Backing Up and Restoring an EMMC Drive (for Tablets or Netbooks)

Many cheap tablets and netbooks use eMMC storage as their internal drive. These come typically in 32GB or 64GB internal storage sizes.

When I got my lovely HP Stream 11 x360 having a 32GB eMMC drive, I simply couldn't backup the custom version of windows plus tweaks/apps I installed on the netbook. I normally used Acronis True Image but this could not "see" the eMMC. Checking forums revealed this to be a common problem with eMMC devices.

I'm an advanced Windows user to the point I have a specially created Windows version for improved reliability, speed, lower memory and cpu requirements plus tweaks to ensure it always boots and runs my custom designed automation software. I have no tolerance for a PC that prompts for crap during a boot process. Therefore, creating a backup image of the system drives is mandatory for my needs.

Read on for how I can now backup ANY Windows device. I believe my solution can also be applied to Linux based systems but I just don't care about those to even test that theory.

The Saviour!

I got a bootable copy of Marcum Reflex Server edition. This bootable iso I put onto a usb drive using a freeware program called Rufus. The default settings on Rufus are sufficient to create the bootable usb drive.

With Macrium, I was able to see the eMMC drive with its partitions immediately.

Making a Backup.

Depending on your device, you need to change bios settings to allow booting into a usb drive or press a hotkey at power on to select a boot option. For my netbook its Esc.

Once booting to the Macrium usb drive, upon the prompt, press any key to continue else the normal OS will load.

When fully loaded in a Windows 10 PE, select the backup tab on the left and select the partitions for backup in the right hand pane. For all my PCs, I have a C drive for windows and programs and a D drive for storage purposes.

In my case, I select the first 2 partitions and click "Image this Disk". Following the next screen to select the destination drive for the image file. I choose the D drive to store all images. Click the Next button then the Finish button. The image creating process will commence.

Once complete the prompt will pop up to show this.

Restoring an Image.

In this case, the Restore tab on the upper left hand side needs to be selected. Next click "Browse for an Image File". Just follow the next screens and browse for the image file and click Next and Finish.

Exiting Macrium.

Very easy. Just click the bottom left hand corner at the power button and select Yes. The bootable drive and be removed now.

Now with Macrium Reflex all machines can be backed up and restored. You can toss your copy of Acronis in the bin. I did to mine!