Kudos to IFW-IFL-IFD

[TheRollbackFrog]

Originally Posted by aladdin

Dear Froggie,

This is where Rollback Rx is the most vulnerable, either when installing Rollback Rx and/or updating Rollback Rx to a new baseline. And, Rollback Rx doesn't give you any warning that the baseline (parent) is messed up, therefore I will go on creating snapshots (children) for longer than months and wouldn't know this failure, until the system is crashed and Rollback Rx then cannot restore it!

Lots and lots of work, data, update, deletions, installations and so forth being lost.

Best regards,

Hi Alladin (AKA you know who )!

You mention all that horrible stuff above and all that horrible work to be done, but you fail to mention that folks, including yourself, do IMAGE your system regularly... I know I do. And that imaging keeps me from having to do all that horrible stuff you mention above when there's an anomaly with your protection. When I do have to recover, the process is not very painful due to that IMAGE backup.

I know you don't like Rollback very much due to your recent experience (I personally believe that HDS deserves your rath way more than Rollback does), but there's really no reason to "conveniently" not mention complimentary technologies that do protect a user against such anomalies. Regular system imaging is probably the single most important technology any user can use to protect their system configuration... and if that configuration changes often, imaging should be done often, regardless of any other tools used for system protection (ISRs, light virtualization, AV, AM, AS, etc.).

And, of course, any PARENT/CHILD relationship, especially in any kind of database (which Rollback snapshot mgmt really is) is only as good as the PARENT. Database admins have known this for years and protect themselves accordingly (how? With backups, of course )

If these technologies are not in use, and we experience a horrible system failure... what we do get out of these episodes is valuable knowledge (and some bruised ego after having dealt with the failure). We LEARN, CORRECT, then MOVE ON (I've done this many times )

[aladdin]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

Hi Alladin (AKA you know who )!

You mention all that horrible stuff above and all that horrible work to be done, but you fail to mention that folks, including yourself, do IMAGE your system regularly... I know I do. And that imaging keeps me from having to do all that horrible stuff you mention above when there's an anomaly with your protection. When I do have to recover, the process is not very painful due to that IMAGE backup.

I know you don't like Rollback very much due to your recent experience (I personally believe that HDS deserves your rath way more than Rollback does), but there's really no reason to "conveniently" not mention complimentary technologies that do protect a user against such anomalies. Regular system imaging is probably the single most important technology any user can use to protect their system configuration... and if that configuration changes often, imaging should be done often, regardless of any other tools used for system protection (ISRs, light virtualization, AV, AM, AS, etc.).

And, of course, any PARENT/CHILD relationship, especially in any kind of database (which Rollback snapshot mgmt really is) is only as good as the PARENT. Database admins have known this for years and protect themselves accordingly (how? With backups, of course )

If these technologies are not in use, and we experience a horrible system failure... what we do get out of these episodes is valuable knowledge (and some bruised ego after having dealt with the failure). We LEARN, CORRECT, then MOVE ON (I've done this many times )

Dear Froggie.

You write so well, and no one can argue the way you write. A true talent!

Best regard,

KOR!

[2YsUR]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

...
I know you don't like Rollback very much due to your recent experience (I personally believe that HDS deserves your rath way more than Rollback does), but there's really no reason to "conveniently" not mention complimentary technologies that do protect a user against such anomalies. Regular system imaging is probably the single most important technology any user can use to protect their system configuration... and if that configuration changes often, imaging should be done often, regardless of any other tools used for system protection (ISRs, light virtualization, AV, AM, AS, etc.)....

I fully agree and would add that just as some users of imaging software run a test to make sure it works, users of RBrx can do a simple test by creating a snap and then restoring to the same snap. This will show if there are problems with the index pointers or corrupt files somewhere in the chain. Of course you should have a good image file as a backup.

I understand that no software is perfect so I use both RBrx and an imaging program as two different lines of defense.

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by aladdin

This is where Rollback Rx is the most vulnerable, either when installing Rollback Rx and/or updating Rollback Rx to a new baseline. And, Rollback Rx doesn't give you any warning that the baseline (parent) is messed up, therefore I will go on creating snapshots (children) for longer than months and wouldn't know this failure, until the system is crashed and Rollback Rx then cannot restore it!

Originally Posted by 2YsUR

I fully agree and would add that just as some users of imaging software run a test to make sure it works, users of RBrx can do a simple test by creating a snap and then restoring to the same snap. This will show if there are problems with the index pointers or corrupt files somewhere in the chain. Of course you should have a good image file as a backup.

