Windows 10: AOMEI vs Macrium Reflect with BitLocker Encrypted drives

Recently, I came across what I believe to be an unfortunate design limitation of AOMEI Backupper that seals the deal (IMHO) that Macrium overall is truly is the way to go. Out of curiosity, I recently decided to use AOMEI to backup my Win10 Pro BitLocker encrypted drive (for testing purposes as MReflect is my main solution), and was taken a back by how huge the "compressed" file was.

I have a 500GB NVMe drive (465GB after format) that's currently at 48% utilization & my full MReflect backups with default compression settings are 140-150GB in size. So imagine my surprise when my first full backup with AOMEI on the same drive created a 399GB file! Ofcourse I immediately checked my settings, and all was in order -- intelligent backup was selected & compression was at the default medium. I then adjusted the settings for max compression & that shaved off a whopping 10GB. *Huh

Upon further research, it turns out AOMEI isn't able to backup an encrypted BitLocker drive (even when running inside the OS) via intelligent sector copy and defaults to "sector by sector" copy regardless of the user's settings. I confirmed the info on their forum here, here & here.

Seems like a lazy limitation if you ask me as Macrium doesn't seem to have such issues as long as it's ran inside the OS. An AOMEI representative recommend one decrypts their drive (not suspend) and encrypts after backup as a work around. *sarc







:)

 

BitLocker Encrypted Hard Drive to MAC

Hi,



Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community. I regret the inconvenience caused to you. Let me help you.



I suggest you to perform below mentioned steps to disable BitLocker.

To disable BitLocker I would suggest you try the following steps and see if it helps.

• 
  Press Windows key + X and click on
  Control Panel.
  
• 
  Change View by from Category
  to Large Icons/Small Icons.
  
• 
  Click on BitLocker Drive Encryption and click on
  Turn BitLocker Off.
  
• 
  Follow on screen instructions. Click on Decrypt the Drive
  when the message appears.
  

I would suggest you click on the link below and refer the following article.

Scenario 12: Turning Off BitLocker Drive Encryption (Windows 7)

Scenario 12: Turning Off BitLocker Drive Encryption (Windows 7)

(You can refer the steps in the above link as they are applicable for Windows 10 as well)



Check if it helps.



I hope the information helps. Please keep us posted on the issue. We will be happy to assist you accordingly.

Thank you.

 

Macrium Reflect - Issue Unlocking BitLockered Drive From Rescue Media


Got Macrium Refect Free 6.3.1835 running well on Windows 10. Except when booting from Macrium rescue media, I cannot unlock my C: drive.

My setup has a Bitlockered C: drive on a Samsung EVO 850 SSD, and my backup images are on E:, a portable BitLocker To Go USB3 HDD. My system is setup for UEFI/GPT boot.

The BitLocker encryption on C: has the Samsung self encrypting drive (hardware encryption) feature enabled. Test booting from a Windows Recovery Drive allows me to unlock BitLocker for both drives in the restore mode, by entering the keys.

In the Macrium Reflect Free rescue environment, I can open a command prompt and step through the manage-bde command lines to unlock E: (the external USB drive) just fine.

But when I attempt to do so for C:, I always get an error. It appears that the Samsung drive is available to be the restore target, but will be wiped during a restore. That would require re-enabling BitLocker afterwards and generating new keys.

The thing that puzzles me is that manage-bde is a Microsoft program, so I would expect it to work.

Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks!

 

New Macrium Reflect Updates


Something I found interesting:

New Feature: Automatic System Restore Macrium Software Blog