Rollback RX and WinRE on hard disk

[Flexigav]

Thanks guys, you have given me some guidance to play around with.

[Flexigav]

Originally Posted by aladdin

Dear Flexigav,

The Rollback Rx console appears first and then the Windows bootmenu. Basically, Rollback Rx sits on top on Windows.

EasyBCD adds entries to the Windows bootmenu, which can be done by a text editor too. Another program which adds entries to Windows bootmenu is Visual BCD Editor. Once these entries are added then EasyBCD is no longer required.

In Windows XP, the entries are added to boot.ini and in Windows Vista/7 the entries are added to the BCD Store. I believe Windows Vista/7 doesn't have boot.ini

I used to edit the boot.ini in Windows XP with a simple text editor.

Best regards,

Thank you again Aladdin. I believe I finally understand. I was confused about where the MBR boot function ended and the next stage (in the OS took over). I now understand that the MBR boot process hands over the next stage to the OS kernel to complete the boot up of that OS. Once the Kernel is initiated the OS will then consult the the Boot.ini (in Windows prior to Vista), or the BCD file in Windows after XP for configuration instructions in the final stage of the boot up process.

EasyBCD thus is a manager and editor of Windows Boot Configuration for Vista or newer Windows OS and integrates into the boot process after the kernel initialisation stage, so has no presence in the MBR, where as Rollback RX integrates into the MBR boot process, to hand over the process to its' own Kernel that in turn initiates the Windows OS kernel, managing and feeding it's own disk sector mapping info to the Windows OS. I assume the Windows OS is none the wiser and will manage this function on any partitions not shielded by Rollback RX seamlessly unaware of any difference!

[Flexigav]

I have now put Rollback RX through its' paces and was quite impressed with it. It never faulted on anything. I produced around 8 snapshots as I rolled out a new Windows setup and had no trouble continuously rolling the system back and forth. It uninstalled again without a hitch. What I overlooked was how well a hot disk image snapshot would have worked using Terabyte's IFW disk imaging program. Oh well that will be another test for another time! I now understand the principle of Rollback RX.

If I was to do a sector type image backup, I would need to know where Rollback RX puts its' snapshots to include them in the disk image backup. It sounds like a good idea to have them in a partition of their own! I believe you get to configure all this when installing Rollback RX, but only if you choose the custom set up option. The final question: Is Rollback an annual renewable license, or a one-off lifetime one?

[TheRollbackFrog]

Originally Posted by Flexigav

If I was to do a sector type image backup, I would need to know where Rollback RX puts its' snapshots to include them in the disk image backup. It sounds like a good idea to have them in a partition of their own! I believe you get to configure all this when installing Rollback RX, but only if you choose the custom set up option. The final question: Is Rollback an annual renewable license, or a one-off lifetime one?

The only way to obtain RBrx's snapshots is to image the entire partition (all SECTORs) or DISK, depending on the RBrx installation options (SYSTEM partition or whole DISK). The snapshots are not individually identifiable, and only known to exist through RBrx itself.

The ALL SECTOR image may be done COLD (outside of Windows) by most any imager that supports an ALL SECTOR or RAW backup and also saves the MBR and the rest of Track 0. The only known way to do this HOT (while running under Windows) is to use the "Image For Windows" imager and to insure that its UpperFilter (special Windows driver), PHYLOCK, is installed BEFORE RBrx's UpperFilter (SHIELD). This usually requires modification of the Windows REGISTRY and should not be attempted unless editing the Windows REGISTRY familiarity is in hand.

To the best of my knowledge, a RBrx license is a 1-time fee that allows for all upgrades within the major version that has been purchased (currently, v9 including all upgrades within v9). An upgrade to a new major version (i.e., v10) requires an additional fee, unless you are a GOLD SUPPORT customer (yearly fee) at which point major upgrades are FREE.

[Flexigav]

Thanks RollbackFrog, I looked into this, but found I would need to image every sector on a 200 GB partition and that would be an over night exercise for IFW as well as needing at least another 200Gb of free space...not practical. I guess the best practice would be to clone to an identical disk to back it all up in case of a disk failure! Cheers.

