Drive Snap: Drive Snapshot Frontend

[MikeNAS]

Looking very good markymoo. I have only one question. Is Drive Snapshot still depeloped? Last news: 30 mar 07 so I'm not sure if it's worth of 39EUR.

[EASTER]

Agree 100%

DriveSnapshot is 100% without a single lost restore for me. That says a lot.

markymoo is now come along with an amazing support program he fashioned and although it might take some time to learn, this is got to be of tremendous benefit no matter how one looks at it.

[demoneye]

Originally Posted by EASTER

Agree 100%

DriveSnapshot is 100% without a single lost restore for me. That says a lot.

markymoo is now come along with an amazing support program he fashioned and although it might take some time to learn, this is got to be of tremendous benefit no matter how one looks at it.

actuleythe "big" way to go is making this bartpe disk.... after u made your own disk with the snapshot.exe , making backup or restore it more the less child game heheh

after "play" around with most backup progs around (ATI , farstone,backup image,IFW.....) i found DS is the fastet.. and i mean THE FASTER from them all

cheers

[EASTER]

You're right.

It's the fastest image backup and restore i have ever seen in any of them and it is not malfunctioned or made any issues not a single time in many uses for whatever unit i have ever used it on.

It's a very well programmed application of it's kind.

markymooo just perfected it in a way that will benefit users of it for much better convenience.


EASTER

[demoneye]

Originally Posted by EASTER

You're right.

It's the fastest image backup and restore i have ever seen in any of them and it is not malfunctioned or made any issues not a single time in many uses for whatever unit i have ever used it on.

It's a very well programmed application of it's kind.

markymooo just perfected it in a way that will benefit users of it for much better convenience.


EASTER

jap markymooo did a great work point DS benefit and all stuff around it... i also want to know if DS is under develop like MikeNAS ask.

cheers

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by markymoo

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.

markymoo,

I think I know the answer but how would you create 8 primary partitions on your first HD? I have 8 partitions and I use an Extended Partition.

[linp]

Thanks markymoo ,for pointing some things out to me ; everything is running smooth now.
My compliments for writing a good , concise helpfile.
I am new to MBR wizard which you included ,there are some powerful tools in the rightclick menu , i wonder if it would be useful to put a "warning" on the volume tab ,so inexperienced users are cautioned to be very careful with some commands ;i haven't used these commands , there might be a caution in the MBR wizard dialog.

Lin

Originally Posted by markymoo

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.



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



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.

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by Brian K

markymoo,

I think I know the answer but how would you create 8 primary partitions on your first HD? I have 8 partitions and I use an Extended Partition.

There's a limit of 4 primary partitions on NTFS. You can make more than 4 extended or dynamic partitions(handy for RAID 5). Extended partitions were developed to overcome the limit of 4 primary partitions.

[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.

Yes it doesn't matter if it a primary or extended MBRWizard hidden or not hidden, can see the extended partition to manipulate it but not the logical. You can use the Drive Console for that.

I had a drive and i securely wiped the drive using the 'Securely Wipe Hard Disk' in Drive Snap so it writes zero's over every sector. This turns it into a new drive. I conveniently looked at the MBR in Drive Snap to see it blank using 'View MBR'



I then made it a entirely logical extended partition from the Drive Console.




This doesn't put MBR info in, but it puts the partition table data in. I can see this with View MBR.



I then hide the partition.



In the end MBRWizard can only see the extended partition volume. You can still use Drive Snapshot to backup extended partitions or wipe extended logical partitions or backup and restore the MBR with Drive Snap and the Drive Console is within easy reach to do more.

Originally Posted by Brian K

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.

What your doing is booting off extended partitions. I don't see any need unless you need more than 4 partitions to boot more than 4 operating systems. I guess you probably used a utility like PTEdit.exe to make the extended partition hidden.

In the normal course of events 4 Primary partitions is usually more than enough unless you trying to do what your doing.

Despite what you heard there you can still backup hidden logical partitions in extended volumes with current versions of Drive Snapshot and so in Drive Snap. The only thing changed is that hidden flag illustrated.

