Drive Snap: Drive Snapshot Frontend

[markymoo]

Yes, Brian I know you know just sharing my result's and to others I am closer to completing the Dos restore.

OK it seems turning on the writeback cache gives a worse result in SP. I don't know if that because i got raid but it's off on default so i should of left it off. I took another test with it off and the write/s went up to 50Mb Thinking it had beaten DS I then took another test straight after with Drive Snapshot. DS still came out tops. Also I did a test with DS without taking a hash file and it resulted in the same time taken with a hash file.

[EASTER]

Keep up the good work markymoo

It's people like you who take a more serious interest in what's useful then all the commercial interests combined.

All they do is DELIBERATELY leave a user of their product to stumble blindly with bare bones enough just to prove that their app works, your frontend greatly expands the horizons well beyond of what can be even more beneficial for the user.

EASTER

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by EASTER

I like to echo something markymoo alluded to. This alone can boost speed, such as, at least in my case run RESTORATION to finally flatten already deleted files followed by a conscientious effort to perform a quality DEFRAG, and then IMAGE.

Does this sound like a beneficial practice to even better image a system and thus gain some speed potential when time comes to image?

EASTER

Absolutely. defragging can give a vast improvement on the image times. I found that out using IFW. Also having your drive such as 90% full reduces backup time.

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by EASTER

All they do is DELIBERATELY leave a user of their product to stumble blindly with bare bones enough just to prove that their app works, your frontend greatly expands the horizons well beyond of what can be even more beneficial for the user.EASTER

I'm glad you can see the benefits. A big benefit coming...just wait for the Automatic Dos Restore Feature . I just crossed one gigantic hurdle. No matter where your image is located. The restore disk will restore your system. No more WinPE or BartPe. I might even do one for IFW when i'm done.

[EASTER]

Originally Posted by markymoo

I'm glad you can see the benefits. A big benefit coming...just wait for the Automatic Dos Restore Feature . I just crossed one gigantic hurdle. No matter where your image is located. The restore disk will restore your system. No more WinPE or BartPe. I might even do one for IFW when i'm done.

Am looking forward to also

I might even do one for IFW when i'm done

[Brian K]

markymoo,

Not a major problem but Drive Snap doesn't see my hidden WinXP partition.

Tom Ehlert made a comment about hidden partitions some time ago. Something along the lines of Snapshot not being able to correctly recognize the file system so images appear to be not compressed.

[Aaron Here]

Originally Posted by Brian K

markymoo,

Not a major problem but Drive Snap doesn't see my hidden WinXP partition.

Tom Ehlert made a comment about hidden partitions some time ago. Something along the lines of Snapshot not being able to correctly recognize the file system so images appear to be not compressed.

Brian, this is probably a stupid question, but why hide your system partition?

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by Aaron Here

this is probably a stupid question, but why hide your system partition?

Aaron,

"No question is stupid ... but, possibly the answers are"

I have two WinXP partitions. My main WinXP and a test WinXP. The test WinXP is a 3 GB partition, free space of 1.5 GB. When I've finished testing an app, I restore the base backup image.

So that neither sees the other, the non booting OS is a "hidden" partition. The booting WinXP will be C: drive and the other WinXP won't be present in Windows Explorer. It will however be present in Disk Management and is labeled "Healthy (Unknown partition)." The booting WinXP in Disk Management is labeled "Healthy (System)."

It's easy to set up a multi-boot. You just need partitioning and imaging software. This link describes the process. You don't need to read the section on "Multibooting Windows from an Extended Partition."

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm

[Aaron Here]

Very interesting!

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by Brian K

Not a major problem but Drive Snap doesn't see my hidden WinXP partition.

Tom Ehlert made a comment about hidden partitions some time ago. Something along the lines of Snapshot not being able to correctly recognize the file system so images appear to be not compressed.

the non booting OS is a "hidden" partition.

The reason isn't because it's hidden only that it's extended with no boot info. It is not showing up in Drive Snap because Drive Snap uses MBRWizard to read the hard drive volumes. MBRWizard works by reading the MBR from sector 0 of all hard drives. On extended partitions another MBR is created and stored in the logical partition which MBRWizard dosen't read so it can't read the extended partition info. MBRWizard can list the logical partition but can't list the extended partition drive letter. Your partition has no boot info, no MBR and so won't detect it. Is it necessary to have it non bootable? Is there any reason you need extended? If you just install a standard MBR by using Repair XP MBR on the drive that has the extended partition it will then show up. This won't destroy the partitions info. It will not clash trying to boot with your other drive because it still hidden.

Extended partitions will show up in Drive Snap without a drive letter if there's a MBR so you can still access the extended volume to repair the MBR for example but just not the partition to format it.

btw i never ever create extended partitions because it is not as versatile. No matter how many drives or partitions i create them all as primary. I can install a boot manager or change the boot priority in the BIOS so i can decide which primary i want to boot.

