FDISR + WinRollBack

[starfish_001]

Anybody using FDISR + WinRollBack together. This combination would appear to add the good bits from Rollback into First Defense without removing anything from FD?

Only a thought...

[wilbertnl]

What is FD-ISR missing that you are getting from Winrollback?
If FD-ISR is rated 100, how would you rate the sum of FD-ISR and Winrollback?

[Peter2150]

-{ Quote: "Anybody using FDISR + WinRollBack together. This combination would appear to add the good bits from Rollback into First Defense without removing anything from FD?

Only a thought..." }-

Does it modify the MBR. If so I'd be very careful. Also I have to agree with Wilbertnl's assesment.

Pete

PS. Went to the site. It looks a lot like ShadowUser. I would definitely NOT try and use it with FDISR. To me FDISR is a whole lot more flexible

[Leapfrog Software]

Greetings starfish_001,

As a preliminary heads up, I believe I tested WinRollBack several years back and it did conflict with the ISR technologies. I am at currently out of the office, but can confirm this later for you. If this was not one of the tested applications, I can put it on my list to give it a whirl.

Btw: I was toying with having our Master Boot Record code moved to the Boot Record. This would *possibly* make it more compatible with boot managers, whole disk encryption routines, etc. The only drawback is that with Rollback products, if you decided to rollback you system, expecting to rollback your current snapshot, all your snapshots would be rolled back as well since they work at a sector level trapping Disk I/O. I can see this behavior being not expected and many users getting in trouble with this one. As I may feel this is potentially very *user* dangerous, what are folks thoughts on this?

[wilbertnl]

-{ Quote: "Btw: I was toying with having our Master Boot Record code moved to the Boot Record (of the bootable partition)." }-
Now THAT would make for an amazing improvement.
You got my vote!
-{ Quote: "As I may feel this is potentially very *user* dangerous, what are folks thoughts on this?" }-
I agree, snapshots, images, archives, rollbacks: they all look like having the same result, but their concept is totally different.
As user you need a very well developed understanding of this before you decide which combination could work for you.
Perhaps registry based rollbacks are more safe than sector based rollbacks.

[Peter2150]

-{ Quote: "Greetings starfish_001,

As a preliminary heads up, I believe I tested WinRollBack several years back and it did conflict with the ISR technologies. I am at currently out of the office, but can confirm this later for you. If this was not one of the tested applications, I can put it on my list to give it a whirl.

Btw: I was toying with having our Master Boot Record code moved to the Boot Record. This would *possibly* make it more compatible with boot managers, whole disk encryption routines, etc. The only drawback is that with Rollback products, if you decided to rollback you system, expecting to rollback your current snapshot, all your snapshots would be rolled back as well since they work at a sector level trapping Disk I/O. I can see this behavior being not expected and many users getting in trouble with this one. As I may feel this is potentially very *user* dangerous, what are folks thoughts on this?" }-

I agree also that it would be dangerous. That would mean if one of these sector based rollbacks messed up it could mess up multiple snapshots.

If there is any one big leap in your technology it would be, having some kind of recover CD with FDISR on it and the ability to restore from an Archive directly to a new drive. Another words a bare metal restore.

Pete

[starfish_001]

-{ Quote: "What is FD-ISR missing that you are getting from Winrollback?
If FD-ISR is rated 100, how would you rate the sum of FD-ISR and Winrollback?" }-

Winrollback would allow snapshots to be managed within snapshots. Ie install and then disacard or update snapshot .... without reboot.

Nothing that cannot be worked around or with - FD achieves same just slower

[Peter2150]

-{ Quote: "Winrollback would allow snapshots to be managed within snapshots. Ie install and then disacard or update snapshot .... without reboot.

Nothing that cannot be worked around or with - FD achieves same just slower" }-

Has anyone put Winrollback thru the wringer to see if it holds up. My hunch starfish, is that what you are thinking about will lead to problems. Acadia said it best when he said patience is an asset. Personally I'll stick with FDISR. Might be a tad slower, but it works. Rollback seemed a whole lot faster, but suddenly factor in all the chkdsk runs and the time difference went away. Then add corrupt snapshots......

