Windows 10: Macrium Recovery 'Drive'?

Opening Win 10 Pro's File Explorer at the 'This PC' level I see an unexpected entry 'Macrium Reflect Image'. As well as File Explorer it's also displayed by other tools such as TreeSize.





I assume this arises from tentatively trying the first steps of the restore process (as discussed in the parallel thread) and browsing the last full image I made?

It's obviously not one of my seven physical drives, shown in Disk Management:





Is this 'M:' a 'virtual drive'? What storage is actually being used for it? Would it get deleted if I 'explore' another image?

:)

 

Recovery Drive

Hi,

Thank you for posting your concern. In some cases, this could happen if you created a system restore point on your computer. Windows will use the recovery drive to revert to the previous time where your computer is working properly, or where you created
it. Please don't attempt to put any files in the recovery drive or the restore process will fail. To give you more suggestion and helpful information, we would like to more about your computer. Please answer the question below:

• Did you make any changes to your computer before this issue occurs?
• Have you install Windows Update before getting the Recovery drive?
• Which version of Windows are you using? To check it, follow the steps through this
  link.
  

In the meantime, you can check the files inside the recovery drive and confirm if there are essential files that you need.

We'll be waiting for your response.

 

Create a Recovery Drive?

Hi Kaspaz,

Let us first check the recovery drive creation process that you have done. Below is a step by step process of creating a recovery drive:

• From the taskbar, search for Create a recovery drive and then select it. You might be asked to enter an admin password or confirm your choice.
• When the tool opens, make sure Back up system files to the recovery drive
  is selected and then select Next.
• Connect a USB drive to your PC, select it, and then select Next > Create.
  A lot of files need to be copied to the recovery drive, so this might take a while.
• When it’s done, you might see a Delete the recovery partition from your PC
  link on the final screen. If you want to free up drive space on your PC, select the link and then select
  Delete. If not, select Finish.

If you have done the same steps above and the rest of your file is still not showing.
Please post back some details:

• Which drive are you referring to?
• Can you send us a screenshot of what you are seeing?
• Besides creating a recovery drive, have you done any other changes on your computer?
• What is the make and model of your USB hard drive device?
• Have you tried plugging it on another port?
• What is the current version and build number of your Windows 10 Computer? To know these details, follow the steps below:
  • Select the Start button.
  • Type About your PC.
  • Press Enter to find out the version and build number of your Windows 10 PC.

Let us know the result after performing the troubleshooting steps and if your concern was left unresolved, kindly get back to us with the answers to our inquiry, so that we can assist you further.

 

How does Windows boot to advanced recovery option e.g. command prompt?

- that gives me a 454 'Unexpected error' This tells me that the BCD is partially corrupted.

The commands: shutdown.exe /r /o /f /t 00
or: %SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c reagentc /boottore&shutdown /r /f /t 00
should boot into Recovery if everything is configured correctly.
FYI, If Windows is configured correctly:

1. If Reagentc is disabled, you still can get into Recovery but with limited options.
2. If Reagentc is enabled, you'll get all options.
3. If you boot Windows using Recovery USB stick, You'll get into Recovery with couple of options missing.

Here's my suggestion if you want to try:
OPTION 1: Will save the trouble of re-install Windows.

1. Download the image of my first 3 partitions (450MB Recovery, 100 MB EFI partition, and 16MB unformatted primary)
   EFI_Boot-00-00.7z - Google Drive
2. Run Macrium and restore the image from step 1, overwriting your existing 1st three partitions, leaving C alone.
3. Delete the 490MB Recovery partition.
4. From Macrium, run fix boot problems.
5. Reboot. Open Admin command prompt then run Reagentc /info to make sure that it is enabled. If not, enable it.
   if failed to enable, reboot and try again.

OPTION 2: Assuming you've already had Windows backup with Macrium.

1. Wipe out the first 5 parttiions. (450MB, 100MB, 16MB, C Drive, 480MB)
2. Fresh install Windows 10
3. Restore C drive from backup image, run fix boot problems
4. repeat step 5 from OPTION 1 above.