Windows 10: Macrium Free --Restore to totally different hardware --Working !!!

Hi there
Macrium Free version is also brilliant at restoring to totally different hardware.
This method can be used pretty well where there's different hardware involved or creating V2P (a Virtual to Physical conversion) whatever VM system you are running.

You can't get much more different hardware than this:

Source : a QEMU / KVM Windows 10 VM on a Linux Host running with an AMD x4321 CPU (opteron I think)

The VM had virtio disk drive, virtio network adapter and virtio display.

Target - HP envy laptop intel CPU with intel graphics.

Method (sounds like a cookery book !!)

1) Inside the VM attach USB device and run macrium to create a system image

2) on the target machine connect the USB device where you stored the image and a bootable macrium rescue media.

3) delete ALL the target partitions from the target (if you dual boot then delete the Windows partitions -- I haven't tested this scenario in dual boot as I never need to. (By dual boot I mean dual boot from internal HDD's - not booting OS's from external USB drives etc).

4) Important -- do not boot the restored image yet -- reboot the computer with the macrium rescue drive again.

5) now choose fix boot problems --and choose the W10 installation from the dropdown --it will re-create the bcd etc.

6) Now re-boot computer again - Windows should boot.

You will probably need to apply some updates e.g display driver but Windows updates will find most of them -- for the display though I had to go into device manager and click om update for the "basic Ms display driver" - Windows then loaded the correct Intel display driver and HDMI audio driver.

7) after updating etc you will probably need to re-activate windows (and possibly Office if you had that installed on the VM).

Job done.

(Re-size partitions if you want to afterwards since your VM probably will have a smaller "C" partition than a typical "Physical" installation).

You don't need the pro version of Macrium or other fiddly methods --especially for those wanting a Virtual to Physical (V2P) conversion - and on different hardware. Note also the VMWare method of doing a V"P conversion is hideous and doesn't work properly -- not only that it takes forever. !!!

Well done Macrium --I know this was always a feature in the pro product - but it works too in the free one using method above.

I can't guarantee this will work in 100% of cases for every conceivable bit of hardware out there but I suspect that it will be good in at least 95% of cases.

Cheers
jimbo

:)

 

Restoring Windows 10 Image using Macrium Reflect


In addition to the above. Here's my suggestion in step by step.
I assume you have Macrium Installed in your current HD and already made a backup copy.

1. Connect your new HD via USB port and boot up.
2. Run Macrium, click on Restore tab then select the Backup Image that you made to restore
3. click on "select a different target disk" then select your new HD as destination
   
   
   
4. Proceed to restore then Shutdown and disconnect the old HD and replace with the new HD
5. Boot up with your new HD.

 

Macrium: deploy to different hardware

 

Icons hosed up after restore to different hardware

Hi folks

After a Macrium restore to a different machine I've got an SD card and a Memory stick showing although these are HDD's and can be accessed normally.

Any idea how I can "Regularize" the icons - Macrium restored Windows from a Sony laptop which did have those but the destination computer (which I'm using) had HDD's instead.

BTW the Macrium restore to different hardware worked a treat and computer activated OK -- had a digital licence so quite legal - W10 found the relevant drivers just fine on boot "Getting devices ready".





Cheers
jimbo