FirstDefence-ISR?

[Rilla927]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to purchase FD & PD. I was wondering if one should be installed before the other? Or if it matters at all.

Also their site didn't mention if you can restore a snapshot from an external drive. I apologize if this has been answered before.

Does anyone have BootIt NG installed a long with FD?

This sounds like an awesome program!

Thanks Rilla927

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> Hi everyone,

I'm going to purchase FD & PD. I was wondering if one should be installed before the other? Or if it matters at all.

Also their site didn't mention if you can restore a snapshot from an external drive. I apologize if this has been answered before.

Does anyone have BootIt NG installed a long with FD?

This sounds like an awesome program!

Thanks Rilla927 <-QUOTE}

Not sure the order matters, but I'd install FDISR first, that way PD will pick up the exclusion it needs. You can archive to an external drive, and refresh back from an external drive, but you can't boot into anything on an external drive.

Also not sure at Bootit NG as it does modify the MBR. Todd might shed some light on that.

Pete

[dallen]

I can not add any substance to what Peter2150 has said. However, I just want to give my opinion on FD. With many programs they may seem cool at first, but as you use them over time you usually uncover flaws or limitations with the software. My opinion with FD is that the longer I use the program the more awesome I realize it is. This is the sign of a really well designed piece of software.

By no means am I suggesting this software is perfect because I'm sure that other users would be quick to point out the flaws or inadequacies from their perspective. I am just saying that FD gets better and better the more I learn about it capabilities.

My only wish is that Todd would drop a hint about what he has in the pipeline (to borrow a pharmaceutical term) and when we should anticipate finding out.

[crofttk]

{QUOTE-> ...Does anyone have BootIt NG installed a long with FD?... <-QUOTE}Yes, I do. What worked for me was to install BootIt NG first and then install FD-ISR. FD-ISR now owns the MBR.

If I want to boot into BING, I simply disable FDISR's pre-boot function by checking off "Disable Pre-Boot..." in FDISR's "Actions" menu. Upon reboot, you'll then have access to all of BING's functions.

I prefer this setup because I indeed use FD-ISR as my "First Defense". Then, if I want to do maintenance on my partitions or reconfigure something, I give control of the MBR to BING, do my thing, reboot, and then re-enable FD-ISR's Pre-Boot. I've successfully restored system drive backups made from both BING and Terabyte's "Image for Windows" with no problems.

FDISR has come up with pre-boot disabled after these restores of course, but I simply re-enabled it from FDISR's "Actions" menu, rebooted, and FDISR was then back in control.

I've installed FD first and PD second and I've also done it in the other order. It made no difference whatsoever in PD's ability to automatically detect the presence of FDISR and exclude $ISR.BIN from movement.

All of that being said, I can't guarantee how this will all work with your system -- I don't believe ANYBODY can with 100% certainty -- so DEFINITELY have a known restorable backup ready if you want to start experimenting with things and until you know for sure how everything shakes out on YOUR system.

P.S. I have managed to trash the program install portion of FDISR before, can't recall how, but, as long as the C:\$ISR structure is intact, I've always been able to reinstall FDISR and pick up where I left off.

[Rilla927]

@Peter2150, Dallen, Crofttk

such positive comments that's great! Peter I will try the install with FD first.

I have IFW, IFD, BootIt NG and I think it's a great product but it takes me a little over 3 1/2 hours to image 48gig and it works flawless for me.

But when I seen the time you can save with FD I couldn't believe it, so I thought they would make a great combo.

And yes, I do have my back up image on DVD (9 of them). I just put a fresh image on about a week and half ago and I have been running all my scanners every other day so I make sure I'm clean before I do this with FD. I've been running Hijackthis a lot just to confirm. Call me paranoid, ha!

Crofttk, boy am I glad you posted about BootIt NG and FD. I was really worried I couldn't have them both and I wasn't going to try it until I could get a confirmation, thanks a million!

