This tutorial shows you the options available in Macrium Reflect to browse your images and file and folder backups in Windows Explorer.
You can Browse or Explore an image by mounting the image file in Windows Explorer. This makes the backed up data appear as a drive in Windows Explorer that you can access just like any other drive, it is mounted in its own drive letter. This drive letter allocated is temporary. and the sections on 'Detach Image' show how to remove it. The instructions in this tutorial also apply to a file/folder backup.
It is also possible to mount an image from with in Reflect. The outcome is exactly the same as doing so from Windows Explorer.
The image is mounted as read only. This means that you cannot change the contents of the mounted drive but you can copy files from the mounted Image or file/folder backup in Windows Explorer to your PC using Copy/Paste (or Drag and Drop). You can also open files (such as WORD documents) by double clicking.
(If you have a file/folder backup (not Image backup) there is also a wizard in Macrium Reflect to restore selected files and/or folders to a place of your choosing).
Using Windows Explorer
1. Navigate to the location of the image you wish to mount. Right click and select Explore
2. In the next dialog check the partition you wish to mount. In this tutorial, the image only contains one partition. You can also select which drive letter you would like to be assigned. Click OK
The option 'Enable access to restricted folders' will mount the image with full NTFS access rights to all folders in the image. This enables you to fully browse images that were created on another PC where otherwise some folders may be inaccessible due to NTFS security restrictions.
The option 'Make writable' will make the mounted file system temporarily writable. This is useful to access files in the image where the opening application is required to write to the file. For example, Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (.vhdx) files can be mounted and files in the mounted backup can be recovered without having to restore the .vhdx file first.
3. You can now navigate through the image in an explorer window.
Using Macrium
1. In the main window of Macrium Reflect, select the 'Restore' tab as shown in red below.
2. Select the image you wish to mount and then click the 'Browse Image' link
3. Follow the instructions from step 2 above.
To Detach a temporary mounted drive using Windows Explorer
1. To detach a temporary mounted drive using Windows Explorer, right click on the drive you with to unmount
2. Click 'Unmount Macrium Image'
3. The image will be removed
To Detach a temporary mounted drive using Macrium Reflect
1. In the Macrium Reflect application, select 'Restore' in the menu.
2. Select 'Detach Image' and when prompted, select the drive letter you wish to unmount.
Using the Command Line Interface (CLI)
To mount an Image using the Macrium Reflect CLI:
(i) Open Command Prompt and change directories as necessary so the path to reflect.exe is shown.
(ii) Complete the command line as follows:
reflect.exe ["Path to Image file"] [Add one or more switches]
(iii) Press Enter/Return key.
Instead of inserting "Path to Image file" you can also replace it with "LAST_FILE_CREATED" if you want the last Image created in the current Windows session to be mounted.
Available CLI switches:
| -b | Browse Image, always needed to mount Image. |
| -auto | Do not show the 'Backup Selection' dialog and automatically mount all partitions in the image file. |
| -drives | A comma separated list of drive letters to use for the mounted image eg; -drives m,n If no drive letters are specified then the next available letters are used. |
| -pass | Use for password protected Image files, add password in inverted commas. e.g. -pass "password" |
Some examples of using the CLI to mount images:
To mount an Image and prompt for a drive letter:
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect>reflect.exe "J:\76FF71EBBB032A35-00-00.mrimg" -b
To mount all partitions of an Image using the next available drive letter(s):
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect>reflect.exe "J:\76FF71EBBB032A35-00-00.mrimg" -b -auto
To mount all partitions for the last Image created in the current Windows session:
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect>reflect.exe "LAST_FILE_CREATED" -b -auto
To mount all partitions in an Image using drive letters p,q,r
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect>reflect.exe "J:\76FF71EBBB032A35-00-00.mrimg" -b -auto -drives p,q,r
To mount all partitions in a password protected Image using drive letters p,q,r where 'pwd' is the password,(the password is case sensitive):
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect>reflect.exe "J:\76FF71EBBB032A35-00-00.mrimg" -b -auto -drives p,q,r -pass "pwd"
To Detach a temporary mounted drive using the Macrium Reflect CLI:
(i) Open Command Prompt and change directories as necessary so the path to reflect.exe is shown.
(ii) Complete the command line as follows:
reflect.exe[drive letter to detach] [-u]
If no drive letter is included the switch '-u' will detach all temporary mounted drives.
(iii) Press Enter/Return.
Examples:
To Detach all temporary drives:
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect>reflect.exe -u
To Detach Drive J only:
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect>reflect.exe J -u
Problems mounting images
If you have a problem mounting your images, it is possible that the psmounter has failed. To resolve this issue it is recommended to reinstall Macrium Reflect. This problem can be caused by anti-virus software disabling such features as a security precaution.