On 11/15/2021 5:46 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> When I finish I understand I have to remove the cd
> before re-booting but don't I also have to hit F12 and
> change the boot order back?
>
> Robert
>

If you are making permanent modifications to boot
order, you'd put

Floppy [first]
Optical
HDD1
HDD2 [last]

For the removable media drives, they're ignored if no
media is present. HDD1 would then be the boot device.

The Dell BIOS, of course, does everything its own way,
and even in the obvious cases, it doesn't do the
obvious thing. For example, it might be sensitive
to you unplugging HDD2 in the example, and then
trying to boot. It might stop the boot and complain
HDD2 was missing.

I can't promise you anything when it comes to Dell behavior.
It breaks all the well established behaviors of retail
motherboards.

Paul

On 11/15/2021 6:08 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> I just got a Macrium Reflect pop-up that says
>
> Restore failed - Error 9
>
> The restore was at:
> 38% overall progress
> 35% current progress.
>
> I'm going to try again and see if I can get it to work.
>
> Thoughts/suggestions?
> Robert
>

Look into doing a Verify from the CD.

Error 9 is a read error from the Backup drive.

I hope you made a backup of the "broken" setup...
and used the CD while doing so.

Paul

In that case, I shouldn't have to do anything because I
selected the cd drive for the boot order so it should still
be as I selected it. Correct

Robert

Unfortunately , no I didn't make a backup of the
broken setup and I think I missed the verify the
cd portion already.

However, I am trying again an it's at

Overall progress 87%
Current progress 86%

Lets hope this works. If it does, then I would like to
make multiple backups for redundancy.

Robert

Mission Control: The Eagle has landed!

The restore completed! I'm now going to remove
the cd and reboot and see how it looks. Let's hope
everything is OK.

Thanks,
Robert

I'm on the 8500 as I write this... at first it didn't seem
like it was going to connect but I gave it a few minutes
and then just like normal it was lighting fast. How I
missed that! I checked and everything is current. whew!!!

So now Ill take a break, so to speak and enjoy the computer
and do some work and then will start making backups mrimgs
using the cd. By the way, how do I safely disconnect the external
hd? This time I just waited till it rebooted and disconnected it.
Is that the norm?

Is there anything else I should do?

Many thanks for all your great help,
Robert

On 11/15/2021 7:45 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> In that case, I shouldn't have to do anything because I
> selected the cd drive for the boot order so it should still
> be as I selected it. Correct
>
> Robert
>

I would hope it's in the normal part of the order.

But I have seen behaviors, such as a USB boot stick needing
to be "seen" by the BIOS first, before it's allowed to be
in the boot order.

That's why it may take more than one attempt, sometimes, to
get a Dell BIOS to behave.

When the tray is empty, it should be a simple matter to
move down to the HDD in the list and look for the first one
listed there.

Paul

On 11/15/2021 6:11 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> After I clicked OK and box closed and on the Macrium screen in
> red it says Restore failed - Error 9 - Read failed -2- The system cannot
> find the file specified
>
> Robert
>

Is the file really there ?

Is the filename mangled in such a way that it
is not being "passed" to the EXE properly ?

Just as an example, if there is a space character
in a file name, the whole file path may need
double quotes around it.

"C:\Program Files\someProg\some.exe"

In that example, when you put double quotes around
that, in a shell situation, then the software can
see and access the file properly. A program would
do that (without you seeing), as a matter of good practice.

A few keyboard characters would be illegal punctuation
in a filepath. And normally, when you first make a
backup, that would be the time when the software
would tell you not to do that.

Error 9 can also happen when working with Windows 10 NTFS
file systems. Version 7 of Macrium is fixed for that,
and should not cause a fuss. As would a Version 7 Rescue CD,
it should be able to deal with Windows 10 NTFS OK.

But you're on Windows 7, and so no "challenge" is expected
there, and even Macrium 5 would work.

So don't panic -- if an error shows up early like that,
it might be something you can fix. Getting such an error
later... is not good. I've lost two or three MRIMG files
due to my bad RAM sticks, so I've had restores aborted,
at least until I realized I needed to Verify the MRIMG,
to figure out how many MRIMG files were ruined. There's no
reason at the moment, to suspect you have a RAM problem,
as it could cause crashes and you would probably notice.
It's when RAM errors are *only* in low memory, that the
symptoms are very strange.