I have tried many times to install BootIt NG and when it comes to the question for a dedicated partion to install BootIt NG on I choose yes and it says it can't find one so it always sends me by way of installing manually, why I don't know. Then I noticed I couldn't get to safe mode after it installed so I uninstalled it and will try another time.

That's easy enough disabling the "preboot option for FD". Are you able to get to safe mode with the both of them installed?

Thanks for all your comments and advice;)

Rilla927

[Longboard]

..HHHMMM...
feel like I might be arrested for stalking the way I'm following these threads.

Good simile; the threads make up the weave....

This is interesting again.

Maybe the rollback we become a side issue.

@Rilla927
agree Boot ti is great app.
You know of course that unless you want the mult-boot edit menu you can do most anything with the boot floppy.

That image seems like a long time, IFW takes about 30 minutes for me to USB HD for about 24Gb.

Good thread again.

Regards.

[Rilla927]

Hi Longboard:)

I thought the same thing, but the only thing I can think of is because I validate each and everyone and from what I understand that takes longer of course.

Other than that I don't know. I have never had a bad image, always works for me.

Rilla927

[crofttk]

{QUOTE-> ...I have tried many times to install BootIt NG and when it comes to the question for a dedicated partion to install BootIt NG on I choose yes and it says it can't find one so it always sends me by way of installing manually, why I don't know. Then I noticed I couldn't get to safe mode after it installed so I uninstalled it and will try another time.

That's easy enough disabling the "preboot option for FD". Are you able to get to safe mode with the both of them installed?

Thanks for all your comments and advice;)

Rilla927 <-QUOTE}
Hmmm..... yes, I am able to get into safe mode Rilla. I can't image that problem being related to or caused by a BING installation ??? -- I more readily suspect a Windows installation problem or registry corruption.

I believe when you're installing BING, it's looking for UNALLOCATED drive space to create the dedicated partition from. See BING's manual, page 10, at http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/bootitng.pdf and check Step 4 under "Install BootIt NG for the first time", "...Installing BootIt NG to its own partition requires unpartitioned space and takes up one primary partition...".

You won't like my solution: I cheated by already having a copy of Partition Magic with which I moved my C: drive back a little bit to leave unallocated space at the front of the drive for BING.;D All I can say is that there are credible and free utilities for partition management out there which would make creating unallocated space from existing paritions much easier than backing up, FDISKing, and then restoring your existing system. For safe/credible recommendations, You might consider searching up some recent articles on free partition management software from Fred Langa's newsletter site: www.langa.com

I must admit however, that Longboard has a very good point in that you MIGHT be happy simply running BING from a boot floppy. I don't use multi-boot -- perhaps it's just laziness on my part that I run BING from my harddrive anyways.:-[

A caveat I also should have mentioned earlier -- I did NOT opt to let BING implement the capability to allocate up to 200 (I believe) primary partitions - four is plenty for me, even including the BING partition. I fear you MAY run into problems running FDISR and BING together if you install BING with it's special partition management activated because it may be doing something funky with the MBR and or file allocation structures -- I'm just not sure -- but, forewarned is forearmed !

I hope that helped at least slightly more than it confused the issue.;)

[crofttk]

{QUOTE-> Hi Longboard:)

I thought the same thing, but the only thing I can think of is because I validate each and everyone and from what I understand that takes longer of course.

Other than that I don't know. I have never had a bad image, always works for me.

Rilla927 <-QUOTE}In addition, someone can correct me if it's not so, I seem to remember that IFW is a good bit faster at backing up than either IFD or BING -- which way are you taking the 3.5 hours to back up and verify ?

[Longboard]

Yes

{Image from BING floppy took about 1 hour for 24Gb
{
{IFW with PHYLOCK set to "use and release" took about 30 minutes

:saving to usb2 HD (Toshiba 4200rpm with 2mb buffer)

I haven't tried IFD

Lbd.

