Macrium Reflect has failed me thrice

In the past, my favorite disk imaging software was Acronis True Image 2011..... then when computers started having SSDs and most of them initialized as GPT disks for faster boot time as it takes less time to initialize a GPT disk during startup vs an MBR disk.

Acronis True Image doesn't support GPT disks by default unless you purchase an add-on which I did, the backups are done just fine, but when you restore a backup on a GPT disks, after the reboot my system would fail to start so I tried the new Acronis True Image 2013 and above but they have become so bloated with useless stuff and a lot of services and processes that run on startup, and even then, they had the same issue, you can backup a GPT disk but come to restore it and the issues start.

That's when I tried Macrium Relect FREE and loved it. I then bought a family license as that would allow me to add the Macrium Reflect to the boot options so if I click on restore image while I am in Windows, Macrium Reflect would reboot the system and start the restoration process, much more convenient than having to boot off the Macrium Reflect Rescure CD everytime I wanted to do a restoration. This was the perfect solution as it allowed me to go back to any point within a minute or two of my previous backups.

The problems started ever since they upgraded from Macrium Reflect v5 to v6; on my Alienware 18 it was fine. But on my new Origin PC Millennium Desktop which has an Intel PCIe 1.2TB SSD, after formatting, installing Windows 7, doing the 200 Windows updates, I then installed Macrium Reflect, then I added it to the boot options as I usually do to enable me to do a restoration without the need for the Macrium Rescue CD, the moment I added the boot options and rebooted, I got this error:



I then contacted their support and they asked me to send logs, so I had to format and waste a full day again doing all the Windows updates and having my system ready, then I sent them the logs they needed. They replied back saying that the reason this is happening is for some strange reason Macrium Reflect is adding the boot files to a drive W: . Drive W: is the drive letter I assigned to my external USB HDD. I have no clue why would Macrium Reflect try to put the boot files there but they were clueless and said this is because I am using a PCIe SSD.......

So I stopped using Macrium Reflect for a while....

Now that I have removed the Intel 750 PCIe SSD and installed Windows 7 on my SanDisk Extreme PRO 256GB SSD, I decided to give it another chance..... the moment I added Macrium Reflect to the boot options and rebooted.......same error.......

I can no longer trust Macrium Reflect nor do I have the time to waste on trying to solve this because once that error happens, nothing can fix it, I have to format and waste a full day!

I then switched to O&O Disk Image 10 Pro and have not had one issue! Beautiful and very easy to use program that works on both my SanDisk Extreme PRO SSD and the Intel 750 PCIe SSD!

Just wanted to share this with you guys if you ever face this issue!

 

Seems like O&O comes to the rescue again.

 

Indeed, third time in a row now! 1) O&O ShutUp 10 2) O&O Defrag Pro FTW 3) O&O DiskImage

I also did try Paragon Backup & Recovery 15 but it installs a system driver which it uses for mounting images which then causes at least 7 errors in event log upon every reboot. My OCD cannot take that so I got a refund and finally decided to try O&O since I use a few of their programs, couldn't go wrong with the so called Microsoft Partner that released a tool to protect users against Microsoft themselves

 

Macrium Reflect 6.1 has finally fixed this issue by adding WinPE 10. Now it works with my NVME SSD

 

I came across this one (O&O) now, is it good at drive imaging?

 

i note there's no discussion here about actually restoring.
??
I haven't noticed a problem with macrium in the most important regard, which is restoring to a drive the image that was created. bit-for-bit, no issues

 

^^^ Yes I have had a similar experience with MR. I've used MR Free Edition a couple of times for restoring from an image - have not tried cloning. My overall experience so far has been favorable.

 

Macrium Reflect is the only cloning/backup software that works with my Acer 10.1" Win8.1 Tablet, I have tried Acronis 2016 but it cannot see my 32GB built in ssd when i boot from the recovery flashdrive, I tried another branded software same problem, but Macrium Reflect works first time, but with Acronis i can clone an 500gb hdd to an 256gb ssd, Acronis just adjust the partiton sizes to make it fit, Macrium Reflect does not seem to be able to do this or can it?

John.

 

It is good indeed. I've used it,

 

I had other problems with Macrium (have 12? licenses on version 5) but I don't use SSDs, so can't talk about this one. The problems started last September when it started really merging version 5 with Windows 8. Now with Win10 supposedly a lot of those issues are fixed, but I don't want to update my other licenses to find out. So I use Macrium offline and on one machine it tanked so badly I had to use version 6 Free (I don't use GPT).

The helpful folks there do try, but frankly the updates are dangerous like Windows Updates. So I also use Clonezilla. Will try, O&O. Thank you!