Macrium Reflect Free 7 Rescue Usb W/o Any Os

So I've created a usb twice now using the 7 free download and can't for the life of me understand why you would want something that cannot boot a system w/o an OS. Isn't that what the PE part of the install on your usb is for?

Trying to reimage on one HDD from another HDD w/has the image. I would think this is similar enough to a system with a fresh HDD that has no OS (like when the old one died). But no, any of the options I've used from Other Tasks>'create rescue media' in the & free version does not boot when usb is the 1st Bios option.

Really disappointed. I admit I don't fully understand the diff's between the various WIM environments but I would think more than one would boot a system that has no OS to rescue. Macrium site says that rescue media install a fully working MR application. Creating rescue media is only a couple of buttons.

What could be going wrong? System (older phenom, 4GB of DDR3 on a GA-MA790XT-UD4P) boots to other thumbdrives so something hasn't installed correctly AFAICT.


Thanks in advance for any input,

Mac

 

The Reflect rescue media uses WinPE which AFAIK requires Windows to be running and the ADK to be available during rescue media creation. I don't think it is possible to create a PE version of the rescue media on a computer with no OS but there is, or used to be a Reflect version that uses Linux as a PE instead. Have another look at the Macrium download options - if the Linux version is there that may be your answer. Check THIS out.

 

Yeah I created the rescue media on a laptop (W8.1) and I think that may be the problem. The system I want to reimage was using 7. Luckily I'm only wanting to test MR. Not sure about the ADK though. I don't recall reading anything about that in the steps to create the rescue media. Might be I missed that.

Going to try creating the usb stick again, from the W7 system. If I can just tackle a restore using MR I'll overwrite the data on the one disk and be good.

Hey thanks Earthling. Thumbs up.

 

Well that wasn't it. Created a flashdrive uisng the WAIK for W7 but no luck booting off the same system when the image HDD and an empty HDD are connected. I think MR wants to see the original W7 HDD and set that as the destination but that's not what I want to do. No luck w/the manual so far.

I'll try the Linux usb and see it I can 'reimage'.

 

See the talk here. Aomei can be made on a different pc and be used to boot into pe enviroment on a disabled pc. May help you.


https://forums.majorgeeks.com/threads/aomei-pe-builder.299488/#post-1949556

 

Some more info here, a small download compared to some and no waik needed. Hope it helps!

https://www.aomeitech.com/pe-builder.html

 

Puzzling. I've created 3 or 4 MR rescue media over the years and never had an issue using them. Mostly I can use them on any of the computers here and they boot. Humour me - try a CD

 

I would create a bootable USB of Win10 using Windows Media Creation Tool, boot to it and select repair.
Your stored image of the media you wish to utilize should be on a connected drive.
Select 'Restore from image' under advanced settings and navigate to the file through the prompts.
Even though the image is Win7, it wont matter!

 

I boot the MR rescue media - in this case just an ISO file - with EasyBCD rather than use a flash drive or CD. You do need a bootable physical medium too, just in case, but might be worth a try in your case. If nothing else it saves time when testing.

 

Well a) found that Linux PE was dropped after ver 5, b) the thumbdrive works since I created the W10 update media. Unfortunately Replicators suggestion is a fail. Repair option's Advanced>System Image Recovery could not find any image & doesn't allow me to browse for the MR image. Probably Advanced button> search on network wouldn't find it either, if that functioned.

Not saying this will never work, just in my case. Only tried it once. I'll skip Aomei and burn 2 CDs ( one for 3.1 PE/W7 & one for W10 etc.) since I believe it will want a 32b for the 7 Home and I'll use 64 for W10 going forward. Hope I can reimage (correct term?) with this to then trust it'll work w/what's going to be my main OS, W10.

Will be really disappointed if that doesn't find my image. I read that MR does not want/allow the image saved on the 'same drive' so this should work.

Appreciate the interest everyone. I've been a multi HDD guy for infallibility but might use Linux Mint in the built in VM till Ryzen 3 arrive. Then, finally revamp entirely : )

Post back after the CDs...


Thanks,

Mac

 

Strange, however I have only imaged 10 from a large capacity external storage drive where I store all images.

After clicking repair (bottom left) > Troubleshoot > System Image Revovery > Windows 10 > Select a System Image and point the recovery install at it.

 

Replicator's suggestion won't work because it's looking for a system image created by Windows whereas yours was created by Reflect.

I'll put the thinking cap back on and hopefully be back later - bit busy right now.

 

@Mac20nine - check your Conversations

 

Well I burned the MR 7 free rescue CD for W7, it boots fine but it does not allow me to 'reimage' to a HDD other than the one the image is on. I can't find any option anywhere to choose another HDD (for target).

I read Macrium does not want you to keep the image on your C: drive (obviously) since BU is for recovering from the possibility of that drive dying. Damn shame b/c the HDD I want to reimage on isn't big enough to hold both the image and "reflate" on, AFAICT.

What I've learned, for other's unfamiliar w/MR, is that you are forced to save your images to another drive that will be the drive you must 'reimage' on. Unless you really can save your image(s) to your C:. I gotta think I could copy the image to the drive I want, as long as it's large enough for both the image and 'reimaging' the OS/partition.

Guess I'm forced to put the W7 on the HDD I was going to use just for holding images. It's all good, since this HDD also has good SMART stats. I would've been monitoring SMART on the other HDD as well, so no big deal.

But apparently when I want to use any image saved on that "Images" drive MR will want to 'reimage' to that same drive, and not a drive that I have a problem with. Wonder if this was always the case or if they've pushing you to get the paid version, which has 'Redeploy' to "different hardware".

So after I prove to myself I can revert using an Image, I'll finish this system re-build and tweek W10. Odd that MR rescue media was a no go on my thumbdrives.

Thanks for the help geeks.

 

I'm scratching my head as to what may be stopping you from restoring your image and guessing it's that the target disk does not have a suitable partition to which to restore the image. If that's the case you will need either to set up a new disk or repartition the existing one so as to provide sufficient space to receive the image.

 

Not having any trouble restoring my image. Haven't completed it yet. MR does not give me any way of restoring to a drive other than where my image was saved. That is my problem. Strange, when I research/surf I find others can do this. Not sure what version, or if they're using the free ver. Not a huge problem but would've made my testing easier.

For what it's worth, I find better info from forums than from diving into the documentation/manual sometimes, since manuals often don't spell out some things.

On that note I've found some info re: the usb thumbdrive no boot issue. Pages 16-18 of this thread seems to address it, even though I don't get the 'no OS found' error. https://www.tenforums.com/backup-restore/4570-new-macrium-reflect-updates-18.html
Hopefully I'll figure out what's what so my W10 BU routine is seemless.

 

No boot from usb problem could very well be how you format it. I could swear I used NTFS but not sure, since I switched to W10 install and tried Repair. Hope this helps anyone who stumbles upon this/for future reference.

 

That's what I was trying to say in my previous post. Usually when you do a restore you are restoring to the same drive and partition the image was taken of. However I believe that in your case that would not be possible as that disk is no longer present, so you have to give MR the choice of restoring to a different disk, which is what you have chosen to do. That may or may not prove satisfactory and if not you may need to add a new disk to your system and restore your image to that, which would then become the system boot disk.

Anyway you are now making progress and hopefully will shortly have your old system back and can think about updating and configuring it.