[starfish_001]

-{ Quote: "Has anyone put Winrollback thru the wringer to see if it holds up. My hunch starfish, is that what you are thinking about will lead to problems. Acadia said it best when he said patience is an asset. Personally I'll stick with FDISR. Might be a tad slower, but it works. Rollback seemed a whole lot faster, but suddenly factor in all the chkdsk runs and the time difference went away. Then add corrupt snapshots......" }-

Indeed - at this point I'm almost ready to bin my RB lics and change over all three systems to FD rather than just one.

Just kicking a ball around ........

[Longboard]

'Nother interesting thread!

@starfish
-{ Quote: "What is FD-ISR missing that you are getting from Winrollback?" }-
HHMM?

@L-F mod
-{ Quote: "this would *possibly* make it more compatible with boot managers," }-
Please say BING !!

Could you look at #15 here: thats another interesting thread
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=132271

-{ Quote: "..only drawback is that with Rollback products.." }-

pfft who cares now?

-{ Quote: "If there is any one big leap in your technology it would be, having some kind of recover CD with FDISR on it and the ability to restore from an Archive directly to a new drive. Another words a bare metal restore." }-

YYEESS :) please

-{ Quote: "Indeed - at this point I'm almost ready to bin my RB lics and change over all three systems to FD rather than just one." }-
OK then...(despite all the promise, and it did look great, just hasn't happened for me with RB.)

;D
Selah
Lbd.

[gergy]

-{ Quote: "Anybody using FDISR + WinRollBack together. This combination would appear to add the good bits from Rollback into First Defense without removing anything from FD?
Only a thought..." }-

I'm using this combination, see this post. (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=683987&postcount=13) and I have not noticed any problem. My system drive C: is frozen with Winrollback, and can be updated any time (and without rebooting, except for updates involving drivers) by unprotecting the system drive. Of course, Winrollback has to be de-activated before updating, deleting or archiving a FDISR snapshot, or before booting to another snapshot.

[Peter2150]

-{ Quote: "I'm using this combination, see this post. (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=683987&postcount=13) and I have not noticed any problem. My system drive C: is frozen with Winrollback, and can be updated any time (and without rebooting, except for updates involving drivers) by unprotecting the system drive. Of course, Winrollback has to be de-activated before updating, deleting or archiving a FDISR snapshot, or before booting to another snapshot." }-

Hi Gergy

Just curious. Why do you feel you need Winrollback on top of FDISR.

Pete

[Longboard]

I respect what you have done and can sort of see why, but why this is a good option?

-{ Quote: "My system drive C: is frozen with Winrollback, and can be updated any time (and without rebooting, except for updates involving drivers) by unprotecting the system drive. Of course, Winrollback has to be de-activated before updating, deleting or archiving a FDISR snapshot, or before booting to another snapshot." }-

OOOPPS sorry just saw post from Peter.

[gergy]

-{ Quote: "I respect what you have done and can sort of see why, but why this is a good option?" }-

You mean compared to freezing the snapshot with FDISR ? Mainly because:
1) WinRollBack does not require reserved space beforehand.
2) System can be thawed without rebooting.

[Longboard]

OK
I can seethat.
I see the advantages of winrollback as stand alone utility.
I actually looked at it previously early last year, but got spooked by the thought of losing, by mistake, anything I had done in that boot cycle.
I thought your OP was about the two together.

I agree with your comments about the size of the snapshots and that was my great hope for HDS RollbackRX. Unfortunately that did not play nice with some of my older but still trusted utilities from Terabyte and appeared to have some stability problems although there is still alot of support for that option.

I would be leery of using the two apps:WRB and FD-isr together after the previous posts.
If it works for you then good.

I am hoping for either anticipated Terabyte update to include differential imaging or differential copy/cloning OR for Leapfrog to come up with the boot rescue disc which IMHO will then become a new gold standard for immediate restore and rescue options.