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> Hmmm..... yes, I am able to get into safe mode Rilla. I can't image that problem being related to or caused by a BING installation ??? -- I more readily suspect a Windows installation problem or registry corruption. <-QUOTE}
I think your right about the registry corruption part. I did find out I had a virus or something on there. Even though it was all removed I noticed other things weren't right either so I'm back on line with a fresh set of windows.

{QUOTE-> I believe when you're installing BING, it's looking for UNALLOCATED drive space to create the dedicated partition from. See BING's manual, page 10, at http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/bootitng.pdf and check Step 4 under "Install BootIt NG for the first time", "...Installing BootIt NG to its own partition requires unpartitioned space and takes up one primary partition...". <-QUOTE}
I understand it looks for unallocated space. I have two other empty HD'S, it could have used one of them. For some reasom it didn't detect them even when all HD'S were showing in the partion window.

I read the manual for three days in a row til my eyeballs fell out. When I installed it the one time I resized my drive with BING and it installed, but like I said the computer was acting weird at that time.

I will try it one more time and if it don't work I will run the program from a CD, that's what I used to make BING on.


{QUOTE-> You won't like my solution: I cheated by already having a copy of Partition Magic with which I moved my C: drive back a little bit to leave unallocated space at the front of the drive for BING.;D <-QUOTE}

How come you didn't use BING to do it?

{QUOTE-> A caveat I also should have mentioned earlier -- I did NOT opt to let BING implement the capability to allocate up to 200 (I believe) primary partitions - four is plenty for me, even including the BING partition. <-QUOTE}

I didn't either.

{QUOTE-> I fear you MAY run into problems running FDISR and BING together if you install BING with it's special partition management activated because it may be doing something funky with the MBR and or file allocation structures -- I'm just not sure -- but, forewarned is forearmed ! <-QUOTE}

You are absolutely right!

You know what I noticed at the FD site, if you order the CD it's $40.00 and the download is $70.00.

I wonder why such a drastic difference!

I gotta get FD on here. I have an image backup of just the OS with no programs, and then I had the 9 disks with all my programs, but I have to trash them now because I ended up with that infection on there. So I won't be using those disks again.

If I need help with FD I will come to all you's that know FD well;)

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> In addition, someone can correct me if it's not so, I seem to remember that IFW is a good bit faster at backing up than either IFD or BING -- which way are you taking the 3.5 hours to back up and verify ? <-QUOTE}
I used IFW.

What do you mean- "which way are you taking the 3.5 hours to back up and varify?"

I like to verify the image so that's how long it ended up to be.

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> Yes

{Image from BING floppy took about 1 hour for 24Gb
{
{IFW with PHYLOCK set to "use and release" took about 30 minutes

:saving to usb2 HD (Toshiba 4200rpm with 2mb buffer)

I haven't tried IFD

Lbd. <-QUOTE}

Longboard that's what I'm using also, the IFW with Phylock set to "use and release".

Rilla927

[dallen]

Rilla927,
I thought the same thing about the difference in price. It seems that it would be the other way around (Download: $40; CD: $70). If I were a company, I would prefer that customers paid me online and obtained the product online. Why punish the customer for making your job easier?

One word of advice, ditch the disks and invest in an external HD. Adaptec makes a kit for around $50 that allows you to convert an internal HD into an external with USB 2.0. You can buy an external Western Digital HD for cheap.

[Longboard]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, unless you plan to have mutiple OSs or more than 4 partitions per HD on your box, you don't really need to install the EMBR partition in BING.

Realistically all other functions are available from the bootdisc either floppy or CD;inthe "work with partitions' window. AFAICS the only options missing pertain to the direct boot management.

I am sure there are plenty of other high end user options I dont (and probably dont want) to know about.

??

LBD

[crofttk]

{QUOTE-> I used IFW.

What do you mean- "which way are you taking the 3.5 hours to back up and varify?"

I like to verify the image so that's how long it ended up to be.