I don't know how big the file is, but
try copying it and rename it. For example

Win7-Backup-111221-Version-734129.mrimg --- copy to ---+
|
test.mrimg <--------------+

It should not be necessary to do this. And if I was doing
that, I'd copy from one drive to another, to reduce
head clatter. You might not have enough enclosures to
do something like that.

It's too bad the program does not display the filename it
thinks it is accessing, so you could verify what it was
trying to do. That would be the best way, but seldom done
in the software. A person could use Sysinternals Procmon
to record the attempted access, for analysis. I might have
to do something like that here, if I had your Error 9.

I have debugged entire backups with Procmon. The trace file
is 60GB in size, and some of the operations can take hours
to do. I blame some of that on reckless Microsoft. That program
used to work well, a few years back.

Paul

On 11/15/2021 8:31 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> I'm on the 8500 as I write this... at first it didn't seem
> like it was going to connect but I gave it a few minutes
> and then just like normal it was lighting fast. How I
> missed that! I checked and everything is current. whew!!!
>
> So now Ill take a break, so to speak and enjoy the computer
> and do some work and then will start making backups mrimgs
> using the cd. By the way, how do I safely disconnect the external
> hd? This time I just waited till it rebooted and disconnected it.
> Is that the norm?
>
> Is there anything else I should do?
>
> Many thanks for all your great help,
> Robert

Most people would use Safely Remove icon for USB devices
in the lower right corner.

But waiting for the PC to shut down, then when the computer
is quiet, remove power from the drive enclosure and pull
the USB out, that should be a very safe way as well.

I find that WinXP had excellent table manners in this regard.
It knew how to flush and put away hardware properly. On later
OSes here, after doing a safely remove, my SSD-on-adapter device
records a "dirty shutdown", which means the Safely Remove sequence
isn't working properly. It's possibly an SSD issue, rather than
NTFS being corrupted. I don't like the SSD to be seeing
stuff like that though. There is no way to know what risks
I am taking. That's why, for that SSD device, I shut down
the computer and remove it. I have lots of other toys here (HDD),
that would not be so picky.

You had a problem previously, where Safely Remove could not
complete, because the volumes refused to dismount, and that
was potentially traceable to NTFS Transactional TXP support.
And we had to do that crazy offline/online stuff as a
workaround. What that protocol does, on the file system,
is supports atomic commit on write. You write a bunch of data.
The data is only acknowledged, when a single bit is flipped.
That's the "atomic" aspect. It is either like the data does
not exist, then when the bit is flipped, the whole chunk of
data is acknowledged. Macrium seemed to be clicking the button
for that, about two times per second. I could hear something
weird here on my backups, when there should not have been
such a sound effect present. Something related to directories
was going on, and it might have been TXP.

Paul

On 11/15/2021 8:10 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> Mission Control: The Eagle has landed!
>
> The restore completed! I'm now going to remove
> the cd and reboot and see how it looks. Let's hope
> everything is OK.
>
> Thanks,
> Robert
>

Since you know that MRIMG might be worth keeping,
keep the backup drive away from the running
Windows 7 OS, until more is known. In case
you have to restore with the CD a second time,
at some future date.

Paul

I started running a malwarebytes scan and it found this:

https://postimg.cc/dhwJVZ6r

I ran the san again and came up clean. I'll continue running
all the scans before I create any backups. I also need to make
a new System Restore point.

I had another message when I open the action center to check
for downloads.

https://postimg.cc/LnpsJ83k

https://postimg.cc/YhzCYBd5

There was one important backup that succesfully installed - the
malicious tool removal I think. I'm a bit leery of checking for
updates to FF considering what happened last time so I don't think
I'll go there just yet.

So far everything seems OK,

We'll found out what happens when I make a mrimg 'test' backup

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert

I don't know exactly what you mean, that's the WD external
hd with all the mrimgs on it. Are you suggesting to use
one of the spare bootable Win 7 hd's for any new mrimgs?
If so I'll have to set it up and means one less spare hd for the
8500.

Robert

I just thought, how can I set up a mrimg folder in the PE environment? I
can't, I would have to connect it metal to metal to create the folder. Then
when actually creating the Mrimg that's when I would use the cd correct?

Robert

Just thought you'd like to see the complete screen.

https://postimg.cc/FdR8D8Xs

Robert

On 11/15/2021 10:49 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> Just thought you'd like to see the complete screen.
>
> https://postimg.cc/FdR8D8Xs
>
> Robert
>

Your restore happened at USB2 rates or 35MB/sec or so.
Just dividing the amount of data, by the number of seconds.

