Windows 10: Recommendations on Cloning Software

Yes when you use Macrium to CLONE your drive it makes a Exact copy, which IS bootable, I've done it a few times already when upgrading my SSD's The Drive has to be IN your computer thou to boot back into Windows. Old drive Removed.

Purpose of the recovery disk is to do things like a complete image restore of your C: Drive which you can only do from a bootable usb or dvd drive. dvd's are almost a thing of the past thou. I am only talking about Windows OS here. I've only run Windows OS. Never had any interest in Mac's ....never will. You can't restore your Windows OS if your ON it at the time. Have to be offline, meaning from a usb drive. Hope this explains it a little better for you. Lots of us make complete image backups just incase of a Windows problem where it can not be repaired. So in that case IF you've made a image backup of your Windows OS you can restore Windows to when it was running without any issues. I make complete image backups about once a week to maybe 10 days. Only takes me about 5 mins for a complete backup of my Windows OS .....but my rig is kinda fast. Each person does their backups on whatever time line they feel comfortable with, users choice. Also depends of size of your Windows OS too of course.

 

Although you are correct, I think you misunderstand.

You can boot a Mac from anything connected.

I can simply copy all directories from root (C:\ in Windows terms) to an external USB drive and boot that.

Windows you can't - it will not boot from USB - I'm talking about full Windows not some PE environment.

With Windows you need to make the disk internal (so the Windows Loader will see it) or use a different loader that will find it.

 

Yes I understand, and edited my post, I know the drive has to be IN the machine in order to boot. Maybe I should have explained it better thou .....I've never played with a Mac thou .... Just Windows *Smile

 

Another Mac user has come to lurk around "the dark side", huh? *chuckle

So, on a PC, if you had to use a cloned drive (e.g. maybe your internal drive failed), then you would install the cloned drive into your PC, boot up, and be good to go. But then what would you do next? Clone the clone to an external drive so you have a copy?

Also, would there be any other scenarios, where I as a Mac user, might need to change my normal workflow? Like do you do things different than on a Mac if you just had to restore files or access a "backup" versus a clone?

Ever since I learned about CCC, I just skip "backups" and clone everything. That way at any given time, I can "plug and boot" and be good to go - or at least up until my last clone!

Thanks.

 

I'm honestly not sure if you are taking the piss. Let us assume not.

No. If either my PC or Mac had a drive failure I would buy a new disk and then restore the last backup I had from my backup image.

If you make an image or a clone of a disk you can always restore individual files on either platform. It doesn't matter what software or hardware you use - you always can.

 

I'm not sure I'd use the term "idiot-proof" for any software.

Macrium has both cloning and imaging capabilities.

Cloning gives you a ready to use replication of an existing drive. Bootable if the source drive is bootable. Cloning is normally used when all is well and you just need to move to a new, usually larger, hard drive.

Macrium imaging just creates an MRIMG extension image file that is a representation of at least one partition on a drive and is usually thought of as a disaster recovery method to be used at some later date when all is NOT well. That file may or may not contain Windows or data, depending on the partitions chosen during the image file creation process. The image file can be browsed for individual files before restoration, but it's only the restoration process that would make some other drive bootable, assuming the partitions necessary to run Windows were included in the image file.

Cloning and imaging have some overlapping purposes. Either can fail or work well. Imaging is probably more commonly used here, as a disaster recovery method.

 

No it is not. Windows will not boot from an external drive. MacOS will. That was the problem the OP had.

Please read the posts above and do remember that "bootable" is not a flag that exists any more. It is an old legacy BIOS thing.

EFI doesn't care about that - only whether there is a filesystem the firmware identify (must be FAT) and then a filesystem the bootloader can read with the drivers it has loaded (NTFS, HFS, EXT, etc)

If you want to boot Windows from external device you must either use your own loader or fiddle with the Windows one. Neither are convenient and neither is automatic.

 

I'm aware of that.

 

I don't know what that means...

How would you "restore" it onto a new drive?

And, why would you do that?

If you had a clone, why not pop that in and boot from that?

Okay.

 

"Taking the piss" is a phrasal verb in English meaning to joke with someone. The assumption being that the other person is not aware and is therefore seen as slightly stupid. It isn't especially rude - more like a joke

I thought you assumed I was an idiot. Never mind.

OK I'll try.

When you start your computer it will look for something to do. As you have a Mac we'll start from there.

What it will do is (after checking the RAM works OK and so on during the POST step) have a look in the NVRAM (which is a chip in your mac). It will say "ah-ha" I remember lets try running <Whatever>. NVRAM just means a chip that doesn't forget.

Before you get to the OS the firmware will try to run something. This will be something that is defined by the EFI standards and exists in a partition with a certain type code (7).

If that volume exists it will look for a directory called EFI. After that it gets a bit boring but eventually it will find a EFI program called a bootmanager. What bootmanager it picks by default is not clear (it depends on the manufacturer) but the last one it ran will be stored in the NVRAM.

The boot manager will generally try internal, external, USB, DVD, SD, even your phone if it is connected.

MacOS will include any drives it can find and boot them. You can boot MacOS off your TV if you want if the wire is connected. The MacOS loader is a it finichity about running anything apart from MacOS or Windows on a Bootcamp partition. It is quite happy with Linux though.

Windows will say "Is this drive I'm running on internal?" It will then say no. It will only boot internal drives.

If you use a different boot loader then you can boot whatever OS from whatever storage you want. That would be my recommendation and my recommendation would be to use rEFInd.

 

I had to read up on that expression on Wikipedia.

Not sure where you got that idea, but no, I wasn't making fun of you.

Also not sure what prompted the lesson on booting, but thanks anyways!

Yes, I understood you that on a PC, Windows expects an internal drive when booting.

Got it.

BTW, do you speak cockney, or is your "Taking the piss" just a general UK expression?

 

Here is a video of using Macrium Reflect Cloning feature. This uses the example of Cloning 1 hard drive to a Bigger new drive.
This might show you some of the features of the cloning process better. Just click on the link below.

Cloning a disk using Macrium Reflect - YouTube

 

I think it is pretty normal around the UK. I lived in London for 10 years but I can't say for sure if it is only there.

I never heard anyone say "gor blimey mate up the apple and pairs" or "me ma innit".

 

Every Brit knows meaning of 'Taking the Piss' (Extracting the Urine in polite company!)

What is funny to Brits is when our friends across the Pond say they are pissed i.e. angry. In UK, to be pissed means to be drunk. We use term 'pissed off' to mean angry.

 

Yup, you folks accross the pond talk funny...*Smile