[Brian K]

That was my thought too. MBR Wizard not seeing the hidden partition. Only problem is the partition is a primary partition and not an extended partition. It occupies the third slot in the MBR partition table. Definitely a primary partition.

I no longer install operating systems in extended partitions either.

[linp]

Thank you for all the work put in developing this gui ,as a long time DS user i have been advising friends to use it ,but the commandline is a problem for many people, your frontend helps a lot.
But , i have this problem : after choosing a backup with some excluded folders i get a dos screen
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/7729/cmdff1.jpg
no backup is made.
with no excluded folders, the backup is made
winxp sp2 / DS 1.37 /Drive Snap 0.97

Lin

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by linp

Thank you for all the work put in developing this gui ,as a long time DS user i have been advising friends to use it ,but the commandline is a problem for many people, your frontend helps a lot.
But , i have this problem : after choosing a backup with some excluded folders i get a dos screen
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/7729/cmdff1.jpg
no backup is made.
with no excluded folders, the backup is made
winxp sp2 / DS 1.37 /Drive Snap 0.97

Lin

Welcome. Ok first of all your using an old version of Drive Snapshot. There is now v1.38 - upgrade first and try again. I have not had any problems with the exclude. The screenshot tells me Drive Snapshot is executing on the commandline but not executing correctly with your excluded folders you say. If you set all the options and exclude folders as you normally do and then goto options and under 'Save cmd lines' Click Backup and a file called backup.bat will save to the folder. Open backup.bat up and then copy and paste the command into this thread so i can see. If you backup C partition of course you have to exclude the files from C.

Incidentally, it is currently possible to accidently exclude files from another partition than the one you backing up. eg. backup C but accidentally exclude D:\downloads and not C:\downloads. This would not result in an error , just the folders would be ignored.

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by Brian K

That was my thought too. MBR Wizard not seeing the hidden partition. Only problem is the partition is a primary partition and not an extended partition. It occupies the third slot in the MBR partition table. Definitely a primary partition.

I no longer install operating systems in extended partitions either.

I will investigate.

Installing a new MBR using the Repair XP feature would still keep the partition still hidden as the hidden flag is kept in the partition table.

[demoneye]

hi all

i have a genral question about DS . when is the time when u start backup (inside windows) that DS "freez" its snapshot and make the diff backup?

also acording to DS web site its not support VISTA yet ... is that true? os web site data base old?

*how can u run DS remotely ? dos cmd not avilable...
cheers

[linp]

Originally Posted by markymoo

Welcome. Ok first of all your using an old version of Drive Snapshot. There is now v1.38 - upgrade first and try again. I have not had any problems with the exclude. The screenshot tells me Drive Snapshot is executing on the commandline but not executing correctly with your excluded folders you say. If you set all the options and exclude folders as you normally do and then goto options and under 'Save cmd lines' Click Backup and a file called backup.bat will save to the folder. Open backup.bat up and then copy and paste the command into this thread so i can see. If you backup C partition of course you have to exclude the files from C.

Incidentally, it is currently possible to accidently exclude files from another partition than the one you backing up. eg. backup C but accidentally exclude D:\downloads and not C:\downloads. This would not result in an error , just the folders would be ignored.

Thanks for helping out ,after my backup i discovered access to the backed up partition D ,was denied , it was listed in comp. management ok.
I figured it had something to do with mbr so i went into Vistape and restored a recent C image, upon completion i got this message : " warning , this disk seems not to be bootable ; run !checkboot HDx manually "
i don't know what checkboot HDx is , so i rebooted anyway , no problems , the partition D was accessible again.
I updated DS to 1.38 and did the same backup with excluded folders again ,no problems this time.
There is one thing i have to mention: this morning when i was doing the failed backup ,i had an unformatted new sata disk in my computer, before doing the restore i removed this disk.

This is the .bat file output : " snapshot.exe D: "I:\snapshots\d\$disk-full.sna" -L0 --exclude:"\downloads" "

So all is well now ,but i still have a question : is Drive snap doing something with the mbr that DS isn't doing , because i have never had a failed backup or restore with DS

cheers ,Lin

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by demoneye

*how can u run DS remotely ? dos cmd not avilable...

demoneye,

Do you mean imaging another computer while sitting at your desktop? Or something else?

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by demoneye

hi all

i have a genral question about DS . when is the time when u start backup (inside windows) that DS "freez" its snapshot and make the diff backup?

You first take a full image backup either manually or scheduled and anytime after you can take a differentials backup manually or scheduled which is a backup of the changed data since when you last took the full image. It alot easier to take differentials with Drive Snap and the scheduler make this automated. Differentials are alot smaller like 1/20th the size of the full image and don't take long to backup. A good idea is take a differential everyday then you can restore back to that day. If you restoring back to a system partition in DOS you need to restore the full image and then the differential afterwards. It's a 2 step process. You would need 2 commands. Restoring a data partition in Windows or recovering a system partition from a recovery cd such as BartPe will restore the full and then the differential automatically.

