Is Macrium Reflect Safe? Here Are Answers and Its Alternative

What Is Macrium Reflect?

Macrium Reflect is a piece of backup, disk imaging and cloning software for commercial and personal use. Macrium Reflects is able to safeguard your PC and allows you to back up files to local, network and USB drives. Once the system is crashed or your files are lost, you can use the system image to restore the entire disk, one or more partitions, or even restore the individual files and folders.

In addition, Macrium Reflect allows you to upgrade your hard drive to a larger one and mount images as a virtual drive in Windows Explorer to easily recover files and folders using Copy and Paste.

Main Features of Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect is a backup and disk clone solution. Apart from these, it also has other features. So, here we will show the main features of Macrium Reflect.

After launching it, you can see your disk layout including the file system, hard drive capacity, partition size. On the left panel, there are three backup tasks and you can click them directly to start the task. On the right panel, here are two buttons: Clone this disk and Imaging this disk.

On the Tools bar, you can find there are Backup, Restore, and Other Tasks. Macrium Reflect allows you to create a scheduled backup and provides the Incremental backup.

Now, let’s get some information about the main features of Macrium Reflect.

• Super-fast imaging
• Files and folders backup
• Rapid Delta Cloning
• Back up file consolidation with Synthetic Full backup support
• SSD trim support
• Pre-defined backup plan templates
• Mount images
• Rapid delta restore
• Restore images to dissimilar hardware
• Protect your backups from ransomware with Macrium Image Guardian
• Back up files or folders to a single compressed archive file

The Macrium Reflect comes with different versions, such as Trial, Home Business, etc. And the trial edition allows you to use it for free with 30 days.

Is Macrium Reflect Safe?

Is Macrium Reflect safe or is Macrium Reflect free safe? This would be a hot topic. Macrium Reflect was developed in 2006 and has millions of users around the world.

Is Macrium Reflect safe? Yes, the answer is positive. It is not a virus and a 100% safe backup utility. It is used to back up your files, folders, disks or partitions and it allows you to clone a hard disk. Although this Macrium Reflect is able to keep your valuable data safe and accessible, it also has some negative voices.

1. When imaging your disk, Macrium Reflect performs a number of actions so that the anti-virus program would think of it as malicious software. Sometimes when Macrium Reflect writes very large files, antivirus software also regards it as malicious software.

2. Some users reported that it asks for Microsoft WinPE installation when they are using Macrium Reflect to clone HDD. So, is Macrium Reflect safe for HDD cloning? Here is a real example on reddit.com:

I’ve never heard about the WinPE before and I tried to download Macrium to clone my win10 on a new HDD and it asks me to download WinPE. Shall I do this or not? It says that the download of WinPE is like 800MB. Can someone help me please fast cause my disk is at its final moments here?from reddit.com

3. When using the Macrium Reflect to clone a hard drive, you may encounter some errors, such as the Macrium Reflect error 9 or Macrium Reflect clone error 0.

4. On the Norton forum, we can find that some users complained about Macrium Reflect. They downloaded Macrium Reflect from its official site and Norton removed it because it contained an unknown threat.

Hence, is Macrium Reflect safe? It is a safe program. However, when using it, you may come across some errors or the antivirus software will regard it as a malicious program.

Thus, is it necessary for you to install Macrium Reflect on your computer? As for backup software, Microsoft provides a built-in tool – Backup and Restore (Windows 7). This Windows tool enables you to create a system image. Or you can choose to use a safe Macrium Reflect alternative, such as MiniTool ShadowMaker. MiniTool ShadowMaker also enables you to back up files, folders, disks, partitions, and the operating system. It also enables you to clone a hard drive.

If the Macrium Reflect is not necessary for you, you can choose to uninstall it.

How to Uninstall Macrium Reflect Completely?

If you do not need Macrium Reflect, you can choose to uninstall it completely.

Now, follow the tutorial to continue.

1. Open Control Panel.

2. Then choose Uninstall a program under the Programs section to continue.

3. Select Macrium Reflect and right-click it.

4. Then choose Uninstall to remove it from your computer.

The above actions only remove the main executable program file, but not all program files and components. Some invalid files are left in the Registry and folders. So, in order to remove it completely, you need to get rid of these remnants. So, follow the below steps to continue.