With all due respect, you guys are definitely missing the point here. RollBack's baseline snapshot was not corrupt when it was created (at the time of RollBack's installation). Nor was it corrupt over the ensuing 2 weeks that other incremental snapshots were created. I know this because during that time there were several instances when I rolled-back to prior snaps and then rolled-forward to my current snap without any issues whatsoever!

It was when I subsequently encountered that BSOD that restoring my RollBack snaps failed (snaps which had previously worked perfectly)!!! ...and the rest is as reported in my prior posts...

TS

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by aladdin

This is where Rollback Rx is the most vulnerable, either when installing Rollback Rx and/or updating Rollback Rx to a new baseline. And, Rollback Rx doesn't give you any warning that the baseline (parent) is messed up, therefore I will go on creating snapshots (children) for longer than months and wouldn't know this failure, until the system is crashed and Rollback Rx then cannot restore it!

Originally Posted by 2YsUR

I fully agree and would add that just as some users of imaging software run a test to make sure it works, users of RBrx can do a simple test by creating a snap and then restoring to the same snap. This will show if there are problems with the index pointers or corrupt files somewhere in the chain. Of course you should have a good image file as a backup.

With all due respect, you guys are definitely missing the point here. RollBack's baseline snapshot was not corrupt when it was created (at the time of RollBack's installation). Nor was it corrupt over the ensuing 2 weeks that other "children" snapshots were created. I know this because there were several instances where I rolled-back to prior snaps and then rolled-forward to my current snap without any issues whatsoever!

It was when I encountered that BSOD two days ago that restoring my RollBack snaps failed (snaps which had previously worked perfectly)!!! ...and the rest is as reported in my prior posts.

TS

[aladdin]

Originally Posted by The Shadow

With all due respect, you guys are definitely missing the point here. RollBack's baseline snapshot was not corrupt when it was created (at the time of RollBack's installation). Nor was it corrupt over the ensuing 2 weeks that other "children" snapshots were created. I know this because there were several instances where I rolled-back to prior snaps and then rolled-forward to my current snap without any issues whatsoever!

It was when I encountered that BSOD two days ago that restoring my RollBack snaps failed (snaps which had previously worked perfectly)!!! ...and the rest is as reported in my prior posts.

TS

And, for the above reason I posted the following:

This is where Rollback Rx is the most vulnerable, either when installing Rollback Rx and/or updating Rollback Rx to a new baseline. And, Rollback Rx doesn't give you any warning that the baseline (parent) is messed up, therefore I will go on creating snapshots (children) for longer than months and wouldn't know this failure, until the system is crashed and Rollback Rx then cannot restore it!

Lots and lots of work, data, update, deletions, installations and so forth being lost.

Suddenly, imaging the drive is being made the issue. Imaging the drive has nothing to do with the above!

And of course, it was imaging that saved you, therefore no need to talk about complimentary technology. What is being discussed above is the failure of Rollback Rx, that is the core issue.

Best regards,

[The Shadow]

Hi aladdin, I will again quote you (underlining your key statement which does not apply to my issue):

Originally Posted by aladdin

This is where Rollback Rx is the most vulnerable, either when installing Rollback Rx and/or updating Rollback Rx to a new baseline. And, Rollback Rx doesn't give you any warning that the baseline (parent) is messed up, therefore I will go on creating snapshots (children) for longer than months and wouldn't know this failure, until the system is crashed and Rollback Rx then cannot restore it!

As I have stated, RollBack's baseline and ensuing snaps worked perfectly for the 2-weeks prior to my BSOD incident. During that time I never updated the baseline. The original baseline (and all ensuing snaps) were corrupted around the time of the BSOD incident.

TS

[2YsUR]

Originally Posted by The Shadow

With all due respect, you guys are definitely missing the point here. RollBack's baseline snapshot was not corrupt when it was created (at the time of RollBack's installation). Nor was it corrupt over the ensuing 2 weeks that other "children" snapshots were created. I know this because there were several instances where I rolled-back to prior snaps and then rolled-forward to my current snap without any issues whatsoever!

It was when I encountered that BSOD two days ago that restoring my RollBack snaps failed (snaps which had previously worked perfectly)!!! ...and the rest is as reported in my prior posts.

OK, I got it now. Sorry for misunderstanding. So this was a sudden and catastrophic failure of Rollback rx.