Originally Posted by demoneye

also acording to DS web site its not support VISTA yet ... is that true? os web site data base old?

Yes http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/vista.htm

Originally Posted by demoneye

*how can u run DS remotely ? dos cmd not avilable...
cheers

What do you mean by remotely? Over a network?

[appster]

I agree that daily differentials are the best approach. But for the DS noob, you must instruct DS to create a hash file with your first (full) image or you won't be able to create differentials!

Afaik, DS is the only image-backup program that makes you do this (that's a transparent operation with other disk-imaging programs I've used).

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by linp

Thanks for helping out ,after my backup i discovered access to the backed up partition D ,was denied , it was listed in comp. management ok.I figured it had something to do with mbr so i went into Vistape and restored a recent C image, upon completion i got this message : " warning , this disk seems not to be bootable ; run !checkboot HDx manually "
i don't know what checkboot HDx is , so i rebooted anyway , no problems , the partition D was accessible again. I updated DS to 1.38 and did the same backup with excluded folders again ,no problems this time.

All the options are set in Drive Snap and it's Drive Snapshot that does the backup. The reason was you used v1.37 and isn't as compatible as 1.38 for Vista, hence the problem you were having and was ok when you upgraded. I haven't tested it in VistaPE only BartPe.

Originally Posted by linp

this morning when i was doing the failed backup ,i had an unformatted new sata disk in my computer, before doing the restore i removed this disk

not sure quite what you mean by that. the cmd line looks fine.

Originally Posted by linp

So all is well now ,but i still have a question : is Drive snap doing something with the mbr that DS isn't doing , because i have never had a failed backup or restore with DS

Drive Snap runs the commands of Drive Snapshot. It doesn't alter the MBR at all unless you tell it to do under the Restore MBR/PartitionStructure or the MBR in Restore tab or Volumes/MBR features and/or in DOS. Backing up in Drive Snap always backs up the MBR automatically as Drive Snapshot would. If you using Drive Snap to restore a partition it will restore back an image onto a existing drive with existing MBR and same partition structure. You notice it's a BETA. On a new drive it won't put back the MBR or partition structure. The next update will quickly remedy this. The next update will also have a CD DOS restore feature that will automatically restore the partition, MBR and a seperate option to restore the partition structure. This will make it quick and easy to get your system back up and running.

You could of alternatively gone into Disk Console/Manage looked at whether your hard drive was HD 0 or HD 1 and then gone into Restore and selected the relevent image and right click-Restore MBR to that drive number.

Thanks for the feedback.

[demoneye]

Originally Posted by markymoo

You first take a full image backup either manually or scheduled and anytime after you can take a differentials backup manually or scheduled which is a backup of the changed data since when you last took the full image. It alot easier to take differentials with Drive Snap and the scheduler make this automated. Differentials are alot smaller like 1/20th the size of the full image and don't take long to backup. A good idea is take a differential everyday then you can restore back to that day. If you restoring back to a system partition in DOS you need to restore the full image and then the differential afterwards. It's a 2 step process. You would need 2 commands. Restoring a data partition in Windows or recovering a system partition from a recovery cd such as BartPe will restore the full and then the differential automatically.



Yes http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/vista.htm



What do you mean by remotely? Over a network?

yes i mean remoteky over the network... u cant restore from dos...u have to be in fron of the pc and load/restore the image...what i gound out ATI restart pc and load the FULL or DIFF image at next restart if u want to restore for some reasons...in DS u cant

[demoneye]

i have a simple question also

i have a HD dived to c:\ (os) and d:\(ext) , what is the exac dos command to restore the image (store on d:\ drive) to c:\ ?


cheers

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by appster

I agree that daily differentials are the best approach. But for the DS noob, you must instruct DS to create a hash file with your first (full) image or you won't be able to create differentials!

It states clearly in Drive Snapshot and Drive Snap help also. The Hash file is created by default. He doesn't have to create one its all done Auto. Unless he enables No Hash it will be created.

Hash files are needed to make differential backups. Differential backups are not possible without the hash file

In fact you can take differentials later if you don't create a hash the first instance by selecting an image and using 'Create Checksum Hash' in restore.

Originally Posted by appster

Afaik, DS is the only image-backup program that makes you do this (that's a transparent operation with other disk-imaging programs I've used).

They are done by default so as long as you know there importance and don't go deleting then it fine. Anything in your backup folder can be considered important.

[markymoo]

you connect to a shared folder on a network and then just use the command line specifying the image folder on that shared drive.

to restore an image from d back to c to the first drive. Snapshot RESTORE HD1 AUTO d:\image.sna

[demoneye]

Originally Posted by markymoo

you connect to a shared folder on a network and then just use the command line specifying the image folder on that shared drive.

to restore an image from d back to c to the first drive. Snapshot RESTORE HD1 AUTO d:\image.sna

10x alot mate i will try this method also , even i made partpe disk (which load slowly)

cheers