Primary snapshot

Just started to play with FD-ISR. Is there anything intrinsically different about the Primary snapshot ?

After starting I made a secondary, booted to the secondary, booted back to the primary and so on. The I wondered what I would do if the primary became corrupted so booting to the secondary I deleted the primary and then asked the program to copy to a new primary.

is this basically how it is supposed to work ? a kind of dual/multiple boot where if one snapshot won't work you just delete it and use one of the others or is there something special about the primary snapshot ?

 

Greetings Long View,

Hey, glad to see you trying out the product.

The "Primary Snapshot" is a just a name that we assign to your currently installed operating system when the product is first installed. btw: You can change it to whatever you want. When you create or copy to a new or existing snapshot, lets say "Backup Snapshot" and boot it, that is now the active operating system. There is no technical difference between the snapshots. Once a snapshot is booted, it is your active operating system.

I have several snapshots, and not just as backups, but for various purposes; day-to-day biz apps, development build for coding, optimized build for gaming(At least I like to think like I have time to play games)

I tend to use archives as my backups. If I blow something up, I can boot to one of my other purpose snapshots, and restore the appropriate archive.

I hope this helps.

-Todd

 

I was told I may have done something wrong as I created my archive on an external USB hdd as recommended in your manual and then I used the EXPORT function to create the snapshot archive and sent it to the archive folder I put on the ext USB hdd. I was told that the create/copy is the way I should have done that. Will it matter?

 

Long View,

That's the beauty of FD-ISR. The possibilities go on and on and on...

You can have a clean install WinXP SS, One w/ your OS & Security apps, one just for gaming, one for testing software...

I use it just as a sys recovery app: Primary SS, Secondary SS, Third Day SS, Fourth Day SS & a weekly SS. This way I can go back up to 5 Days. Plus I have a clean Win XP install in an Archive.

Check out the thread " How do You use FD-ISR, there are a ton of possibilities.

hth,

...screamer

 

Horus,

The answer to your question can be found here:

Open FD-ISR > hit F1 key

hth,

...screamer

 

is a secondary snapshot needed?

if it creates the primary when you install (The state it was in when installed)

say i install a few programs, then use the primary that it apparently created, will it remove those programs, or can that only be done using the secondary snapshot?

 

Todd, I hope that you don't mind, but I need to ask you something. I get the impression from this group that FD can now be used as a total restoration program, even hard drive failure, assuming that you have created Archived Snapshots somewhere other than your c:drive.

My ONLY QUESTION concerning this process: If I install a new hard drive to replace a new one, then re-install WindowsXP, then re-install FirstDefense; will FD be able to "find" or "recognize" the Archived Snapshots that were created by a former install of FD on a now no-existent hard drive. Todd, thank you; after 2 1/2 years I still stand in awe of this program.

Acadia

 

Greetings Arcadia,

It is always a pleasure to hear from you. Thanks for your question.

When you say "Total Restoration" I am envisioning a (BMR) bare metal restore solution. Correct me if I misunderstood you.

If this is the case, I would not really classify ISR as a BMR. Ghost would be a BMR product. Upon complete hard drive failure you can restore your entire drive from an image that contained every sector on the drive. Since software failures or user mishaps occur much more frequently, you would use ISR to compliment a BMR solution.

However...you could recover your archives after a hard drive failure, you just need to install Windows first, install ISR, then inport your archive to a snapshot and boot to it. You pretty much outlined it perfectly in your post

There is a writeup about this proceedure in detail here (I think you have seen this one)

Your big question is will the snapshot work after importing to the new hard drive. It should if the hard drive is a replacement in kind. If you get funky and go from an IDE to a SATA RAID 0 set, it most likely will not work since the RAID drivers will have not been installed in your previous version of Windows. This would be the same limitation that a BMR image would have as well.

How ISR differs from a BMR type product, is that we copy at the file leve not the sector level. This method allows the flexibility that ISR offers with various operating systems and disk structures.

I hope that helps. Good to hear from ya.

-Todd

 

Todd, thank you for answering, but I'm afraid that I am still a bit confused; I am not as knowledgeable as most of the fellows doing all their experimenting that they outline here at Wilders.

Yes, I remember that pdf file that you linked to from the past, I thought it was a post in Wilders and I searched in vain for it, not remembering that it was a pdf file. Anyway, from the pdf file, I get the impression that I need to do more to restore from the ultimate disaster, much that I don't understand, while from your quote above, I get the impression that an Archived Snapshot on another hard drive is all that I would need; simply reinstall Windows even my old SP1 disk, then reinstall FD, then create a second Snapshot, then boot into the second Snapshot and use FD to lay my old Archive on top of the new Primary ... Voila!, my old system back good as new.

Is it really this simple, or should I look more closely at that pdf file. Both of my bare metal restore programs are VERY old versions, and if FD can take their place instead of purchasing new programs, excellent. Thanks again.

Acadia (not aRcadia)

 

Greetings Acadia,

Your outlined procedure "simply reinstall Windows even my old SP1 disk, then reinstall FD, then create a second Snapshot, then boot into the second Snapshot and use FD to lay my old Archive on top of the new Primary ... Voila!, my old system back good as new." is correct.

Yes, it really is that simple.

 

Todd (and Peter), THANK YOU!!

Acadia

 

Don't know if it's me but like Peter mention wouldn't that be more quickly with an imaging product or is that a method to replace an imaging product for those who have FirstDefense but no imaging product?

Best regards,
Atomas31