241,790,000,000 bytes
---------------
6821 seconds

The Rescue CD, the label on the window says it was
done with WinPE 3.0. The next time you prepare a Rescue
CD, try WinPE 5.0 or WinPE 10.0, instead of WinPE 3.0.
This would include a USB3 driver, to get a bit more speed
from your external enclosure (assuming all the things
in the path are USB3 of course). The last one I made,
I used WinPE 5.0 I think.

The 780 likely doesn't have USB3 and it is more
likely to be USB2 only (black). The 8500 might have
some blue USB3 ports (in a picture, I see two black
and two blue, and the blue are the ones you want).
That could cut a bit of time off your restores,
the blue port plus a differently prepared CD.

Macrium doesn't go all that fast, relatively speaking,
so going much faster than that would not help. The Blue
connector and a disc with the right driver, is enough
hardware to throw at it. Maybe someone with a real
racer computer could test that for us.

Black connector = 35MB/sec or so (what happened in your picture was 35)
Blue connector = 500MB/sec class (Macrium can benefit a little bit)
(HW ranges 200 to 430 maybe, Macrium =~ 125)
Red connector = 1000MB/sec class
USB-C tiny = 2x1000MB/sec class
Thunderbolt/USB4 Higher (Rather obscure stuff :-) )

So there's no verify error apparent in the success dialog.

Paul

On 11/15/2021 9:27 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> I don't know exactly what you mean, that's the WD external
> hd with all the mrimgs on it. Are you suggesting to use
> one of the spare bootable Win 7 hd's for any new mrimgs?
> If so I'll have to set it up and means one less spare hd for the
> 8500.
>
> Robert

# Most of the time, you want the external to be disconnected,
# so malware cannot ruin the MRIMG files on the external.

Regular Win7 C: booted X----External enclosure disconnected

*******

# If you boot the Macrium CD, now is the time to have the
# external drive connected. Since the CD is booted, we hope
# that no malware managed to sneak on the CD during its creation.

CD booted-------+
|
Win7 C: resting ------ Comp -------External enclosure connected
and ready for bkp

Doing it this way, is the "next level of security". It's
a nuisance, but if you're getting one infection after
another, maybe you have to do the backups this way.

And all that this scheme does, is prevent the malware from
actively scribbling over the external drive surface. The
Win7 C: drive can still have malware on it, you can still
back up the malware, you can still restore it. But since you
disconnect the External before booting Windows 7, then anything
nasty on Win 7 C: can't damage the External.

Paul

On 11/15/2021 9:22 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> I started running a malwarebytes scan and it found this:
>
> https://postimg.cc/dhwJVZ6r
>
> I ran the san again and came up clean. I'll continue running
> all the scans before I create any backups. I also need to make
> a new System Restore point.
>
> I had another message when I open the action center to check
> for downloads.
>
> https://postimg.cc/LnpsJ83k
>
> https://postimg.cc/YhzCYBd5
>
> There was one important backup that succesfully installed - the
> malicious tool removal I think. I'm a bit leery of checking for
> updates to FF considering what happened last time so I don't think
> I'll go there just yet.
>
> So far everything seems OK,
>
> We'll found out what happens when I make a mrimg 'test' backup
>
> Thoughts/suggestions?
> Robert
>

Regarding: https://postimg.cc/YhzCYBd5

My WER Queue folder had a bunch of stuff in it.

So I'm guessing my WER service on Windows 7 isn't able to contact
Microsoft either.

I saved about 3GB of stuff, by cleaning out that folder.

Since Windows 7 is beyond the support period, perhaps
they no longer care to receive the reports. Which is a
bad attitude, since they should collect every scrap of
intelligence available, and let the computers sort it out.
Nobody expects clicking that button, for any sort of
intelligence to come back from Microsoft.

Paul

Agreed.

Robert

I made a new System Restore point, and ran all the scans,
although I didn't check FF because of what happened last
time I did that.

When would I prepare a Rescue CD? Can I make one now?

Correct the 780 has only black USB ports but the 8500 has blue,
it has allot more in the back as well and on top.

Back to your thought of keeping the WD external hd
separate from the 8500 I understand what you mean now.
Separate from maleware by using the cd, correct?

