Q. about Macrium Reflect / how to create a 'rescue CD' for XP Pro

Hi,

I'm slowly trying to drag my computer knowledge up to a decent level, but am still somewhat hard of thinking, so please excuse me.

The intro (though this bit is not the problem now) ... I bought a Sony laptop at Christmas, with Vista, which the family use for surfing, homework. It came without a Vista CD but, with some good geek help on another thread, I now understand better how I may be able to recover from problems, and was introduced to a free piece of software called Macrium Reflect, which I will be getting familiar with for creating an image and regular data backups (which I'll put onto a NAS drive).

Now to the 'problem'. I also have an ex-company laptop, which I use. It runs XP Pro and was rebuilt for me by one of the IT techies, using the corporate Windows software and licence key. Which means I have no XP CD. Again I'll use Macrium to create an image etc, and I was hoping that I would be able to use the (quote) "BartPE and Linux based recovery options" to create a "rescue disc" (which I interpret as a disc set which I can 'reinstall' from if something horrible happens?). Unfortunately, both seem to require an XP CD if I'm reading correctly?

So, I am wondering what my (free of charge!) options are for creating 'something' on CD (not DVD) that will at least get an operating system back if something fairly catastrophic happens. I'm thinking that if I can do that, I can either reload Macrium & reinstall a recent image or just reload the software I use (I don't use a lot of different stuff, although I have spent a few hours sorting out things in line with Chaslang's malware guide).

By the way, I'm still trying to get my head round it, so please untangle me if I'm making no sense. Many thanks.

 

I would be 99.99% certain you don't need an XP CD to create the rescue disk - not the Linux one anyway. Wouldn't know about BartPE.

I remember taking a look at Macrium a while back, but for reasons I can't now recall decided to stay with Acronis, even though it costs. Acronis also uses a Linux rescue CD, and you don't need a Windows disk to create it.

As Macrium is free you don't have a lot to lose by giving it a whirl do you?

 

Just to clarify how these imaging programs work, when you are in trouble you can boot to the rescue CD, which restores an image (or selected files) that you have previously stored on a drive or partition, to another drive or partition. Providing you have a stored image you can even restore it to a new or different hard drive. Everything, OS, apps and data, is restored to the state it was in when the image was taken.

 

Hi Earthling, I rechecked the instructions for Linux rescue and it says nothing about an XP disc (BartPE does). So, I think I'll have a go at creating an image, then a rescue disc, and then see what happens when I boot from it. Luckily the Macrium site has some step by step instructions, which I'll need!

Many thanks.

 

Hi sa, I thought I'd take another look at Macrium, the free version, to see how well it's doing currently. On my setup it suffers from the most common problem afflicting imaging programs with Linux based rescue CDs - when booted to the rescue CD it can't see all of my drives, especially my USB external, but it couldn't see my NAS either.

This is pretty fundamental. A rescue system has to be able to see both the drive containing the backup and the drive to which it is to be restored. I had this same problem with Acronis v11 until they issued a later build having the necessary drivers included.

I hope you have better luck. If not, you may need to investigate the BartPE alternative, though I have never used BartPE so wouldn't be able to assist.

 

Oh dear, that's disappointing.
Still, I'll have a go and see what happens.
The Macrium site seems to have similar comments on it, and Macrium seem to use this as a way of selling the purchase version, which has a different rescue/recovery option.

The first thing I need to do is clear out my NAS drive (see yet another thread!)
Then I can move stuff down onto it from my laptop, so all I need to image is a pretty basic software setup without much data.

Thanks again.