Regards
Lbd.

[Peter2150]

-{ Quote: "
I am hoping for either anticipated Terabyte update to include differential imaging or differential copy/cloning OR for Leapfrog to come up with the boot rescue disc which IMHO will then become a new gold standard for immediate restore and rescue options.

Regards
Lbd." }-

You sort of have that now. Image with Terabyte to an external drive. Have FDISR installed with a snapshot. Then archive a snapshot to an external drive. Then forget imaging and just refresh your FDISR archive. That just takes minutes a day. Then if disk crashes restore from even year old image. Refresh snapshots from archive and you are done. Easy.

Pete

[Longboard]

YES.

Can now reveal current master plan :blink:
I'll try and keep this clear

Dont laugh too loud please....

Since I got new external HD, BING/IFW/IFD and FDISR (and just checking Copy/Wipe to compare speed)

(way behind you guys but catching up slowly..:))

-{ Quote: "You sort of have that now. Image with Terabyte to an external drive. Have FDISR installed with a snapshot. Then archive a snapshot to an external drive. Then forget imaging and just refresh your FDISR archive. That just takes minutes a day. Then if disk crashes restore from even year old image. Refresh snapshots from archive and you are done. Easy." }-

I have taken that one step further (or back?) and been experimenting:

-Clean install of Winxp with security bits and pieces, with FDISR in one partition on ext HD.
Image/copy takes very litle time can update the XP or FDISR if needed.

-FDISR Archives on another partition on ext HD.
Refreshing archive daily or per session takes little time.

In event of calamitous internal HD loss/software catastrophe: can do full restore with loss of no more than 1 days work by moving clean XP and FDISR to internal HD or even replacing internal HD. (as long as I keep discipline; is there a command or option for archive refresh on close?)

For another fail safe I can keep full system image but it takes a little longer to image and is quite a big file.

Again, perhaps a little cumbersome and requires some partition work and FULL confidence in imaging, boot and partition manager apps:FDISR and Terabyte.

Obviously this has taken some time to set up

So far so good. Have restored system from external HD used archive and used boot manager to boot into "restored" system with no problem.

With BING from floppy (IE no MBR conflicts) I can have access to up to 8 HD and 4 primary partitions per HD. Plenty of spaces!!

The problem is the time issues (but if reliable, happy to sacrifice some time).
This is why I would like to see the boot disc from Leapfrog; would bypass some of the issues wrt time!!

Or hopefully the differential image solution mooted from Terabyte.

Another problem is my set-up is highly user dependant ie me.

Restoring to a different HD as primary will probably have activation issues etc, but this should not be too bad

On reflection I have probably managed to overcomplicate Peter's more elegant solution. thanks Peter for that. DOH :wacko:

Clear as MUD!
Out of breath now and brain hurting again.
Any comments please..
LBD

[Peter2150]

Hi Longboard

I am out of breath also.;D I am afraid I am a keep it simple person. Just one partition, two FDISR snapshots, and usually I do keep MyDocuments anchored in FDISR. It has worked for me with no data loss and no data infections. I said usually I have MyDoc's anchored, because right now I don't. I have a 3rd snapshot with MS OFfice 2007 beta in it, and I didn't want data intermingling.

Pete

[Longboard]

LOL
Thanks

How about this from my rather dense post above?:
-{ Quote: "is there a command or option for archive refresh on close" }-

Lbd.

[wilbertnl]

-{ Quote: "(as long as I keep discipline; is there a command or option for archive refresh on close?)" }-
I did a quick google:
Here is some info about logoff scripts: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/gptext_logoffscripts.mspx?mfr=true
I imagine a script that launches c:\$ISR\$APP\isrcontrol.exe with the correct parameters?
(try 'c:\$ISR\$APP\isrcontrol.exe help' to get a list of options)

[Longboard]

Wilbertnl
LOL

Thankyou.
The last program I wrote was in Fortran!
This may be difficult ;D but think of me as kindie kid to your comments as college grad!!

I'll have a look but might need more clues.

Lbd.