Solved re-installed macrium

[billybellfoot]

ok but if mcrium does not copy restore point thw winpe image will not contain them or will it?
also i have an eisa hidden partition that i did back up with desktop macrium but not winpe macrium will i loose that
as i didnt want to loose that. or would i need to back that up using winpe 1st?

also
if the restore points is causing the small image size is that a problem as if the macrium image does not copy the restore points anyway why would the size of them affect the image in terms of it being a good or bad image ?

thanks

 

[billybellfoot]

hi

i just read this post elsewhere does it shed any light

I imaged the same drive twice, first while Windows was running, the second time from the Macrium Reflect Recovery Environment.

The second image, created immediately after the first, was 15GB larger. Both created with compression set to high.

How could this happen?

Hi,

Thanks for posting.

When creating an image under normal Windows, the VSS system will exclude Windows System Restore points which can be up to 10% of the toal disk size.

As VSS is not used to create an image under WinPE, this exclusion does not occur when creating an image, hence the increase in image size.

 

[whs]

There is one remote possibility to which I do not have the answer:

It is possible that the WinPE version images the restore points and the Vista version does not. I will have to look into that. It is not likely, but possible.

But even then there is a problem with the 7GB image. Assuming your Vista is 18GB (without restore points), then the image should be appr. 11GB - unlees you have a large page and hiberfile.

Question: How much RAM do you have ??

Update: your previous post is interesting and might explain some.

 

[billybellfoot]

There is one remote possibility to which I do not have the answer:

It is possible that the WinPE version images the restore points and the Vista version does not. I will have to look into that. It is not likely, but possible.

But even then there is a problem with the 7GB image. Assuming your Vista is 18GB (without restore points), then the image should be appr. 11GB - unlees you have a large page and hiberfile.

Question: How much RAM do you have ??

how do i determine my page and hib files sizes?

as for RAM 2gb

thanks

Update: your previous post is interesting and might explain some

yes i thought it looked like it may relate to my situation???

 

[whs]

1. Your hiberfile is the size of your RAM (2GB in your case) and the pagefile is usually 150% of RAM. If I deduct those 5GB from the 18GB of the total system size, then the 7GB image makes more sense - 60% of 13 is 7.8. Those files are not being imaged.

2. Yeah, I think you found something and I learned something. I did not know that the WinPE images the restore point. That is good to know because in some situations you may want to preseve those.

Bottom line - your nums start to make more sense. I think we can proceed.

 

[billybellfoot]

1.
right ok that makes a bit more sense now!

2.
oh did i thats something then (lucky i didnt start deleting stuff then) with pcs theres always more to learn.lol
thats what i thought really good info isnt it as like you say sometimes you may want to keep those say with a system partition. but with all data only partitions can just use the other desktop macrium method.

3.
thats good news then isnt it. so then if the images both of them are good.. should i keep both the images i created? 1 with restore points (winPE) and the 1 without them (desktop macrium)

and what is next step to proceed with?
thanks for all help and support much appreciated and thanks to miles ahead also for input
much appreciated

 

[whs]

I guess you can keep both versions. Next step is to operate normally, LOL.

PS: Miles triggered the restore point thought. That was very helpful.

 

[billybellfoot]

thats what i thought.. i will do that.. whoop whoop to operate normally at last ha ha

so all this time the origional image was good.. if only we'd known would of saved us some time .lol

i agree hense the thanks to miles also
and thanks to d_yuhas and C.Bamford who asked and answered the image size question

thanks

 

[MilesAhead]

Don't forget to use that VSSAdmin command to set the max on your restore points. Otherwise Vista can eat up to 15% of disk space for restore points.

In a command prompt enter
vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=24GB

Just change the 24 to however many GB you want to reserve for restore points.
I keep my system partition small. So I set the max to 24 GB. You may want to use more. To use a percentage of your disk space just do the math.

 

[whs]

You can also use % as maxsize - e.g. Maxsize=5%

 

[MilesAhead]

You can also use % as maxsize - e.g. Maxsize=5%

Thanks. Good to know.

 

[billybellfoot]

hi thanks for the info guys much appreciated so worth reducing either way.
my drive 160gb drive 5% = 8gb in restore points is that likely to be enough? or should i be safe and double eg 10% = 16gb

thanks

 

[whs]

Figure about 500MB for a restore point of your system (it may grow a bit over time). So initially you will get appr. 16 restore points into the 8GB.

In Vista that is not a lot because it makes a restore point each day (in Windows 7 only once per week) and one when you install or uninstall any program or update. But if you make weekly Macrium images, you should be fine.

 

[MilesAhead]

Also you can use the Tools section in CCleaner to get rid of the extra. I usually only keep a couple of RPs. A weeks worth of ERUNT registry backups. And I try to image at least once a week.

 

[billybellfoot]

ok i will leave as is then just to be safe as its 18gb i think right now should on that give me 36 restore points (more than enough ) just for now..
if i decide down the line i dont need them then i will reduce..

as it is i rarely use restore points as ive not had much luck with them they always seem to fail..
but recently i was informed on here by someone that nortons tamper protection could be the cause of that so if i need to restore i will try with that turned off

but as you say if i have macrium image to rely on then i have that added layer of protection

thanks again guys for all your help

much appreciated

 

[whs]

Sometimes restore points are very handy to recover lost files - especially in Vista (1 restore point per day) if you created and lost the file between 2 weekly images.

ShadowExplorer - Recover Lost Files and Folders - Windows 7 Forums

 

[billybellfoot]

hi whs

thanks did not know could use restore points to recover individual files like that thought they were just to go back to an earlier point.

thanks
______________________________________________________________________
on a seperate issue still having probs in terms of my external hdd not letting me shutdown
having to repeatedly force shutdown (wich is never good) it only started since the macrium was installed and macrium image of system drive taken and stored on it..used to work ok before???
any ideas as to wether macrium could cause that issue with external hdd ?

thanks again for all your help and support

 

[whs]

That's a tough one. Could be that Macrium keeps a handle on it - especially if you have a mounted VHD. But from here that is hard to tell. I am not a specialist on analysing handles.

 

[billybellfoot]

i know it is strange as it used to be ok shutting down with connected or removing using safely remove option either option worked fine?

is that like we did the other day mount the image to its own drive letter. after we tested to check file i unmounted it so i dont have one mounted unless something i have no control over is doing something in background?

if you need any screens or more info to aid in a diagnosis just let me know

thanks