Anyone heard from HDS - re Rollback?

Again, I want to say that I'm really trying hard to remain constructive about this issue. So I've decided to download this build and will install it after I create a disk-image this eve.

I will post my experiences with it (and trust that anyone else willing to try it will do the same). This will be my final 'beta-testing' of this product.

Fwiw, here are the Release Notes for the latest build...

 

@pvsurfer- I very much appreciate that you are continuing to work with Rollback software. I really really liked this program when I was running WinME, & never had a problem with it.

As to the well-know issue of incompatibility between Rollback & ATI, Ghost etc -- I wonder if RB would be incompatibile with Image for DOS (IFD), inasmuch as IFD works completely outside of Windows? Any opinions?

As to demanding a refund -- I won't do that. It looks like RB folks are still trying to resolve the problems with RB, even if they aren't answering the mail. That being the case, bombarding them with demands for refunds won't help them solve the problems, & might even cause them to cut & run (chapter 11 for instance). So far I have only ever heard of two programs that are doing the quick-recovery bit -- Rollback & FDISR. I really would hate to see one of them die off.

Besides which -- Rollback's ability to make such small snapshots so quickly is nothing short of a miracle in my book. FDISR -- as great as they are -- can't do the same thing. Not yet, at least. If RB solves its issues, it will be one bloody wonderful tool.

I won't use Rollback for the moment, because of this thread & others like it. I can't use FDISR because no matter what I do (2 downloads from 2 different sources, & 3 installs/uninstalls) -- FDISR always comes up "disabled."

Soooo -- for now, is there any alternative program that works even SORTA like Rollback or FDISR?

 

You have Norton Goback
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ngb40

If you search this forum you can propably find opinions about it.

I presume you dont have any sort of application firewall, HIPS (or some other program that could prevent services from starting/installing) running.
If you do, I guess you already whitelisted Firstdefence during install and start? (ISRMonitor.exe and ISRService.exe)

 

bellgamin~ While I have had my share of major problems with Rollback, I never had any difficulty using it with ATI. Specifically, what were the problems you experienced in that regard? ~pv

 

I don't even understand why any image backup software should have a problem with RB or FDISR.
ATI takes a complete image of your harddisk, including the MBR that has been changed by RB or FDISR.

If you don't restore the MBR and only the partition you are in trouble.
In case of FDISR it was easy to solve, because you only had to enable the Preboot in FDISR.
I figured that out with Peter. I remember that thread very well.

If you do restore the MBR there is no problem at all. I've done this so many times.

I assume that it's the same for all image backup softwares, but you have to do the restoration correctly and I had also problems in the beginning with the restoration, but I can't blame ATI for my mistakes.

 

I completely agree with you Eric, but after much testing with both apps I would add one other caveat regarding the use of ATI with RB...

You must create the ATI image from within Windows if you want to capture your current RB snapshot (if you use ATI's recovery CD to creat the image, it will capture your baseline snapshot)!

 

That's weird man. Of course I don't use the ATI Recovery CD for backup, because it takes longer than ATI under Windows.
I'm quite sure I've done this test : backup with the Recovery CD and then restore the image with FDISR on it, without noticing any problem.

I don't know about RB, because I never had it on my computer, but I would have noticed it, just like you.

I know that ATI Recovery CD has several little other problems, which don't occur in ATI under Windows :
- my AZERTY keyboard acts like a QWERTY-keyboard, only Europeans will notice this.
- wrong partition letters, but it does the backup and restore correct.
- it says I have SCSI, which isn't true.
- the backup is slow and at the Acronis Forum, they tell me it's a driver issue.
Yesterday I installed the latest drivers, but I don't think it will make a difference, because I assume that the latest drivers are also included in the latest build 3677. I also created a new Recovery CD
Nevertheless, I'm going to do a backup again with the Recovery CD and see if there is a difference in speed.

The backup has always been slower with the Recovery CD, but the restore was 2 minutes faster with the Recovery CD, than with ATI under Windows, which is also weird. Not really a problem for me, except that I don't understand it.

