I have a WD External Hard Drive a couple of years old with previous Macrium backups on it using v6.  I have just updated to v7 .  I was never confident that I had successfully managed to create a usable Rescue Media using Macrium though I did manage to run backups for best part of a year. I was forced to give up sorting out the problems that developed with it owing to family illness and bereavement.  I am starting it up again but am nervous of deleting the backups I have and would like to know if I can use this external USB Hard Drive as a Destination for the new Rescue Media I am going to try to set up.  It still has 416 GB of space on it.

I am not at all clear what is meant by a Target Folder.  Do I have to try to set up a FOLDER on the WD Hard Drive and Target that by name ?
Presumably the name Macrium gives to the Image.  I would be grateful for some advice on this.  Sorry to sound dumb.  I can make sense of most of the Macrium v7 User Guide that applies to this - I am only anxious about the destination/target folder.

Fyi you posted this in the V6 section of the forum.

The destination folder is where Reflect places the backup files it creates as a result of performing image or File & Folder backup jobs. You can name it whatever you like. But Rescue Media is an entirely different thing, and you specify a target DEVICE for that, not a target folder (except when creating an ISO file, but that’s not what you need here). Creating and testing your Rescue Media is actually the very first thing you should do, even before creating any backups, because in many cases you’ll need it to perform restores, and backups that you’re not able to restore aren’t especially useful.

In general you do NOT want to use an external hard drive for Rescue Media, and in fact if you’re not careful you can end up having Reflect format that hard drive, wiping its existing contents, in order to turn it into a Rescue Media device. Typically Rescue Media is instead created on either a small USB flash drive or a CD/DVD. I prefer the former because they load more quickly and they’re easier to update, which you should also do periodically as you install Reflect updates. I personally have chosen to dedicate a flash drive solely to Rescue Media purposes so that I only have it connected to my PC when I’m using it or updating it. Since Rescue Media is often crucial in a disaster situation, you don’t want any risk that you might have accidentally overwritten it or that the malware you might be trying to recover from might have destroyed it. Those risks are higher if you have your Rescue Media files on a device that’s usually connected to your PC, like an external hard drive. So I use an 8GB SanDisk Ultra Flair that cost me about $8, although the Rescue Media files require less than 1GB.

Anyhow, after you create your Rescue Media, you then need to verify that your PC successfully boots from it, which also means verifying you know how to have your PC boot from a flash drive or CD/DVD. Typically this is achieved by pressing a particular key during your system’s initial boot that triggers a one-time boot menu where you would tell it to boot from a flash drive or disc this time. If you’ve done it properly, your PC will boot directly into a Reflect application rather than into Windows. From there, make sure it can see both your external hard drive where your backups are AND your internal disk(s) that you would want to restore in a disaster situation. If so, then you’re all set, in which case just remember to update your Rescue Media when you update Reflect. If you read the release notes of Reflect updates, Macrium highlights bug fixes or enhancements that apply to the Rescue Media environment (they’re fairly rare), but if you don’t read those, then just update your Rescue Media maybe every few months to be safe.

I have used several WD USB HDD's for storing Reflect backups going back to version 4.x.  I just use a flash drive for Rescue Media.  I used to use DVD/BD rewritables but it's just faster and easier to use flash drives.


If you're going to use a WD USB HDD for Rescue Media, you'd have to set up your first partition particularly to use it for Rescue Media.  And since you want to keep the existing data on it, you'd have to use some kind of partitioning software to resize the partition on the drive to create a new partition at the start of the disk geometry for use for booting from.  Or just format the entire thing, which would mean you'd lose your images on that drive.  As JP said, it's easy to accidentally overwrite the target partition setup for a WD USB HDD for creating Rescue Media.  (Or any Rescue Media target in general if you're not careful.)  You're better off just using a flash drive.


For instance, I can't use my 10 TB WD My Book because it's set up as GPT.  Reflect won't even let me select the My Book for a Rescue Media wizard target destination for that reason.  Depending on how your drive is set up, you may have to change the entire partition structure to make it selectible.

Well technically you could create a Rescue Media partition at the end of the external disk with a lot less effort, but on top losing the benefit of keeping your Rescue Media physically disconnected, the additional complication is that not all PCs support booting from USB hard drives and SSDs even if they support booting from flash drives. And yes if your external drive uses GPT, then Rescue Media Builder won’t work with it. You can jump through some hoops to make even that setup work as long as your PC boots in UEFI mode, but that’s additional manual effort. If all of this is sounding a bit overwhelming, that’s why in my first post I just left it at “in general you don’t go this route”.

+x

 

Marium - 25 May 2019 12:29 PM

I have a WD External Hard Drive a couple of years old with previous Macrium backups on it using v6.  I have just updated to v7 .  I was never confident that I had successfully managed to create a usable Rescue Media using Macrium though I did manage to run backups for best part of a year. I was forced to give up sorting out the problems that developed with it owing to family illness and bereavement.  I am starting it up again but am nervous of deleting the backups I have and would like to know if I can use this external USB Hard Drive as a Destination for the new Rescue Media I am going to try to set up.  It still has 416 GB of space on it.

I am not at all clear what is meant by a Target Folder.  Do I have to try to set up a FOLDER on the WD Hard Drive and Target that by name ?
Presumably the name Macrium gives to the Image.  I would be grateful for some advice on this.  Sorry to sound dumb.  I can make sense of most of the Macrium v7 User Guide that applies to this - I am only anxious about the destination/target folder.

+x

 

jphughan - 25 May 2019 1:52 PM

Fyi you posted this in the V6 section of the forum.

