, it had been installed when this was on offer but I had no reason to actually use it until now. I stored the intermediary image files of the partitions on the drive onto a spare 1TB USB drive and then restored them to the new 250G drive running in a USB enclosure, set it to restore the MBR from that stored in the image file and once all was complete, swapped over the drives, and much to my suprise Vista booted, intially to the screen asking if I want to boot in safe mode becuase windows was not shut down properly or startup normally, I chose the latter and when it logged in it installed drive specific drivers for the new HD and volume and from then onwards it’s just worked! Very painless, no need to repair the boot process. Only thing that would have improved the process would be to have a whole drive clone, that would avoid producing the backup image files and just get on with the clone operation.

By: mel2000

mel2000 — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:25:16 +0000

To all those who missed the giveaway I highly recommend installing the free version. Unlike what some here have stated, the free version does do individual file and folder restores, which comes in handy if you accidentally delete a file or folder. What it doesn’t do is restore individual partitions. You must restore the entire drive. I also found that Macrium Reflect did not install as many unnecessary services and background processes as Acronis did. I easily disabled the lone unnecessary Macrium Scheduler service. For the vast majority of home users the free version is all they’ll need.

By: adpk

adpk — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:35:36 +0000

Adding this comment 10 days after downloading the software from this site but would like to share result: I am a newbie at using image backup though have done some reading of relevant forums in the past which I found hard to understand. I downloaded Macrium Reflect, installed a second hard drive, ran Macrium to create a Linux rescue disc and then ran image backup and have now set up for incremental backups. The online tutorials made the task simplicity itself and the image backup of 40GB took just 15 minutes. I strongly recommend this software especially if, like me, you are new to creating backups. Much thanks to Paramount Software and the GAOTD team.

By: Rob Dunn

Rob Dunn — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:14:33 +0000

@167 and everyone that missed the giveaway:

You can use the freeware version of Reflect, which itself is much better than DriveImageXML. You just won’t get some of the advanced features such as incremental/differential backups, support for RAID, etc. Otherwise, it works incredibly well.

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

By: Paali

Paali — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:48:34 +0000

If you missed this search for DriveImage XML, it’s a freeware that does can make a complete image of your entire Hard Drive.

By: IwasNamed

IwasNamed — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:15:27 +0000

Well, I’m bummed I missed it too. I’ve not been able to copy my full system with any of the backup software I have. I kinda miss the old “Ditto Tape” days..it seems it was a lot easier to do a “Full” backup with incrementals for a period of time, until it wastime to do the “full” again. Presumably if there was a hard disk problem, after reformatting or replacement, the whole system, operating and all data, could be just reeled back on. (Luckily I never had to do that.) Naively, probably, that’s what I am looking for now……

By: elisav

elisav — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:51:08 +0000

Hey there I’ve installed the software and activate it without any problem however next day when I’ve tried to use it next day it didn’t work showed me like I need license keys or it gave me a trial option.What did I do wrong???Anybody…………..

By: Universal Cynic

Universal Cynic — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:25:57 +0000

@157
What’s wrong with having to pay for an upgrade? If you don’t need the features, you don’t have to pay. All I needed was a way to backup the restore partition of my notebook from DOS. Why would I need an incremental backup?
The thing is, if you need something extra in the upgrade, pay for it. If you don’t need it, then you don’t have too. Way better than some software that requires you to pay for all features even though you need only one distinct feature – like Nero.
We need to do research to make comments like these? Wow. What happened to common sense?

By: Frank C. Pelletier

Frank C. Pelletier — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:30:23 +0000

Nice. I missed the spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime give away by a small margin. I think I’ll go buy Ghost v14 by Symantec, all things now being equal. I have no interest in trying out a crippled free version–neither do I have any interest in dirtying my registry with a trial version for 30 days (nothing uninstalls cleanly…ever). They might have just gained a customer…oh well…too bad…good luck.

By: joeschmoe

joeschmoe — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:25:10 +0000

Great program – completed an image backup, nice Rescue CD that has a great interface with Linux boot. Haven’t tried the PE version of the Rescue CD but it’s an option too. My only concern is it wanted to start a Server with Internet access when I started it. I blocked the Server from starting with my Firewall and the program still worked fine.