 

Hi ErikAlbert
Instead of ATI which is too unreliable on my system, i have Shadow Protect (the maker of ShadowUser) installed... and strange ... with the boot disk both backing-up and restoration are dramatically faster: 35GB on 3 partitions saved in less than 17min on an external USB hard drive. Restoration (which gives you the choice to restore the XP MBR or the current one!), it is even more faster...
Under windows, i assume that resident security softwares may have an impact on the speed with SP.
Personnally, i prefer a good and fast boot disk to recover in case of big catastrophy.
Cheers,
Hervé

 

I don't understand it either Eric, but it's a fact. I've tested it a few times over (with a few different ATI builds)!

I only mentioned it because some folks over at the ATI forum believe that backup-reliability is greater (albeit slower) using the recovery CD than doing it in Windows because it uses Linux and therefore no Windows files are opened. Personally, I've never had a problem restoring an ATI backup that was created in Windows.

 

Thanks for the info, but even when it's true on MY computer, I'm not going to replace ATI. I paid for it and
it does its job very good. So I don't have any good reason to ditch ATI.

I also solved the problem of resident security softwares.
I created with FDISR a special snapshot that is constantly OFF-LINE (my internet connection is disabled).
This special snapshot has no security softwares at all, not even a firewall, because I don't need it.
At the end of the day I boot in that snapshot and do all my backups with ATI and FDISR.
I also use that snapshot for burning DVD/CD's.
I also use that snapshot to do my job and hobbies, because this is a very quiet environment without any interruption caused my security messages or popup windows and that's good for me because I don't lose my concentration anymore.
It's one of the best things I've done with FDISR until now.

 

I believe you.
According my tests there is no difference between backup files (.tib-files) created with ATI under Windows and the Recovery CD. I've tested each possible combination for backup and restore, using ATI and CD and each time it worked fine.

Meanwhile I did a backup with the Recovery CD again and nothing changed like I expected.
The backup lasted 25 minuts and without verification and it takes only 12 minutes with ATI under Windows, including verification. So there still a big difference in speed.

Working with ATI under Windows is more convenient for me. I don't like using the Recovery CD.
All my backups are scheduled, but they don't start automatically.
I only scheduled them, because I don't want to make any mistakes in choosing the source and target.
I also verify my backup files AFTER backup and verify my backup files BEFORE restoration.

In other words I do my backups and restorations in the very best circumstances and I don't have all these problems, mentioned in the Acronis Forums. Sometimes I think the user is the problem instead of ATI.

 

I did better than that. After turning off my router, I disabled all my security apps.

I wasn't running ATI at the time I ran RB. I based my statement on the following post quoted by someone (don't recall who) from RB's forum...

I have no idea what that means exactly. I stopped reading when I got to the part about uninstalling RB before restoring.

As to RestoreIt - I took a look at their website. It appears to me that RestoreIt primarily competes with programs such as ATI, rather than with Rollback & FDISR. PLEASE correct me if I am wrong.

At present I am using ATI plus Image For DOS (IFD) to make images. I really really like the fact that IFD works outside of Windows. The support at Terabyte is so fast it's almost like being on a chat line. The Techie I have dealt with so far is David. Excellent!

 

Eric, remember that my comment about when not to use the ATI recovery CD was strictly when RB is installed on your system. Othewise, I would agree with you that using ATI from Windows or its Linux CD has made no difference in my tests.

Throughout versions 8 and 9, ATI has been and remains the most reliable disaster-recovery (disk-imaging) software I've tried. The instant-recovery apps are convenient, but won't do you much good if you can't even boot to the app's sub-console!

 

Yes you are incorrect. RestoreIT falls into the 'instant-recovery' type of software (like GB, RB, FDISR, etc). It is NOT a disk-imaging program (such as ATI, IFW, Ghost, etc.) and therefore it is really not intended for 'disaster-recovery'.

 

Hi pvsurfer
You are both correct and incorrect! LOL
RestoreIt 7 is indeed an "instant" recovery type of software like FDISR, RollBack etc... BUT it also INTEGRATES a module that enables you to perform a full imaging backup of your disk (with all your snapshots preserved), like ATI and the like.
Restoration of the compressed image with the saved MBR can be done from windows, before the system starts or through a boot disk.
IMveryHO, it is a FULL complete disaster-recovery program, an all-in-one solution that i have been using for more than 2 months with entire satisfaction.
Cheers,
Hervé

 

Hi there Hervé~ As always, my comments are based soley on my experience. Late last year (Dec), I tried RestoreIT, installing it and running it through my battery of 'acid-tests'. While it seemed to work fine as an instant-restore app, the module you are speaking of failed to restore my system to a 'virgin' HDD (which is what you would want it to do if your system-drive crashed)!

