Rollback revisited

Based on continuously encouraging reports from pvsurfer on THIS thread, I decided to begin using Rollback again.

When I tried to activate RB, I encountered problems. I posted a support request at HDS at ~1435 hours Pacific time on Saturday August 5,2006. I had a reply from HDS (Mike Samuelson) at 1507 hours Pacific time, same day. His guidance quickly fixed my activation problem.

I again am using Rollback & am having good success. I want to express my sincere thanks to Mike of HDS, & most especially to pvsurfer of the Wilders denizens.

 

But i feel it really bad that when u have purchased a softwre ,why u need to mal them each time u reinstall it( i had to do it every time).

 

@bellgamin

If you are using IFW/IFD there may be problems with Rollback
If you install BING to MBR there will certainly be problems.

Ask terabyte by e-mail.
Regards.

 

Per your comment, I have posted a question to the IFD newsgroup. Terabyte support folks usually hang out there regularly, plus there are some very well-informed users in that group.

If I don't hear something in a day or two, I will send a message to Terabyte's support.

I hope that IFD & Rollback will not conflict with one another. I do know that IFD does NOT image the MBR or mess with the MBR in any way. See the posts at THIS thread. Be sure to click "Next" on that thread in order to view the successive comments.

Does anyone here have experience with using IFD and Rollback together?

 

BING/IFD do not alter the MBR when used from the installation/boot disc.

 

It would be very UNLOGICAL that there would be a problem with IFD and RollbackRx.
IFD restores an .IMG-file, just like ATI restores a .TIB-file.
There is no difference, they are both image backup/restore softwares.

RollbackRx and FDISR are just softwares, like any other software that are included in the backup/restore of Acronis or Terabyte. What is there so special about ? Nothing.
MBR-problems ? They simply don't exist as long you include the MBR in your system backup-file and restore the MBR within the backup file.

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=141811

 

Terabyte support VERY briefly replied to my post HERE.

I paraphrase their reply as follows...
"You'd have to reactivate Rollback after restoring with IFD."

I'm not sure what they meant by "reactivate Rollback." Re-install RB, perhaps?

 

I would only believe such a statement after testing it myself, because it isn't logical.

If everything is OK on your system partition and you do a backup, you create an .IMG-file of that healthy system partition.
If you restore that .IMG-file on your system partition, you get exactly the same healthy system partition back on your harddisk.
That's what I expect from a restoration and nothing else, no matter what image backup software I use.
When ATI is able to do this, then BING/IFW/IFD is also able to do this.
Otherwise there is something wrong with Terabyte or RollbackRx and my first suspect would be MYSELF and then RollbackRx.

 

Hmmmm... I wonder? Consider please the following quote from a user-posed question to the Rollback folks at HDS (Horizon DataSys)...

Please notice that the quoted RB comments are similar to those made by Terabyte support.

Ergo, I *think* the prudent thing for me to do AFTER restoring an image would be...

1- Uninstall Rollback
2- Make a new/standard MBR - see NOTE 1
3- Re-install RB.

In other words, wipe RB's slate clean & start over.

I would very much appreciate any & all comments on the above.

NOTE 1- When using IFD to do a restore, you can accomplish step 2 by simply entering T when IFD asks for additional options. (Otherwise, use FDISK /MBR)

 

Do you consider this as normal and practical ?
If I had to uninstall RB, fix the MBR and reinstall RB after EACH restoration, I would refuse to use these softwares.
This would be unacceptable for me.

I use FDISR & ATI and each time I do a restoration (and I did alot of them), I don't have to do anything special.
My system reboots normally and all my snapshots are there and working properly.
That's what I call normal and practical.
I would be angry if I had to uninstall FDISR, fix the MBR and reinstall FDISR after each restoration with ATI.

I'm not saying you have to use FDISR & ATI, but find at least a normal solution for using RollbackRx and BING/IFW/IFD together.

 

I agree. I have again ceased using Rollback. Rollback's proprietary usage of the MBR make it difficult to use with ANY imaging software.

I am totally uninterested in switching to FDISR. FDISR didn't run well on my box. Screw Rollback & FDISR. I'm bloody fed up with fragile rescue programs that are nearly as much trouble as what they are supposed to protect me from. It only takes a little bit longer to restore using IFD than it does to use a program such as Rollback or FDISR, so I'm satisfied with just IFD for now.