Rilla927 <-QUOTE}
To rephrase, "With which program, BING or IFD or IFW, does it take you 3.5 hours ?".

Even with verifying, which I have nothing against, 3.5 hours does seem a little long for IFW.

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> Rilla927,
I thought the same thing about the difference in price. It seems that it would be the other way around (Download: $40; CD: $70). If I were a company, I would prefer that customers paid me online and obtained the product online. Why punish the customer for making your job easier? <-QUOTE}
That's exactly what I thought Dallen.

{QUOTE-> One word of advice, ditch the disks and invest in an external HD. Adaptec makes a kit for around $50 that allows you to convert an internal HD into an external with USB 2.0. You can buy an external Western Digital HD for cheap. <-QUOTE}
I have a 200gig external.

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> AFAICS the only options missing pertain to the direct boot management. <-QUOTE}
What is AFAICS?

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> To rephrase, "With which program, BING or IFD or IFW, does it take you 3.5 hours ?".

Even with verifying, which I have nothing against, 3.5 hours does seem a little long for IFW. <-QUOTE}
Yes, it does. Unfortunately I can't speed up the process, as long as it works is good for me. That's why I want to get FD. When I'm imaging I don't use windows while it's doing it's thing either. I know it says you can but I don't.

Not to change the subject, but I bought PD and I love it. Diskeeper Pro is dust in the wind.

Rilla927

[dallen]

{QUOTE-> I have a 200gig external.

Rilla927 <-QUOTE}
Then why on Earth would you want to consume 9 DVDs for an image? Even if you do not want to have 30-40 Gb of space constantly consumed on your external by your image, I cannot see the need for using DVDs. I would probably invest in a separate external specifically dedicated for the pupose of housing images before I would use DVDs. If for some odd reason, DVDs are necessary, which I cannot think of one at the moment, I would use re-writable so that I could either refresh the image or redo it in the event of a problem. I'm not certain the IFW / IFD supports DVD-RW, but I think it does.

[dallen]

{QUOTE-> Not to change the subject, but I bought PD and I love it. Diskeeper Pro is dust in the wind.

Rilla927 <-QUOTE}
Another unrelated question, do you like PD better than Diskeeper Pro? I use PD and have never used Diskeeper. However, I hear so many good things about Diskeeper that I actually considered giving it a try. I have been reluctant though because I've also heard that PD out performs Diskeeper, not to mention that I love FD and do not want to risk anything conflicting with it. What better way to ensure compatibility than to use two products designed by the same people.

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> Then why on Earth would you want to consume 9 DVDs for an image? <-QUOTE}
I had to laugh! I was wondering when someone was going to ask this.

Well, I did do an image once to my external and it was blazing fast, but when it came time to restore, it didn't work.

I read the help file and all that but I done something wrong some where and I haven't got back to it to try it again. I will figure it out. When your trying to learn so many different things at once you can fall off track a bit.

Not only that, the thought entered my mind "what if something happens to the external" then I would have no image at all. So better to be safe than sorry.

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> Another unrelated question, do you like PD better than Diskeeper Pro? I use PD and have never used Diskeeper. However, I hear so many good things about Diskeeper that I actually considered giving it a try. I have been reluctant though because I've also heard that PD out performs Diskeeper, not to mention that I love FD and do not want to risk anything conflicting with it. What better way to ensure compatibility than to use two products designed by the same people. <-QUOTE}
I love PD! It blows Diskeeper Pro away. Don't get me wrong it works, but not near as good as PD.

I tried to defrag the page file with DK and I thought it was going to tear my computer up. It kept coming up with errors in the end.

When I read the statistics between DK and PD I was flabber gasted at how many files DK leaves behind. Also I found out if you have very large HD'S to defrag Executive Software suggests you buy the enterprise edition in order to do those drives. That's not to cool, so you have to pay more money because you have large HD'S. If I remember correctly I read this at PD site. I didn't know that.