The destination folder is where Reflect places the backup files it creates as a result of performing image or File & Folder backup jobs. You can name it whatever you like. But Rescue Media is an entirely different thing, and you specify a target DEVICE for that, not a target folder (except when creating an ISO file, but that’s not what you need here). Creating and testing your Rescue Media is actually the very first thing you should do, even before creating any backups, because in many cases you’ll need it to perform restores, and backups that you’re not able to restore aren’t especially useful.

In general you do NOT want to use an external hard drive for Rescue Media, and in fact if you’re not careful you can end up having Reflect format that hard drive, wiping its existing contents, in order to turn it into a Rescue Media device. Typically Rescue Media is instead created on either a small USB flash drive or a CD/DVD. I prefer the former because they load more quickly and they’re easier to update, which you should also do periodically as you install Reflect updates. I personally have chosen to dedicate a flash drive solely to Rescue Media purposes so that I only have it connected to my PC when I’m using it or updating it. Since Rescue Media is often crucial in a disaster situation, you don’t want any risk that you might have accidentally overwritten it or that the malware you might be trying to recover from might have destroyed it. Those risks are higher if you have your Rescue Media files on a device that’s usually connected to your PC, like an external hard drive. So I use an 8GB SanDisk Ultra Flair that cost me about $8, although the Rescue Media files require less than 1GB.

Anyhow, after you create your Rescue Media, you then need to verify that your PC successfully boots from it, which also means verifying you know how to have your PC boot from a flash drive or CD/DVD. Typically this is achieved by pressing a particular key during your system’s initial boot that triggers a one-time boot menu where you would tell it to boot from a flash drive or disc this time. If you’ve done it properly, your PC will boot directly into a Reflect application rather than into Windows. From there, make sure it can see both your external hard drive where your backups are AND your internal disk(s) that you would want to restore in a disaster situation. If so, then you’re all set, in which case just remember to update your Rescue Media when you update Reflect. If you read the release notes of Reflect updates, Macrium highlights bug fixes or enhancements that apply to the Rescue Media environment (they’re fairly rare), but if you don’t read those, then just update your Rescue Media maybe every few months to be safe.

Thankyou very much.  That is very clear.

+x

 

jphughan - 25 May 2019 1:52 PM

Fyi you posted this in the V6 section of the forum.

The destination folder is where Reflect places the backup files it creates as a result of performing image or File & Folder backup jobs. You can name it whatever you like. But Rescue Media is an entirely different thing, and you specify a target DEVICE for that, not a target folder (except when creating an ISO file, but that’s not what you need here). Creating and testing your Rescue Media is actually the very first thing you should do, even before creating any backups, because in many cases you’ll need it to perform restores, and backups that you’re not able to restore aren’t especially useful.

In general you do NOT want to use an external hard drive for Rescue Media, and in fact if you’re not careful you can end up having Reflect format that hard drive, wiping its existing contents, in order to turn it into a Rescue Media device. Typically Rescue Media is instead created on either a small USB flash drive or a CD/DVD. I prefer the former because they load more quickly and they’re easier to update, which you should also do periodically as you install Reflect updates. I personally have chosen to dedicate a flash drive solely to Rescue Media purposes so that I only have it connected to my PC when I’m using it or updating it. Since Rescue Media is often crucial in a disaster situation, you don’t want any risk that you might have accidentally overwritten it or that the malware you might be trying to recover from might have destroyed it. Those risks are higher if you have your Rescue Media files on a device that’s usually connected to your PC, like an external hard drive. So I use an 8GB SanDisk Ultra Flair that cost me about $8, although the Rescue Media files require less than 1GB.

Anyhow, after you create your Rescue Media, you then need to verify that your PC successfully boots from it, which also means verifying you know how to have your PC boot from a flash drive or CD/DVD. Typically this is achieved by pressing a particular key during your system’s initial boot that triggers a one-time boot menu where you would tell it to boot from a flash drive or disc this time. If you’ve done it properly, your PC will boot directly into a Reflect application rather than into Windows. From there, make sure it can see both your external hard drive where your backups are AND your internal disk(s) that you would want to restore in a disaster situation. If so, then you’re all set, in which case just remember to update your Rescue Media when you update Reflect. If you read the release notes of Reflect updates, Macrium highlights bug fixes or enhancements that apply to the Rescue Media environment (they’re fairly rare), but if you don’t read those, then just update your Rescue Media maybe every few months to be safe.

Thankyou very much for prompt reply.  I feel eqipped now to have another go !

Keep trying to yhank both of you but made a muff of it !! 

+x

 

jphughan - 25 May 2019 4:05 PM

Well technically you could create a Rescue Media partition at the end of the external disk with a lot less effort, but on top losing the benefit of keeping your Rescue Media physically disconnected, the additional complication is that not all PCs support booting from USB hard drives and SSDs even if they support booting from flash drives. And yes if your external drive uses GPT, then Rescue Media Builder won’t work with it. You can jump through some hoops to make even that setup work as long as your PC boots in UEFI mode, but that’s additional manual effort. If all of this is sounding a bit overwhelming, that’s why in my first post I just left it at “in general you don’t go this route”.

Oh, I thought to use a bootable HDD with Reflect Rescue Media, it had to be bootable on the first partition in the geometry.  Yeah, if it works with a partition at the end of the disk geometry, you can just resize the partition at the end and create a new one that way.

It seems that also depends on the PC. For example, I found that some Dell laptops I tested with will boot from Partition 2 of an MBR flash drive but will only boot from Partition 1 when that same flash drive is set up as GPT. No idea why.