Besides -- inasmuch as IFD restores so fast & easy, what the heck is the need for anything else, I wonder?

 

I might have got this wrong, but you use Windows ME, right? FD-ISR only works on Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Home or Professional.

 

If I had to choose between RB and IFW/IFD, I would keep IFW/IFD also, because image backup will save you always, even when your disk crashes.
IFW/IFD is necessary, while RB (and FDISR) is luxury, which you don't really need.

 

No, I use XP. I was using WinME plus Rollback when I had a major major crash several weeks ago. Rollback was useless in that situation. So I cleaned my HD & upgraded to XP. Shortly thereafter I tried FDISR but it wouldn't enable, despite several re-installs. It was at that time that I began using Image for DOS (IFD) -- with which I am totally satisfied.

IFD is absolutely solid as a rock. Fits on a floppy. No frills. No nonsense. No frustrated posts in its forum. Totally independent of Windows. Takes a licking & keeps on ticking. Now THAT's what a rescue program is supposed to be like.

 

...the road to Damascus..

 

hello all


Well i m a pro rollback rx user however rollback rx undoubtedly has some serious bugs in it and i m very certain that horizon folks knows about it... to begin i was excited to try the trial version of roll back rx 7.2.1. and it was working like charm initially......

I was glad about that and i was uninstalling it as its a trial version (Cant spend so much money on back softwares alone) it showed uninstalling and updating your system and suddenly it froze at 99% i waited for few hours to see whats going to happen but absolutely no joy.

The final solution to this problem was that i had reformat my C drive and reinstall my windows...however while it was frozen or it was trying to do something it showed up an error message as "Error Code 8001 not able to access sector 0 (1) i presume and hence it will not get rid of MBR and as i had that i could not even restore my computer from any of the images i had as it will completely hijacks your MBR and it will not allow any changes to happen..... i guess its good as long as its not giving problems of uninstalling if that particular problem is resolved i believe that its one of those rare beauties to have....

However i would need some advice as to what i need to do in case if i buy that software later on .... by the way Horizon people have not replied to even after a month despite sending reminders on a regular basis ....



Regards
Knight

 

Bellgamin, did you contact Raxco? Their support is excellent.

I use FD-ISR on two machines, one copy/update keeps getting the same error. (nothing serious but nonetheless an error) I contacted Raxco support and they have been working diligently (sp?) to correct this.

Justa thought...

...screamer

 

If the software doesn't work with your rig, then go with another solution. If you have already paid for the program without confirming its stability, then learn from your past error. DO NOT waste time with a backup solution if you know that it is not 100% reliable with your PC. Stick with one imaging application that works. The more you use the program, the easier it would be for you to spot early evidence of compatibility issue due to changes in hardware/software.

Imaging programs that run in windows will always have at LEAST one more variable that COULD fail. That's common sense 101. Reliability should account for 99% of the final score.

TI has a lot of issues because it has too many bells and whistles to attract the un-informed users. The main selling points with these programs...ease of use by replicating common windows functions.

Those who took the time to acclimate to BING/IFD also find them to be robust applications that are easy to use. Because BING/IFD are very simple in features (less than 1MB), there are very few failure modes. In general, if you can image and restore an image file one time with BING/IFD, then you will be able to repeat these procedures indefinitely with your rig (assuming no major hardware mod). Again, it's all about learning something new!

 

Basically I am not willing to disable or uninstall my other programs, one by one, in order to see if that eliminates the disabling of FDISR. To me, a *fragile rescue* program is an oxymoron.

 

I agree w/ the un-install/disable... But you don't know if they're going to suggest this unless you send in a Help Request. If they do... Thanks, but No Thanks.

I would hardly call FD-ISR "fragile". As far as I can see, its only achilles heel is the MBR, which can easily be protected by not de-fragging it.

...screamer

 

The activation key is based on the volume ID of your harddisk. Try to re-install without format.

 

EAX-FIX/Rollback snapshots are supported by EAZclone: http://www.k62.net/Products_CLONE.php

 

Does that mean I can change the Volume ID to what it was before without the need to activate the software again?