Rilla927

[TonyW]

{QUOTE-> What is AFAICS? <-QUOTE}It stands for "as far as I can see".

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> It stands for "as far as I can see". <-QUOTE}
Thanks TonyW! I guess I have to learn some of this terminology.

Rilla927

[crofttk]

{QUOTE-> ...Well, I did do an image once to my external and it was blazing fast, but when it came time to restore, it didn't work.... <-QUOTE}
Then you've already learned the final lesson many, including myself, had to learn and that is to always test the restore function of your chosen backup software and strategy before feeling reasonably safe with it.

[Peter2150]

I also use an external drive for images, and wrestled with the DVD question in case the external drive failed. I need reliablity. Given the price of external drives my solution was a 2nd external drive for redundancy.

Also crofttk is 100% correct about testing, but was always made me hesitate is if the restore fails, then I've trashed my hd needlessly. Once of the absolute beauties of using FD-ISR for disaster recovery, is you can do non destructive test. Love it.

Pete

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> Then you've already learned the final lesson many, including myself, had to learn and that is to always test the restore function of your chosen backup software and strategy before feeling reasonably safe with it. <-QUOTE}
I always like to test the restore just to feel safe. And yes many a times it didn't work where I had to start over. I think that's how you learn more about the software, your system, and yourself. If you never tread those waters how will you learn. But yes, my main goal is to use my external for my images and images only.

I know myself, I learn from the mistakes or at least try too.

I know it was a mistake I made that's why the restore didn't work. I just haven't got back to it yet when I have had a decent amount of sleep. Too many nights I stay up past my bedtime and when you get tired you make mistakes. Especially when you literally can't make sense of what your reading.

That's really got me going now:o "why it takes me 3 1/2 hours to do an image". I wonder if it's something in the settings of IFW. And my C: drive is a 10,000 rpm Raptor.

Rilla927

[dallen]

I've successfully restored an image from external hard drive via USB2. I recommend that you ditch the DVDs and migrate to external. The liklihood that two Western Digital Hard Drives will fail simultaneously is very small. The reason that I say two is that if you use FDISR as your primary line of defense and IFW/IFD as a secondary, then it would essentially take a hard disk failure to require the use of your secondary line of defense. At that point the only way you could get screwed would be if the hard disk containing your backup image failed.

It is highly unlikely, I mean damn near impossible, that two Western Digital hard drives will fail simultaneously.

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> I've successfully restored an image from external hard drive via USB2. I recommend that you ditch the DVDs and migrate to external. The liklihood that two Western Digital Hard Drives will fail simultaneously is very small. The reason that I say two is that if you use FDISR as your primary line of defense and IFW/IFD as a secondary, then it would essentially take a hard disk failure to require the use of your secondary line of defense. At that point the only way you could get screwed would be if the hard disk containing your backup image failed.

It is highly unlikely, I mean damn near impossible, that two Western Digital hard drives will fail simultaneously. <-QUOTE}
Dallen, you don't know my luck! I look at things with the Murphy's Law Philosophy!

My external is a Western Digital in a BusLink USB Hi-Speed 2.0 Case.

My C:drive is actually a pair of Raptors that is data striped. And your right about the liklihood of a failure, I do agree.

{QUOTE-> if you use FDISR as your primary line of defense and IFW/IFD as a secondary, then it would essentially take a hard disk failure to require the use of your secondary line of defense. At that point the only way you could get screwed would be if the hard disk containing your backup image failed. <-QUOTE}
This is exactly what I had planned. FD as first defence because it's so much quicker and easier.

Rilla927

[aigle]

{QUOTE-> Hi everyone,

I'm going to purchase FD & PD. I was wondering if one should be installed before the other? Or if it matters at all.

Also their site didn't mention if you can restore a snapshot from an external drive. I apologize if this has been answered before.

Does anyone have BootIt NG installed a long with FD?

This sounds like an awesome program!

Thanks Rilla927 <-QUOTE}
What is PD by the way?