[2YsUR]

Originally Posted by The Shadow

...
It is the capability to restore an IFW backup by booting into WinPE (IFW), DOS (IFD), or Linux (IFL). While WinPE (with IFW) may be the easiest of the 3 to use I just ran into 'a BSOD situation' where WinPE could not find my C-partition!!!

The great news was that IFL was able to see my C-partition (as well as the backup image on my external drive) and successfully restored my system. So being able to use any one of 3 different OS environments to boot into is a very valuable asset.

Macrium Reflect allows the user to create a WinPE or Linux boot CD. I chose to create one of each and hope the Linux CD will work as well for me as Linux did for you should I encounter a similar situation.

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by 2YsUR

OK, I got it now. Sorry for misunderstanding. So this was a sudden and catastrophic failure of Rollback rx.

Absolutely correct.

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by 2YsUR

Macrium Reflect allows the user to create a WinPE or Linux boot CD. I chose to create one of each and hope the Linux CD will work as well for me as Linux did for you should I encounter a similar situation.

Other than what I've read in these forums I don't know much about Macrium, other than it supposedly being slower than some others (like IFW).

Based on my recent situation I can attest to the value of having more than one OS boot environment available for such emergencies!!!

TS

[aladdin]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

I know you don't like Rollback very much due to your recent experience (I personally believe that HDS deserves your rath way more than Rollback does), ......

Due to Rollback Rx, my two computers are still suffering:

1. Recovery Environment System is not working on them. I am still unable to fix this after spending quite a few hours, short of formatting them.

2. I purchased family license for Total Uninstall for one year during August last year for a hefty price. After few months, on uninstalling any software, it started to give, "catastrophic error". I gave up on it and purchased Revo Uninstaller PRO. Two months ago, upgraded v6 came out. I couldn't activate the software as it kept on giving error, "trying to activate from Oman, though bought in USA". So, I contacted the developer about activation. Then told him that that program is not working. After both of us spending days, he figured out that the "Task Scheduler" was not working due to corrupt registry entries. The software one year free update is over in one month or so.

I don't know what else is wrong with my laptops, everyday I am finding out something new. With these daily reminders, it is hard to move on from the failures of Rollback Rx.

Best regards,

[TheRollbackFrog]

Originally Posted by The Shadow

With all due respect, you guys are definitely missing the point here. RollBack's baseline snapshot was not corrupt when it was created (at the time of RollBack's installation). Nor was it corrupt over the ensuing 2 weeks that other "children" snapshots were created. I know this because there were several instances where I rolled-back to prior snaps and then rolled-forward to my current snap without any issues whatsoever!

It was when I encountered that BSOD two days ago that restoring my RollBack snaps failed (snaps which had previously worked perfectly)!!! ...and the rest is as reported in my prior posts.

Clearly, based on the above, whatever may have caused the BSOD, apparently trashed the Rollback PARENT thereby trashing all the subsequent CHILDREN.

I know you can't go back, but all info concerning that BSOD may have led (with some superior technical HELP) you (us) to a real reason for your catastrophic failure. It appears something out of Rollback's realm (hardware glitch, maybe) started this whole thing. And it's not the case than many of us have NEVER had a BSOD of some kind ... it's part and parcel of owning/using a Windows system.

As for Alladin, from the gist of everything he's written both here and over in the RBrx forum... he appears to have been a victim of installing the wrong version of Rollback (SSD's non-supported) on his three SSD-based systems. This was not his fault... HDS led him to believe he was getting the right version for use with an SSD. That's why I believe his anger/wrath should be directed there. Those of us that were able to get the right SSD version have had no problem with Rollback's operation on protecting an SSD, albeit maybe in an unorthodox way by HDS.

It's a real shame that the bad press being posted concerning Rollback may have such a judgemental effect on potential users. Rollback is a very good program... but it is not God (Allah) in the area of protecting systems, but it is very useful to most of its users.

[aladdin]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

It's a real shame that the bad press being posted concerning Rollback may have such a judgemental effect on potential users. Rollback is a very good program... but it is not God (Allah) in the area of protecting systems, but it is very useful to most of its users.

Finally, you speak the language of Prince of Peace, Jesus (a.s.), who calls God, Allah in the New Testament (KJV and NIV). Jesus never spoke Hebrew to his discpiles as Hebrew was a dead language, long, long before Jesus was born. And, Hebrew was revived from Arabic in 19th Century by Ibn Israeli.

Should I say Hallelujah, or Allelujah!

Best regards,

King of Rapture in Honor of Price of Peace, Jesus (a.s.)

BTW, both al-elah (allah) and eloh are feminine nouns. Go Figure!

