Rescue Drive has two options when upgrading your system drive.

Run in Windows: This is the option most users will want to choose. Running in Windows allows you to continue browsing the web while the transfer process completes.

Run in Protected Mode: This option will create a bootable flash drive that will allow you to restart your PC and run the transfer process in protected mode. This is a good option for Windows servers, including SQL and Exchange servers.

Unlike Macrium Reflect, all Rescue Drive processes are automatically excluded from Windows antivirus software.

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Macrium Reflect has a number of options to choose when first launched. Most users will probably be confused on where to start. There are basic backup functions, drive cloning, images, creating PowerShell scripts, DOS batch files, VBScript files… All a bit confusing.

To upgrade your system drive to a new drive, select the Clone this disk… option.

Warning:

Macrium Reflect is blocked by Windows built-in antivirus software. If you don’t add each of the processes that MR launches, you will receive the error message below.

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Rescue Drive automatically recognizes the system drive and selects it as the source drive for the transfer process. When the new USB drive is connected, it is also automatically recognized and selected as the target for our transfer, with no refresh or user interaction needed.

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After selecting to clone your drive, click Select a disk to clone to…

For this test, we didn’t initially have our USB target drive connected to the PC. Reflect didn’t automatically recognize that the drive was connected, so we needed to exit from the drive cloning screen, then click the refresh button. Clicking Clone this drive… once again allowed us to see the USB drive and select it.

Warning:

Reflect allows you to unselect partitions on the source drive for the cloning process. Unselecting the wrong partition can result in your new drive not being bootable.

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Rescue Drive automatically configures the structure of your new drive based on capacity. When upgrading to a larger drive, the Windows volume is expanded to utilize the entire capacity. When upgrading to a smaller SSD, the volume is reduced. Most users can simply click Next.

Can I create an additional volume for data?

Yes

In the screen above, clicking and dragging the slider left will reduce the size of the Windows volume and create free space. Clicking anywhere in the free space area will display a dialog that allows you to create an extra data drive. You can create more extra drives if needed.

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Warning:

Reflect does not automatically configure your disk structure properly unless you’re upgrading to the same size drive. Since this is unlikely, the default configuration will leave unallocated space on the new drive. A strange anomaly occurs were the initial display shows the partition structure of the new drive as if it were the same as the system drive. In the test below, we’re cloning a 250GB drive to a new 500GB drive. There’s a little over 39GB used on this system.

To see the free space on the drive, we need to click Next, then Back.

To utilize all the capacity on your new drive, you need to select the partition that corresponds to the Windows volume on the new drive, then click Cloned partition properties.

Click on the arrows in the Partition Properties screen and slide right. After clicking OK, your disk configuration should finally be correct.

Can I create an additional volume for data?

No

Macrium Reflect does not support creating additional volumes on your new drive.

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Modern Windows devices are increasingly protected with encryption out of the box. After your target drive is selected, Rescue Drive will allow you to convert or your new drive to BitLocker full-disk encryption.

In addition to suppling a password, you’re also allowed to optionally create a recovery key. This is a 48 digit numerical password that is stored in a file, and can be used if the password is forgotten. Corporate customers can store this key in remote locations utilizing environment variables. The encryption level can be specified as AES 128 or 256-bit encryption. BitLocker encryption can be created on target drives even if the current system is not encrypted.

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Macrium Reflect does not support encrypting your new drive with BitLocker.

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If you’re upgrading your PC’s hard drive to a smaller, faster SSD drive, you might have more data on your system drive then will fit on the new drive. When this occurs, Rescue Drive will warn you that data will need to be excluded from the transfer process.

After clicking Next, Rescue Drive will scan the contents of your system to determine what folders and files can safely be excluded from the transfer process.

In the Data Exclusion section, the totals are all color-coded and relate to the colored bars on the hard drive display below. When enough data is selected for exclusion, the colored bar is within the hard drive display and the Next button becomes enabled.

Rescue Drive will also identify temporary folders, cache folders, plus page and hibernation files for exclusion as well. The recycle bin can also be excluded. Excluding this data alone is often enough to allow the transfer process to continue.

Clicking Advanced Folder & File Selection will allow access to yet more data to exclude.

Rescue Drive prevents you from excluding anything that would render your new drive as non-bootable. If you select to exclude everything that is available for exclusion, then you would only have the OS, your apps, and anything else required to boot your PC.

Warning:

Macrium Reflect does not support excluding data from the transfer process to your new drive. If you are upgrading your PC to a smaller,
faster SSD drive, you might need to manually delete items from your system before starting a new cloning process.

We’re now ready to launch the transfer process to our new hard drive. Click the toggle button to confirm that you have no data on the new drive that you want to save, then click Next.

The partitioning and drive formatting process will begin.

All your data will then be transferred to the new drive.

Reflect allows you to schedule the cloning process, but since the process of transferring the system to a new drive should only occur once, we’re not sure there’s much benefit to this feature.

To continue with the cloning process, click the Finish button on the Clone Summary.

Verify that you want to launch now.

Next, click the checkbox button to confirm that you have no data that you want to save on the new drive, then click Continue….

Your data is then transferred to the new drive.

If you select to run the transfer process in protected mode, you will need a flash drive. Rescue Drive will configure the drive so you can start your PC in a special environment outside of your live Windows system. The initial screen gives you a quick introduction. Clicking Next will start the process of creating your bootable flash drive.

Rescue Drive will automatically create the protected mode environment needed to boot your flash drive. Just sit back and wait a few minutes for the process to complete.

When all 4 progress bars reach 100%, your WinPE ISO is ready. If you select No, and don’t uninstall the Windows ADK, you’ll be able to skip this process if you want to create another bootable flash drive later.

Connect your flash drive at any time. Rescue Drive will automatically recognize and select the drive. Click Next to start the format process.

Note:

Rescue Drive allows you to select the format type of UEFI or legacy MBR. This is handy if you are creating your boot media on a PC other then the original. Macrium Reflect will generate an error if this is attempted on a PC with the wrong format type.

When completed, Rescue Drive will notify you that you can reboot your PC and run your hard drive upgrade transfer from protected mode.

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To launch the Macrium Reflect cloning process in protected mode, start by clicking the CD icon in the upper left corner of the UI.

There’s a number of power user options to select from, which can make it confusing on which to select. Make sure your flash drive is connected, and select it in Select Device list.

Warning:

If you formatted your flash drive on another PC, it might be incompatible with the current PC. If so, Reflect will generate the error seen below. You will need to reformat the drive on the current PC before you can continue (or install Rescue Drive :).

Clicking Continue will start the media builder.

Reflect notifies you when the builder process completes.

Note:

When using a drive that already had data, we experienced the following error. Formatting the flash drive made this go away.

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