5. Press Windows key and R key together to open the Run dialog.

6. Type regedit in the box and click OK to continue.

7. In the Registry Editor window, navigate to the paths: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Macrium\Reflect, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Macrium\Reflect and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

8. Then delete them.

9. Find and delete all files of the program in system folders C:\Program Files\Macrium\, C:\Document and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Macrium\ and C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Application Data\Macrium.

After all steps are finished, you have completely removed Macrium Reflect from your computer.

Is Macrium Reflect safe? Is Macrium Reflect free? After reading this post, I have got the answers. Click to Tweet

Macrium Reflect Alternative

Clone Hard Drive

As we have mentioned in the above part, Macrium Reflect is designed to back up files, folders, disks, partitions, clone a hard disk. However, when using the Macrium Reflect to clone a hard drive, you may fail and come across the Macrium Reflect clone error.

In this situation, you can use the Macrium Reflect alternative to upgrade hard drive. Thus, the professional clone tool – MiniTool ShadowMaker is strongly recommended. It enables you to clone OS from HDD to SSD without data loss.

So, if you come across some error when using Macrium Reflect to clone hard drive, you can try the Macrium Reflect alternative.

Now, we will show you how to use the Macrium Reflect alternative to clone hard drive.

1. Download MiniTool ShadowMaker from the following button, install it and launch it.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

2. Click Keep Trial to continue.

3. After entering its main interface, go to the Tools page.

4. Then click Clone Disk to continue.

5. On the next page, click the Source module to choose the disk clone source. Then click Finish to continue.

6. Then click the Destination module to choose the target disk and click Finish to continue.

7. After that, you will receive a warning message which tells you that all data on the target disk will be destroyed during the cloning process. If there are important files on it, please back up them Then click OK to continue.

8. Next, the disk cloning process will begin. The time it costs depends on the number of files on the source hard drive. Please do not interrupt the disk clone process. Otherwise, your target disk would be unbootable.

After the disk cloning process is finished, you will receive a warning message which tells you that the source disk and the target disk have the same signature. If both of them are connected to your computer, either of them will be marked as offline. So, you need to remove or disconnect either of them. In addition, if you want to boot your computer from the target disk, please enter BIOS and change boot order first.

After all steps are finished, you have upgraded your hard drive with the Macrium Reflect alternative – MiniTool ShadowMaker.

Back up Your PC

Besides the hard disk clone features, MiniTool ShadowMaker is professional backup software. It is designed to back up files, folders, disks, partitions, and the operating system. In addition, it allows you to restore the files or restore your computer to an earlier state with the backup image.

Now, we will show you how to use the Macrium Reflect alternative to back up your computer.

1. Download MiniTool ShadowMaker, install it and launch it.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

2. Click Keep Trial.

3. After entering its main interface, go to the Backup page.

4. MiniTool ShadowMaker is designed to back up the operating system. So, it chooses the operating system as the backup source by default.

5. Then click the Destination module to choose a target disk to save the backup images. It is recommended to choose an external hard drive. Then click OK to continue.

6. Then click Back up Now to start your backup process.

After all steps are finished, you have successfully created the system image. If your computer encounters some errors, such as system crash or others, you can choose to restore your computer to a previous state with the system backup image.

From the above content, you can find that the Macrium Reflect alternative is also effective and it is easy to operate. MiniTool ShadowMaker is a 100% safe program. It provides free, trial, pro, business editions. And the trial edition also allows you to use it for free within 30 days.

So, is Macrium Reflect safe? If you have any doubt about the Macrium Reflect, you can choose the Macrium Reflect alternative – MiniTool ShadowMaker. It is 100% safe. In addition, with MiniTool ShadowMaker, you will not come across the cloning error or other problems.

Bottom Line

Is Macrium Reflect safe? Is Macrium Reflect free? After reading this post, we believe that you already have the answers. If you think the Macrium Reflect is necessary for you, you can choose to uninstall it. Or you can choose the Macrium Reflect alternative – MiniTool ShadowMaker.

If you have any problem with MiniTool ShadowMaker, you can leave a message in the comment zone or feel free to contact us via the email [email protected] and we will reply to you as soon as possible.

Is Macrium Reflect Safe FAQ