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> What is PD by the way? <-QUOTE}
Hi Aigle,

it's Perfect Disk the defrag program by Raxco

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

Hi all you FD users,

I just thought of something. I've been reading about this Data Anchoring thing in FD.

Steer me in the right direction here, but if FD takes snap shots, why wouldn't all the data be in the snap shot? Why would you have to add the Data Anchor?

Thanks everyone!

Rilla927

[dallen]

Rilla927,

The problem is that FD is so good at what it does that it can actually harm you.

For example, I take a snapshot on day 1. Then, I'm working on an important project and I save that project after I've been working for 2 days on day 3. Then BANG!!! I take a break to surf porn on night 3 and I'm infected with a virus that eats my system. No problem right because I have First Defense???

I simply use FD to boot into my secondary snap shot and I'm up and running. Then I copy my secondary to my primary. Reboot into my primary and I'm off and running. My system is virus free. Therefore, everything is fixed right? Wrong!!!

Where is my project??? Oh crap!!! My secondary snapshot was created before I worked on my project. Had I used data anchoring and included the My Documents forlder that contains my project, then anything in My Document would have permeated through all snapshots and I would be fine.

Do you understand the advantages of Data Anchoring now? Use it with caution however. If you Data Anchor something that becomes the problem, then you could find yourself in the opposite situation. The problem now transcends through all snapshots and you've defeated the purpose of FD.

[Acadia]

{QUOTE-> Use it with caution however. If you Data Anchor something that becomes the problem, then you could find yourself in the opposite situation. The problem now transcends through all snapshots and you've defeated the purpose of FD. <-QUOTE}
Yup, and that is precisely why I have never used Data Anchor even though I think it is a rather neat feature to have been included in FD: what if I contract a virus in my email? I want that virus isolated in THAT particular Snapshot and to not spread to my other Snapshots!

Acadia

[Peter2150]

On the other side of the coin there are some tremendous advantages to data anchoring. I have My Documents set to data anchor, and it ensures I have the data available to both snapshots, plus provides a means to pass a file from one snapshot to another.

HOWEVER, after doing any work that creates new data files, I do indeed backup the MyDoc's area for just the reasons stated.

Just points out many ways to use the program, but you have to understand the impact and adjust accordingly.

[starfish_001]

{QUOTE-> On the other side of the coin there are some tremendous advantages to data anchoring. I have My Documents set to data anchor, and it ensures I have the data available to both snapshots, plus provides a means to pass a file from one snapshot to another.

HOWEVER, after doing any work that creates new data files, I do indeed backup the MyDoc's area for just the reasons stated.

Just points out many ways to use the program, but you have to understand the impact and adjust accordingly. <-QUOTE}

I don't use data anchoring at all. I use multi hard disk partitions and keep data and O/S Separate. Each snapshot can see all the data.

My email and Docs etc all live on the data partition that is backup up with TI.

[aigle]

{QUOTE-> Hi Aigle,

it's Perfect Disk the defrag program by Raxco

Rilla927 <-QUOTE}
Thanks Eilla! just could not guess it.

[Rilla927]

You welcome, Aigle!

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> Rilla927,

The problem is that FD is so good at what it does that it can actually harm you.

For example, I take a snapshot on day 1. Then, I'm working on an important project and I save that project after I've been working for 2 days on day 3. Then BANG!!! I take a break to surf porn on night 3 and I'm infected with a virus that eats my system. No problem right because I have First Defense???

I simply use FD to boot into my secondary snap shot and I'm up and running. Then I copy my secondary to my primary. Reboot into my primary and I'm off and running. My system is virus free. Therefore, everything is fixed right? Wrong!!!

Where is my project??? Oh crap!!! My secondary snapshot was created before I worked on my project. Had I used data anchoring and included the My Documents forlder that contains my project, then anything in My Document would have permeated through all snapshots and I would be fine. <-QUOTE}
All well understood!