99% of users use there image software to backup primary partitions, system or otherwise, so it's not a problem that MBRWIzard doesn't detect logical partitions on that score.

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by markymoo

What your doing is booting off extended partitions. I don't see any need unless you need more than 4 partitions to boot 4 operating systems. I guess you probably used a utility like PTEdit.exe to make the extended partition hidden.

markymoo,

No, I'm not booting from logical volumes in an extended partition. I don't do that anymore.

My two WinXPs are in primary partitions. I only have data in the logical volumes and not OS. The extended partition isn't hidden.

I can image the hidden WinXP from Drive Snapshot. I can't image the hidden WinXP from Drive Snap because the hidden partition doesn't have a drive letter. It's of little importance to me. I was just making a comment.

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by MikeNAS

I have only one question. Is Drive Snapshot still depeloped?

It's been updated to work with Vista.

It easy to backup a Vista partition with Drive Snapshot, Drive Snap. You backup in the normal way but when you come to restore with Drive Snapshot, Drive Snap you just restore the partition structure first but in the next version of Drive Snap will auto restore the partition structure and the image in one action and so restoring the MBR as well , which is also necessary restoring to new drives.

It is not possible to backup X64 Vista from within Vista but you can do that fine from a recovery cd like BartPe.

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by Brian K

markymoo,

No, I'm not booting from logical volumes in an extended partition. I don't do that anymore.

My two WinXPs are in primary partitions. I only have data in the logical volumes and not OS. The extended partition isn't hidden.

I can image the hidden WinXP from Drive Snapshot. I can't image the hidden WinXP from Drive Snap because the hidden partition doesn't have a drive letter. It's of little importance to me. I was just making a comment.

I mention that but i also including your way of using the Terabyte tool bootfile.exe that boots a NTFS RAW partition which is without a MBR boot info such as a logical partition i described. It connected.

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by Brian K

I can't image the hidden WinXP from Drive Snap because the hidden partition doesn't have a drive letter.

I think you find you can backup a logical partition hidden or otherwise without a drive letter from Drive Snapshot but not currently from Drive Snap. have done it. The main theme of Drive Snap is to be able to backup important system or data partitions that are valid. You always have a drive letter for these either within Windows or from BartPe.

[markymoo]

Originally Posted by linp

Thanks markymoo ,for pointing some things out to me ; everything is running smooth now.My compliments for writing a good , concise helpfile.
I am new to MBR wizard which you included ,there are some powerful tools in the rightclick menu , i wonder if it would be useful to put a "warning" on the volume tab ,so inexperienced users are cautioned to be very careful with some commands ;i haven't used these commands , there might be a caution in the MBR wizard dialog.

Lin

I glad you have grasped it. I made the layout so it naturally intutive and easy to backup even without the help file. I will update the help file in time. I can put a warning but I have already put a warning 'are you sure yes no confirm?' on each of the powerful actions if you should stray.

[linp]

I did a restore from vistape ,the image is in windows on disk 2 , partition H ,in vistape the part. letters are different because dos conventions, no problem, i just browse to the image , in this case it is on I: .
Using drive snap though the restore tab is empty , and there seems to be no way to "browse" to the image.

Lin

[markymoo]

@linp
Hello linp. I am aware of this. The browse dialog needs a certain Windows dll to work and it's not included on certain recovery cd's some have it, some don't. The Restore tab scans the Image Location so it wrong it won't find the images. Have you tried typing in the drive folder path into the Image Location box instead?

[linp]

Originally Posted by markymoo

@linp
Hello linp. I am aware of this. The browse dialog needs a certain Windows dll to work and it's not included on certain recovery cd's some have it, some don't. The Restore tab scans the Image Location so it wrong it won't find the images. Have you tried typing in the drive folder path into the Image Location box instead?

I'll try typing the path next time ;i am not concerned ,i just use DS and browse to the image ,but i was thinking of less comp savvy friends ,using your gui ;then again , they probably have a simple disk/part. setup ,with driveletters given by windows at installation, so this issue would not occur.
i have 3 disks which i have given non dos compliant drive letters, the images go on the third disk which has another driveletter in vistape ,a simple solution would be to put the images on a part. which keeps the driveletter.
Lin

[markymoo]

@linp

Using different recovery whether it WinPe, BartPe or VistaPe and having removable drives plugged in at the same time the same drive letter Image Backup Location you backed up in Windows can't always be determined the same location every time using a recovery cd. It will fix the browse in a future version. A future version will auto locate your images so you don't have to browse the location.