Thank goodness I made an ATI disk-image before installing RestoreIT, as I had difficulty removing it from my MBR. The final coup-de-gras was that it totally refused to co-exist with ATI (as a matter of fact, of the 4 instant-restore apps that I've tried, it was the only one that absolutely would not co-exist with ATI).

~pv

 

Thank you pvsurfer for your reply .
Indeed if you want to restore the image created by the imaging backup module of RestoreIT on another NEW hard disk, this function of RestoreIT is useless..
You are quite right.
That's why weekly, i also backup my disks with Shadow Protect (more reliable and faster on my system than ATI ) in the event of a disk disaster that would require a replacement.
In fact, backups and restorations are my main priority, long way before any other security programs...
That's why i put such an emphasis on this matter in many of my posts.
Cheers,
Hervé

PS: If you want to uninstall RestoreIt and restore your MBR, you must first uninstall the software, then DELETE the hidden partition with Partition Magic for example and resize the partition where RestoreIT took space to create its hidden partition with a partition manager capable to preserve your data when modifying. This will restore your MBR.
With Shadow Protect, there is a nice function you can choose to enable before a restore. It gives you the choice to keep your current MBR or restore the XP one. Very usefull indeed with all the softwares that modify your MBR!

 

Hervé, what are the major differences between ShadowProtect and ShadowUser?

 

Pvsurfer...except that they belong to the same company now: NOTHING in common.
ShadowSurfer, as Osaban explained it very clearly in another topic in this forum, is an emergency virtualization software that keeps all your data in a virtualized part. They can be written back to the system whenever you choose to. When you reboot, you can preserve or clean everything that happened during the session prior to the system restart... All this is roughly explained. Osaban could give more detailed information about it.

As for Shadow Protect, it is a true imaging backup software like ATI but much better IMHO.
You have more options with it: VPN, table inspection, MBR restored to the one you choose etc...
It is faster than ATI to backup and restore: i can save 35GB of the 3 partitions of my primary disk in a RELIABLE compressed image on an external USB Hard drive , within 17 min... Restoration is even faster. The compression rate is impressive: the image size is 10GB for 35GB saved!
On my system, it's more reliable than ATI. With the boot disk, the access to the interface is very fast compared to the one of ATI, i can use my USB mouse at last and SP preserves the letters of each partition.
On the other hand, it has ALL the functions that ATI has. The GUI is a true clone of the one created by ATI. LOL
I hope this post will help you to have a more precise idea about these softwares.
Cheers,
Hervé

 

How much would be the time taken if u use ATI in this case?

How nuch in case of ATI?

Thanks.

 

Thanks for the explanation. However, I asked about ShadowUser and not ShadowSurfer, but I suppose that your explanation is still correct.

I'll have to checkout ShadowProtect, it sounds impressive...

 

I filled-out the online form for a full eval and fwiw, I noticed that the product has to be activated (which is likely to introduce its own problems)!

 

Rollback Rx Pro 'Beta-Test' Update:

As mentioned in a pevious post (before this thread got side-tracked!), I decided to install and test the latest RBx build (dated July 18th). This is what I've done so far...

I created several snapshots and restored a few without incident. Then with a few apps still open, I powered-down without doing a shutdown and sure enough, that created a dirty-disk situation on my subsequent reboot. However, rather than allow chkdsk to repair the problems, I again rebooted, entered the RBx sub-console and restored the snapshot I created prior to powering-down. It restored perfectly (as it should)!

This new build of RBx has only been installed on my PC for 35 hours, but so far, so good... I plan on creating a new ATI image this eve before doing anything more severe!

Cheers, pv

 

Hi PVSurfer,

Thanks for testing this version of Rollback Rx. I am also happy to finally heard some good things, for the moment... Waiting for your next tests!

Best regards,
Atomas31