{QUOTE-> Do you understand the advantages of Data Anchoring now? Use it with caution however. If you Data Anchor something that becomes the problem, then you could find yourself in the opposite situation. The problem now transcends through all snapshots and you've defeated the purpose of FD. <-QUOTE}
Yes I do understand what the data anchoring is for and does.

Rilla927

[Rilla927]

{QUOTE-> On the other side of the coin there are some tremendous advantages to data anchoring. I have My Documents set to data anchor, and it ensures I have the data available to both snapshots, plus provides a means to pass a file from one snapshot to another.

HOWEVER, after doing any work that creates new data files, I do indeed backup the MyDoc's area for just the reasons stated.

Just points out many ways to use the program, but you have to understand the impact and adjust accordingly. <-QUOTE}
So your saying by you using the data anchoring it provides you with your files throught out all your snapshots, understood.

This is hypothetical. Each day when your done playing or before, which ever, as long as you update your Primary snap shot what ever files you may have created in my docs or any where else for that matter will be included in your Primary or secondary if updated with no data anchoring, correct?

My concern is, if there is a limitation of the size of the file you want to anchor itself, such as my docs.

Rilla927

[crofttk]

By using data anchoring you have EXCLUDED My Docs from all snapshots. One copy sits on the hard drive and doesn't participate in snapshots. So, it's there all the time. (ETA: Yes, "with NO data anchoring", data is in ALL snapshots, BUT then you risk getting file versions mixed up as dallen said.)

Now, in that situatuion - IF you data anchor, you can see then that the "My Docs" structure on your system drive should get some extra careful backup attention.

Separate system and data partitions works well for me, as starfish mentioned.

Hoping not to confuse things here, but here's another twist: I recently picked up AJC Active Backup on Peter2150's recommendation. On my desktops, I have all 4 of them continuously archive data files from the separate data partitions to an external USB2 drive that is visible across my network (via sharing, NOT a network server drive). On my 2 laptops (me and SWMBO), however, I have my separate data partitions documents continuously AJC archived to a folder on my system drive because they obviously won't always have access to the networked external drive. For the laptops, I DATA ANCHOR the AJC Archive folder from the FDISR snapshots because it's just too much redundancy and disk space is more precious, of course, on a laptop.

[Peter2150]

{QUOTE-> By using data anchoring you have EXCLUDED My Docs from all snapshots. One copy sits on the hard drive and doesn't participate in snapshots. So, it's there all the time. (ETA: Yes, "with NO data anchoring", data is in ALL snapshots, BUT then you risk getting file versions mixed up as dallen said.)

Now, in that situatuion - IF you data anchor, you can see then that the "My Docs" structure on your system drive should get some extra careful backup attention.

Separate system and data partitions works well for me, as starfish mentioned.

Hoping not to confuse things here, but here's another twist: I recently picked up AJC Active Backup on Peter2150's recommendation. On my desktops, I have all 4 of them continuously archive data files from the separate data partitions to an external USB2 drive that is visible across my network (via sharing, NOT a network server drive). On my 2 laptops (me and SWMBO), however, I have my separate data partitions documents continuously AJC archived to a folder on my system drive because they obviously won't always have access to the networked external drive. For the laptops, I DATA ANCHOR the AJC Archive folder from the FDISR snapshots because it's just too much redundancy and disk space is more precious, of course, on a laptop. <-QUOTE}

Ah, one of my other non secret weapons. Reason backing up my data anchored My Documents is such a non issue is because of AJC's other weapon Directory Synchronizer. What FDISR does for my system AJC does for my data:D

Pete

[starfish_001]

{QUOTE-> Ah, one of my other non secret weapons. Reason backing up my data anchored My Documents is such a non issue is because of AJC's other weapon Directory Synchronizer. What FDISR does for my system AJC does for my data:D
Pete <-QUOTE}

Interesting I tend to use Syncback or mirrorfolder http://www.techsoftpl.com/backup/scrnshot.htm