Question Clone drive under Macrium Reflect does not show up on desktop

[modeonoff]

Hello, few months ago I used Macrium Reflect Free to clone the internal SSD of my PC to an external SSD. When I plugged in the external drive, it showed up when I double clicked the PC icon. I repeated the cloning steps but after it was completed, the external SSD does not show up. I can see it within Macrium Reflect and when I double clicked the task bar at the bottom right, the option to remove it also shows up. I rebooted the computer but the situation is the same. How do I get it to show up again?

 

[USAFRet]

Before you do ANYTHING else, please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

More questions to follow, once we see that.

 

[modeonoff]

Enclosed is a screenshot for your reference.

 

[USAFRet]

I meant Disk Management, in Windows.

And for whatever reason, I can't expand your Macrium screenshot to a readable size.

 

[USAFRet]

OK...I see tha Macrium window now.

Please identify what drives you are referring to.

Source, clone, internal, external....

 

[modeonoff]

There are two internal NVMe SSD in my dual-boot PC. One is for Windows and the other for Linux.
I cloned Disk1 which has Windows installed to the Disk3, an external SSD (another Samsung NVMe in a Sabrent enclosure).

Isn't Disk1 and Disk2 both the same internal NVMe SSD with Windows installed?

 

[USAFRet]

Your Macrium windows shows Disk 1, 2, 3
Your Disk Management shows Disk 0, 1, 2

And from the Macrium Window, you did NOT clone Disk 2 (970 EVO - Windows) to Disk 3 (Sabrent).

It appears you cloned Disk 1 (another 970 EVO Plus) to the Sabrent.

 

[modeonoff]

I am not sure why the naming of the disks are different between Macrium and Disk Manager.

Thanks for pointing out my stupid mistake. I tried again and it is working.

How come even I quitted Macrium and Disk Manager, Windows still gives me that "Problem Ejecting USB Attached SCSI (UAS) Mass Storage Device" message when I tried to remove it from the PC?

 

[USAFRet]

I am not sure why the naming of the disks are different between Macrium and Disk Manager.

Thanks for pointing out my stupid mistake. I tried again and it is working.

How come even I quitted Macrium and Disk Manager, Windows still gives me that "Problem Ejecting USB Attached SCSI (UAS) Mass Storage Device" message when I tried to remove it from the PC?

I do not know why it is giving that error.

But, question - Why the CLone?
If this is for backup purposes, an Imasge in MAcrium is much preferred.

 

[modeonoff]

Clone for fast recovery.
I also use other backup methods.

 

[USAFRet]

Clone for fast recovery.
I also use other backup methods.

Waste of a drive.

Recovering our C drive would take maybe an hour or two?

How often do you plan on doing that?

An Image allow the rest if the drive to be used for whatever.

 

[modeonoff]

If the SSD suddenly dies, isn't clone faster than image? I mean just replace the drive with the clone and then copy back whatever created/modified after the cloning to the replacement drive.

 

[Lafong]

If the SSD suddenly dies, isn't clone faster than image? I mean just replace the drive with the clone and then copy back whatever created/modified after the cloning to the replacement drive.

How important is an extra 15 to 60 minutes to you, unless it were an every day occurrence?

Cloning has certain shortcomings not found in imaging.

Cloning is the typical choice when moving from a working drive to another working drive...such as when your old drive works fine, but it is too small; or when you want to change from HDD to SSD.

Imaging is more likely the right choice to recover from a bad situation....a failed drive, software gone bad, virus, etc. A disaster of some type.

Suit yourself.

 

[USAFRet]

If the SSD suddenly dies, isn't clone faster than image? I mean just replace the drive with the clone and then copy back whatever created/modified after the cloning to the replacement drive.

"faster"?
Well, sort of. But is waiting an hour for an Image to write itself to a replacement drive, once every couple of years or so, really that much of a pain.?

And with an Image, you get to also do Incremental or Differential.
A clone is a single snapshot in time.
I do an Incremental every night, across all 6 drives. Saved to a folder tree in my NAS.
And the nightly Incrementals take only a minute or two each.

I can recover any or all drives, to any state they were in the last 30 days.

A clone is Once. 3 weeks from now, your clone will be 3 weeks old.

And with Images, you get full use of the whole rest of the target drive. Not so with a clone.

 

[modeonoff]

Thanks for the suggestion.

For imaging/snapshotting, what is the recommended intervals? I read some people doing it once a day, every hour, every two hours or even doing it continuously in real-time to reduce the effect of ransomware.

Doesn't doing it in hourly or less than hourly term creates lots of files which may be difficult to find the right ones when needed for recovery?

 

[Lafong]

I make images once a month. I keep the most recent 2. If my drive failed now, I would restore an image I made about 2 weeks ago.

My Windows and applications change rather slowly over time. It matters little to me that my restored image would be from 2 weeks ago. If they changed more often, I'd probably make a new image weekly or whenever I thought appropriate.

I use full images only. Some use incrementals or differentials.

A full image creates one file. One big file. Store it wherever it will fit.....other than on a partition contained within the image itself. Possibly on an external drive. By default, it will have a random name such as m30qx08er8ssir0svv2.mrimg, which can easily be dated so you know how old it is.

My personal data changes hourly. I back it up several times a day through another program, not Macrium. If I were to restore personal data, it would never be more than a few hours out of date.

Images are on a partition by partition basis. You choose which partitions to include in the image file.

I back up the image file just like any other valuable personal data file.

You are far and away the best judge of how often you need to back up. Most people don't do it at all.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the suggestion.

For imaging/snapshotting, what is the recommended intervals? I read some people doing it once a day, every hour, every two hours or even doing it continuously in real-time to reduce the effect of ransomware.

Doesn't doing it in hourly or less than hourly term creates lots of files which may be difficult to find the right ones when needed for recovery?

All depends on your environment. There is no specific 'best'.

I do nightly, or every other day, or weekly Incremental, or Full backups.
Each system is a bit different.

My main system, a Full, followed by nightly Incrementals. One for each drive.
Keep for a rolling 30 days,

My little HTPC, a Full Image once a week.
Keep 5 copies.

My spouses system, Full image every other day, keep for a rolling 30 days.


If you need one specific file, from 'last week', Macrium lets you mount an Image as a drive letter.
Identify which day you want, mount it, and go get that specific file.

Or if you need to recover a whole drive after some nasty infection...go back in time to an Image made before the infection happened.