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

I used a simple FREEWARE tool called BootICE.

TRF,

Thanks for that. I use TBOSDT, the "copy sectors" command.

[pandlouk]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

It's a real shame that the bad press being posted concerning Rollback may have such a judgemental effect on potential users. Rollback is a very good program... but it is not God (Allah) in the area of protecting systems, but it is very useful to most of its users.

The main problem with RbRx is their own advertising.
http://www.horizondatasys.com/169614.ihtml

Reverse any system crash (even if Windows can't startup)
Backout of any failed software installations, botched update etc.
Reverse user errors manually, or set Restore-on-Reboot or Log-off
Roll back minutes, hours, or even months.
Roll backwards and forwards to any system snapshot
Allows users to safely test any software. Fast, 100% clean uninstaller
Roll-back, yet recover files from your "future" snapshot(s)
Retrieve files from a crashed PC, even if Windows can not boot
Access control - prevent unauthorized users from access
Automatically schedule snapshots or hard drive restores
Day Zero Disaster Recovery with no data loss
Group Management and Enterprise Network Administration Control

When it works everything is fine and their lucky customers become great fans of the program and the company.
But when it fails it simply does not deliver the highlighted lines and the unfortunate customers loose their valuable data with no way to recover because they do not provide the tools ,not to successfully but the OS, but at least a way to recover some of their data.
The unlucky ones are suddenly awaken from the dream of "Day Zero Disaster Recovery with no data loss" to the reality of complete data loss, caused not from a virus, but from the same program that was supposed to protect them!

Panagiotis

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

Clearly, based on the above, whatever may have caused the BSOD, apparently trashed the Rollback PARENT thereby trashing all the subsequent CHILDREN.

I know you can't go back, but all info concerning that BSOD may have led (with some superior technical HELP) you (us) to a real reason for your catastrophic failure. It appears something out of Rollback's realm (hardware glitch, maybe) started this whole thing. And it's not the case than many of us have NEVER had a BSOD of some kind ... it's part and parcel of owning/using a Windows system.

As for Alladin, from the gist of everything he's written both here and over in the RBrx forum... he appears to have been a victim of installing the wrong version of Rollback (SSD's non-supported) on his three SSD-based systems. This was not his fault... HDS led him to believe he was getting the right version for use with an SSD. That's why I believe his anger/wrath should be directed there. Those of us that were able to get the right SSD version have had no problem with Rollback's operation on protecting an SSD, albeit maybe in an unorthodox way by HDS.

It's a real shame that the bad press being posted concerning Rollback may have such a judgemental effect on potential users. Rollback is a very good program... but it is not God (Allah) in the area of protecting systems, but it is very useful to most of its users.

I can't (nor shouldn't) speak for aladdin and the reasons for his disdain of RollBack. My sole intention in starting this thread was to praise IFW and its siblings (it was the only thing able to 'make my day'). In no way was my intention to bad-mouth RollBack. RollBack failed to do the very job it professes to do in this situation, and that's just a matter of fact.

Clearly I'm a RollBack noob, but I know enough about PCs to have recognized the following re my incident:

- RollBack failed to do its job - because it obviously did (could) not protect its own baseline snap!

- The repair option in Win7's installation disk reported that it could not repair the problem.

- WinPE could not even 'see' my C-partition (which really freaked me out)!!!

- Both IFD and IFL found my C-partition and successfully restored my IFW backup image.

TS

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by pandlouk

...The unlucky ones are suddenly awaken from the dream of "Day Zero Disaster Recovery with no data loss" to the reality of complete data loss, caused not from a virus, but from the same program that was supposed to protect them!

Panagiotis

Panagiotis, that's really profound (and very possibly true)! While I'll never know if RollBack itself caused my catastrophic incident, there can be little arguement that in this event it failed to do the very job it professes to do. It wasn't even able to protect its own baseline snapshot, which I find reprehensible!

TS

[pandlouk]

Originally Posted by The Shadow

Panagiotis, that's really profound (and very possibly true)! While I'll never know if RollBack itself caused my catastrophic incident, there can be little arguement that in this event it failed to do the very job it professes to do. It wasn't even able to protect its own baseline snapshot, which I find reprehensible!

TS

The problems with RollBack RX are that when something like your experience happens:
- the user has no way to troubleshoot or retrieve a dump file to pin-point the problem. So he cannot know what caused it and this means that cannot provide valuable info to the developers to fix it.
- has no way to recover the files lost. Horizon used to provide a program able to load the snapshots from outside (run from another disk or from winpe) but when they updated from 8 to 8.1 and later to 9.x it could not work. I don't know if they finally updated it but such program should be included and provided with the RBrx installation or in the download section of every customer, without having to contact their support and specifically requesting it.