[TheRollbackFrog]

Originally Posted by Flexigav

Thanks RollbackFrog, I looked into this, but found I would need to image every sector on a 200 GB partition and that would be an over night exercise for IFW as well as needing at least another 200Gb of free space...not practical. I guess the best practice would be to clone to an identical disk to back it all up in case of a disk failure! Cheers.

Coupla items...

IFW will give you about 2:1 compression ratios on a disk with data... when you image the WHOLE disk (lots of unused space), it'll do much better due to all the unused space out there on that disk (unless it's close to full).

A lot of RBrx users, during our maintenance periods, uninstall RBrx, do any partition work needed, defrag the entire disk, then use a sector ZEROing application to zero out the unused sectors, then reInstall RBrx. After this, when you "RAW" image a disk, the eventual compression is as good as just imaging "used" sectors, mainly due to the fact that compressing ZEROed sectors is extremely efficient.

[huntnyc]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

Coupla items...

A lot of RBrx users, during our maintenance periods, uninstall RBrx, do any partition work needed, defrag the entire disk, then use a sector ZEROing application to zero out the unused sectors, then reInstall RBrx. After this, when you "RAW" image a disk, the eventual compression is as good as just imaging "used" sectors, mainly due to the fact that compressing ZEROed sectors is extremely efficient.

TheRollbackFrog,
Could you please clarify how these maintenance tasks might differ if you use RBRX on and SSD and thanks much for your many good posts on this program.

Gary

[TheRollbackFrog]

Originally Posted by huntnyc

TheRollbackFrog,

Greetings!

Originally Posted by huntnyc

Could you please clarify how these maintenance tasks might differ if you use RBRX on and SSD and thanks much for your many good posts on this program.

Gary... partitioning work on any disk, HDD or SSD, is an absolute no-no on a RBrx-based system. Rollback knows (upon installation) where those partitions are and they must remain that way as long as RBrx is active. With RBrx unInstalled, that work may easily be done as RBrx will re-learn upon installation.

Defragmenting an SSD is not required ever... it is a non-rotating storage media and as such, repositioning of file sectors to speed up disk access is not required. Even Windows 7, upon installation, will deactivate disk defragmentation on any partition it finds to be an SSD. If the SSD is integrated into that system without a W7 clean install, it's up to the user to insure that the SSD partition/disk is deselected for defragmentation in the Windows defragmenting sub-system. Active defragmentation under the OS will eventually wear out your SSD prematurely.

ZEROing out unused sectors under a properly installed SSD is also not required. With the TRIM function being active on an SSD under W7, eventually the SSD will ZERO out the unused sector during its own internal garbage collection function. This is why "undeleter" applications do not work if you wait too long with an SSD. Unused magnetic disk sectors will retain data until the sector is used again or until the system purposely changes that data for other reasons (ZEROing unused sectors, etc.). With a properly configured SSD, this does not happen. The "recently deleted" sector will retain that data only for a short time until the SSD internal controller "cleans" it up.

[Flexigav]

Originally Posted by TheRollbackFrog

Coupla items...

IFW will give you about 2:1 compression ratios on a disk with data... when you image the WHOLE disk (lots of unused space), it'll do much better due to all the unused space out there on that disk (unless it's close to full).

A lot of RBrx users, during our maintenance periods, uninstall RBrx, do any partition work needed, defrag the entire disk, then use a sector ZEROing application to zero out the unused sectors, then reInstall RBrx. After this, when you "RAW" image a disk, the eventual compression is as good as just imaging "used" sectors, mainly due to the fact that compressing ZEROed sectors is extremely efficient.

Ok, this is quite technical to me! I gather when you uninstall Rollback RX you elect to retain the snapshots and that the Zeroing tool does not see these snapshots as unallocated sectors, so will not zero them out as well!

I'm thinking that Rollback RX uses the standard file allocation information that the OS uses, so it will be updated during a defrag and when Rollback RX is re-installed it learns of this, but if it is updated while Rollback RX is in place, RBRX is not aware of this sector update and problems develop. In other words RBRX does not have a re-learn button!

Thinking deeper, it seems like the learning process upon re-installation might involve RBRX having to modify all its' existing snapshots to match its' updated internal database that is itself updated to match the system one during its' learning phase! If so it does this very quickly!

My biggest fear would be something corrupting a snapshot...bad disk sector, malware attack, or any targeted sabotage attack. I like to have backup!