[markymoo]

When you come to restore the system image from recovery cd and the partition you want to restore is broken or a new drive or a unallocated partition with no drive letter and also the C drive could be grabbed by another volume like the recovery cd. Do this.

Run Drive Snap and select the Backup Image Location of your images. Goto Restore right click the image and select 'Restore Partition Structure HD 0'.
The partition of your image will then be made available and mounted as a new drive letter eg. F. Close down Drive Snap and reopen it and goto Restore and 'Select Partition' eg. F and then click Restore and reboot. Wait until it's restored. You can then boot into your restored system partition.

[linp]

Originally Posted by markymoo

@linp

Using different recovery whether it WinPe, BartPe or VistaPe and having removable drives plugged in at the same time the same drive letter Image Backup Location you backed up in Windows can't always be determined the same location every time using a recovery cd. It will fix the browse in a future version. A future version will auto locate your images so you don't have to browse the location.

this would be perfect !
Lin

[markymoo]

New Update: same link as before http://artco.adsl24.co.uk/markymoo/Drive Snap.7z

You can now restore your system partition back from it's image in DOS automatically. Create a automatic DOS restore disk of your system image or create a automatic DOS restore disk of your system image with a menu.

If you created a backup image of your system partition(C drive) with Drive Snap. You can goto Restore and right click the image or the dropdown options you have 2 new choices.

Create System Restore Menu CD - If you want a DOS restore disk to restore back your system partition from the backup of your system partition of the selected image with a menu that lets you select restore back your image to a exisiting same size partition or restore back your image including partition structure(for new drives and Vista), select this.

Create Automatic System Restore CD - If you want a DOS restore disk to restore back your system partition to a existing same size system partition from the backup of your system partition of the selected image totally hands free and automatic, select this.

Once either is selected a ISO will be created and you need a blank CD or DVD ready. The ISO created is the same filename as the image name. The DOS menu will be improved upon later. The main thing it works with typical restore scenario.

I strongly suggest you backup any data before using these features as they totally automatic restoration. The CD is very fast loading as there no CD-ROM drivers to load.

Password feature fully fixed. You might of seen stars in the password field box when you wasn't even using a password, plus even if you use exactly the same password again it gets encrypted to a different new hash.

[Brian K]

markymoo,

This is more than the icing on the cake. This will change how DS is used. No longer will we have to use BartPE or confusing DOS commands to restore an image with DS. It's now a no brainer.

I've just used the automatic restore CD and my mouth is still open. Brilliant. My only suggestion is to prevent the CD from rebooting. A second restore started while I was making a cup of tea.

Congratulations on this restore method. Ingenious.

[lodore]

Hello markymoo,
what do you do if the image is bigger than a cd?
some people like to store images on usb external hard drives or just a second hard drive.

[linp]

Great option !
I just tried it , once in dos ,i got the message " system restored" this took about 3 seconds , then reboot.
this must be due to the fact that my image is on a driveletter which changes in dos, i mentioned this earlier.
Later i wil remove the other disks and make a new image , placing it on part. D :, must work then.
One thougt though, i have 2 sata disks internal ,because of a cable problem disk 1 is the bootdisk, set in bios to boot from . disk 0 is data ; what happends if auto restore is run ,does the restore goes onto the first primary part. of disk 0 , my data ,or does it " know " my C: is on disk 1 ?

Lin

Originally Posted by markymoo

New Update: same link as before http://artco.adsl24.co.uk/markymoo/Drive Snap.7z

You can now restore your system partition back from it's image in DOS automatically. Create a automatic DOS restore disk of your system image or create a automatic DOS restore disk with a system menu.
.

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by lodore

some people like to store images on usb external hard drives or just a second hard drive.

lodore,

That's the beauty of this method. My image was on a second HD, not on the CD.