Panagiotis

[pandlouk]

Originally Posted by The Shadow

It wasn't even able to protect its own baseline snapshot, which I find reprehensible!

Unless they include a way to protect the disk from direct disk writes (that bypass their driver) RBrx will never be able to protect anything on the disk from a program or a virus that does not uses Windows APIs when writing.

Panagiotis

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by pandlouk

Unless they include a way to protect the disk from direct disk writes (that bypass their driver) RBrx will never be able to protect anything on the disk from a program or a virus that does not uses Windows APIs when writing.

Panagiotis

To that very subject, under System Security in RollBack Rx's User Manual the following is stated (my underlining):

B. Disable malicious direct disk IO.

RollBack Rx, like all other software based system protection and recovery software, uses Windows kernel mode file filter drivers to collaborate with Windows IO system to monitor and protect data. By Windows’ design, all programs working in Windows should process its IO through Windows IO system, therefore the IOs are properly monitored by 3rd party filter drivers. What if malicious software that tries to write to the hard drive directly without going through Windows IO system and therefore bypass all filter drivers? It will defeat the purpose of 3rd party filter drivers and most likely damage the system. Windows tries its best to block such malicious direct disk IOs. RollBack Rx’s Disable malicious direct disk IO features provides an extra layer of protection against such malicious disk IOs.

But that option is nowhere to be found in the current version of RollBack Rx, so how does a user enable it?

TS

[pandlouk]

You cannot. It used to be under the security tab but since it never actually worked (I had some via chipset based motherboards that I could enable it) they have taken it out. In the EAZ-FIX it should still exist as an option...

Panagiotis

[The Shadow]

Originally Posted by pandlouk

You cannot. It used to be under the security tab but since it never actually worked (I had some via chipset based motherboards that I could enable it) they have taken it out. In the EAZ-FIX it should still exist as an option...

Panagiotis

Hmm, in that case you would think they would have also removed that from their user-manual.

Do I understand correctly that you once used Rollback Rx but no longer do? If that's correct, would you mind sharing your reason for abandoning it? Have you replaced it with anything else (I see in your sig that you use Keriver 1CR)?

Regards,

TS

[pandlouk]

Originally Posted by The Shadow

Hmm, in that case you would think they would have also removed that from their user-manual.

Do I understand correctly that you once used Rollback Rx but no longer do? If that's correct, would you mind sharing your reason for abandoning it? Have you replaced it with anything else (I see in your sig that you use Keriver 1CR)?

Regards,

TS

I have 1 license of RollBackRx 8.1, 1 of Rollback RX 9.1 and 1 of EAZ-FIX 9.1.

Correct, I no longer use them (except from one laptop that I use it to play around with new software, and I don't care about any files on it).
The reason is quite simple, I bought them to make my life easier and to babysit my systems when I test software. Not the other way around.
- If RBRX fails I have to use raw data recovery programs and pray that they'll be able to identify my lost files, which on disks that are greater than 1tb is a very time consuming task.
- If you create lots of snapshots (e.g. 1 every hour) you will notice that your pc becomes slower, because of the heavy fragmentation (snapshot fragmentation not visible to the user).

Keriver 1CR is an imaging program not an ISR, even though Horizon sells a rebranded server version of it as "RollBack Rx™Server Edition".

If you want an ISR with the capabilities of RBrx, I suggest that you stick to Windows SystemRestore combined with System Restore manage v2.0 and System Restore Explorer .
Not that SystemRestore is bulletproof or it won't fail to restore, but at least when it will happen you'll be able to easily recover your current data with any linux live or Windows PE bootable media.

ps. SystemRestore on Vista, 7 and 8 is much better than it was on Me and XP. When it fails the problem usually is caused by the antivirus/firewall/suite and thei integrated HIPS.

Panagiotis

[aladdin]

Originally Posted by pandlouk

If you want an ISR with the capabilities of RBrx, I suggest that you stick to Windows SystemRestore combined with System Restore manage v2.0 and System Restore Explorer .

Panagiotis

Dear Panagiotis,

Excellent and FREE solution, without much headaches and drain on resources. Already, downloaded the above utilities and some more which were at the Windows Club.

We keep on learning from you. You were not so active for a while and missed your informative posts.

Best regards,

KOR!

P.S. Good to see you back!