Now that I know to use the cd, I propose to create (3)
mrimgs on the WD external hd. By using the cd they'll
be protected so any maleware can't 'see' them.

What do you think?

btw were you saying there suppose to be a safe disconnect
in the PE environment? When I connected the external hd
I didn't see the same pop-up that I see when it's metal to metal.
I had to look for it. It was the D: drive and didn't say anything
else just D: Maybe I have to right click the letter D: to disconnect?

Robert

I just had a thought,... after were done with all of this and have our
backup mrimgs in place would it be possible to get a card for the 780
with blue USB ports like we upgraded the 8200, remember? So that the
780 would have 3.0 USB ports as well?

Would it be possible to also add the same tab slots as the 8500 has?
That use the thin flash drives in cameras.

Robert

Should I turn on Real Time Protection or is this just another
way of them trying to get me to buy premium?

https://postimg.cc/4mCqTRL7

All is good so I'm about to do a mrimg backup with the cd of
course.

Robert

I started the backup with cd, in passing I checked online
and there doesn't seem to be a way to safety disconnect
the USB cable from the PE environment so again I waited
till it logged off. However, I digress.

It got to the point where it asked for the destination but it
didn't recognize the previous drive I: because I had been
using the online version of Macrium (the one I changed to V8)
So I searched for the drive again and the mrimg folder and
selected it but then it skipped all your instructions and went
straight to downloading! The next step should of been un- ticking
full and differential backup boxes then select save and enter the
name for the backup.

https://postimg.cc/xkQZ7wRG

It came back with the message not enough space. How can that
be when we just used up a mrimg and one before that? I have two
mrimg folders on the WD external hd; one in the User Account
(nothing in it) and one in the Admin Account. It should be going to
the Admin Account but I tried both with the same message

https://postimg.cc/ykBSDnvQ

Also, I had to use the F12 again because the boot order is set and I
can't seem to change it.

So what am I doing wrong?

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert

On 11/16/2021 1:10 AM, Robert in CA wrote:
> I just had a thought,... after were done with all of this and have our
> backup mrimgs in place would it be possible to get a card for the 780
> with blue USB ports like we upgraded the 8200, remember? So that the
> 780 would have 3.0 USB ports as well?
>
> Would it be possible to also add the same tab slots as the 8500 has?
> That use the thin flash drives in cameras.
>
> Robert
>

Yes, there are add-in USB3 cards for PCs. But your 780 has
some limitations, so we cannot "select the finest of the lot" :-)

The original NEC chip based one, supports back to
WinXP. That's what I used on the WinXP setup until it died.

The Asmedia chips, support Win7 or later.

Custom USB3 drivers are required for Windows 7. Later
OSes W8/W10/W11 don't need USB3 drivers. The reason this
is so, is the register interfaces on USB3 hardware follow
standards, and the Microsoft in-box driver can handle the standard
Class driver needs.

Generally for a Windows 7 user, you have to verify that the
chip on the add-in card in question has drivers, because they're
pretty stingy with drivers now. For example, Asmedia contracts
with MCCI to write their drivers for them, so there is something
for a Win7 user to use. At some point, companies like
Asmedia will stop including Win7 drivers.

*******

There are tray-mount USB devices to add SD/MMC slots to
a computer. Then, run a cable down inside the machine,
to a ten pin USB header. You have to check that a
header for this is present, before buying the device.

Some card readers fit the floppy drive hole on the machine.
Some include an adapter so it fits in a 5.25" drive bay.

As the speed of card media increases (95MB/sec on a UHS-I SD),
the interface cable on the card reader changes. And such
a card reader would have a USB3 cable on it. The 780 for
example, would not have a header to install such a thing.
When you buy the USB add-in card, sometimes those have
an internal header for connecting a "toy" to with internal
cabling. Thus, the two upgrade projects can potentially
be coupled to one another - shocking.

I think the fast SDs, can run at slower speeds. So if you
do buy a USB2 card reader (and the 780 had a header for it),
the plugged in SD can't go faster than 35MB/sec. Even if it
is a 95MB/sec SD.

Example of a card reader with options for faster cards. USB3.
Fitted with USB3 header.

https://www.startech.com/en-us/hdd/35fcreadbu3

https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/sets/35fcreadbu3_manual/35fcreadbu3_card_reader_manual.pdf

https://www.newegg.com/p/09Z-01R9-00008 $37 USD

I'd expected better of the manual. I will draw my own circuit then.

USB3 ----------------------- to faceplate blue USB3
20 pin
female ----- Realtek --------- SDXC UHSII
RTS5321 --------- CF
--------- MS etc

It is the size of a floppy drive, but I can find no
pictures of the floppy mounting holes.

It would also be normal, to give the pinout of
the 20 pin USB3 cable, for verification before use.
USB3 has nine pins per channel, two USB3 is 18 pins
plus an additional ground, plus a missing pin used
for keying. The blocked keying pin allows only one
rotation of the connector to fit.

You cannot stick a USB card in the 780 x16 slot. The
BIOS will reject that (although other brands allow it).
You have to use one of the x1 slots, which means you cannot
fit an x2 Asmedia card in a 780. The Asmedia card sums the
bandwidth of two lanes, for better high-end performance.

Here is a 4-Port card, with two of the ports arranged
so the card reader can plug in with the internal cabling.

VANTEC 4-Port SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Host Card w/ Internal 20-Pin UGT-PC345 $35

https://www.newegg.com/vantec-model-ugt-pc345-pci-express-to-usb-card/p/N82E16815287019

https://vantecusa.com/products_detail.php?p_id=125&p_name=

Renesas uDP720201 # A NEC USB3, unexpected (works in WinXP)

# Use the driver CD in your Win7 OS

https://vantecusa.com/CKEdit/images/files/ugt-pc345_manual.pdf

Verification the chip is 4 Port. Some addin cards pull tricks
and use a 2 Port chip, and it can be "flipped" to the front or
the back but not both. This is why the chippage must be checked,
to see that a legit solution is being used. The pictures
are not of sufficient quality to visually verify a lack of
shenanigans, so we use the chip spec as a check instead.

https://www.renesas.com/us/en/products/interface-connectivity/usb-switches-hubs/upd720201-usb-30-host-controller

Use anti-static precautions when handling these goods.
Some chips are better than others at ESD protection. This
is a NEC/Renesas, so we're more careful with it :-) Power off the
780, wear summer shorts, sit the PC in your lap while
installing the items.

NEC changed their name, roughly around the time the USB3 chip
was released. Their new name is Renesas, and they're Japanese.
NEC has quite a history of silicon design, although not a lot
of people had heard of them. Their chip catalog was pretty big
and varied (ATM switching chips).

Paul

On 11/16/2021 1:28 PM, Robert in CA wrote:
> I started the backup with cd, in passing I checked online
> and there doesn't seem to be a way to safety disconnect
> the USB cable from the PE environment so again I waited
> till it logged off. However, I digress.
>
> It got to the point where it asked for the destination but it
> didn't recognize the previous drive I: because I had been
> using the online version of Macrium (the one I changed to V8)
> So I searched for the drive again and the mrimg folder and
> selected it but then it skipped all your instructions and went
> straight to downloading! The next step should of been un- ticking
> full and differential backup boxes then select save and enter the
> name for the backup.
>
> https://postimg.cc/xkQZ7wRG
>
> It came back with the message not enough space. How can that
> be when we just used up a mrimg and one before that? I have two
> mrimg folders on the WD external hd; one in the User Account
> (nothing in it) and one in the Admin Account. It should be going to
> the Admin Account but I tried both with the same message
>
> https://postimg.cc/ykBSDnvQ
>
> Also, I had to use the F12 again because the boot order is set and I
> can't seem to change it.
>
> So what am I doing wrong?
>
> Thoughts/suggestions?
> Robert

I can't tell from here.

It probably isn't a permissions problem. Sometimes, it will
complain if you write into the root (top level) of a partition.

All you can do, is verify the I: letter you selected, actually
has the space left that you think it has.

You can do that, while booted with the Macrium CD. You use the
File Explorer icon from the task bar in the Macrium Rescue session.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/zfGn0GHR/Macrium-CD-Space-Left-Check.gif

Paul

Wow, I never expected so much information!
The external card readers sound interesting but I wouldn't really
be gaining anything and I really don't want to clutter up the 780.
The 4 ports look wild, I've never seen anything like them before.
On second thought, it's probably best not to mess around with
the 780.

Well, it was just a thought. Actually when the 8500 is operating
normally the wait time isn't so bad. It's when it's acting up it takes
forever to load anything.

I may find the space and all but it doesn't explain why it skipped
over all the instructions. Should I try it again?

Robert