New Drive Snapshot build released.

[Aaron Here]

A new build of Drive Snapshot (dated Dec 10, 2010) is now available for download.

[pandlouk]

Aaron, most of those updates are released because the unregistered/trial use of the program is timed bombed. The only thing updated is the date that the unregistered version will stop functioning.

Panagiotis

[Halffull]

Hmm, that being said wouldn't it be better for them to implement a callback system to check the server for valid licenses rather than forcing everryone to assume that there's an important update that they need to download to smooth out bugs?

[n8chavez]

Originally Posted by pandlouk

Aaron, most of those updates are released because the unregistered/trial use of the program is timed bombed. The only thing updated is the date that the unregistered version will stop functioning.

Panagiotis

That is not true. There are bugs fixed with every new build. Great things are in the works.

[kC_]

still shows as Nov 3rd 2010 for me

what great things are planned?

[Aaron Here]

Originally Posted by n8chavez

Great things are in the works.

Nate, any hints would be appreciated...

PS. It looks like you finally decided to install Rollback Rx - I hope you are enjoying it.

[n8chavez]

Originally Posted by Aaron Here

Nate, any hints would be appreciated...

PS. It looks like you finally decided to install Rollback Rx - I hope you are enjoying it.

Tom told me that he ius working on implementing FTP into Drive Snapshot. Don't worry, is DS taught us anything it's that programs don't have to be bloated to be functional (I'm looking at you Acronis). That will be a welcome addition for some, and a feature that other might chose not you use. I like the pairing of imaging and cloud storage though.

[pandlouk]

Originally Posted by n8chavez

That is not true. There are bugs fixed with every new build. Great things are in the works.

Such as?

Almost all the bugs of the 1.40.0.147x and later were ironed out in the August release. After that I only saw code optimization....

Panagiotis

[kC_]

another new one on today 21/12/2010 build 1.40.15293

again useless that no information or changelog, so no ideas

[Aaron Here]

Thanks for the heads-up on this kC. I'm truly bewildered as to why Tom doesn't inform his users (and prospective users) as to each build's changes/enhancements. n8chavez has suggested they are minor bug fixes but I use DS every week (if not more frequently) and I haven't come across any bugs whatsoever!

[tyee]

I have a question on DriveSnapshot. I have been having an extremely hard time making it image a combo partition of WinXP along with a .vhd of Win7. I had to make the Bootsector/MBR manually to allow me to get the WinXP/Win7 menu at boot time (using bcdedit) to select but it works great.

Now how to back it up. I've emailed Tom about it but he says it's most likely the "disk signature" not being correct, but I tired that today and it still won't boot into Win7, but it will boot into WinXP!

I got some error about the GUID of the device. Last week I tried ShadowProtect and it did allow me to boot into both WinXP or Win7.So does this have something to do with MIR? (Different Hardware)??

So right now I can boot into WinXP after restoring the drivesnapshot image to an eSATA drive but cannot get into Win7. What does ShadowProtect do that DriveSnapshot doesn't?

Any tips?

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by tyee

but cannot get into Win7.

tyee,

What error message do you see?

[tyee]

Hi Brian
I can't remember exactly (hard to do screen capture at that stage), but it was a hardware problem relating to the GUID. Win7 does create specific GUID's for each HD doesn't it? I'm not an expert at this but obviously it's definitely due to the new way Win7 boots compared to XP. I'll try to get the exact error info.

[pandlouk]

Originally Posted by tyee

Now how to back it up. I've emailed Tom about it but he says it's most likely the "disk signature" not being correct, but I tired that today and it still won't boot into Win7, but it will boot into WinXP!

It is the disk signature. (the one of the disk or the one of the .vhd or both).
Since you mention e-sata.... The image was made on the external drive (e-sata) or the internal?
Pay attention that you can not have two drives with the same signature.

Panagiotis

[tyee]

Panagiotis
Thanks for confirming that. This is what I did.

Boot into WinXP and run drive snapshot to create image of my XP partition which also contains the .vhd of Win7. I then restore this image to an eSATA drive with brand new hard drive. First I select "restore partition stucture" and then "restore disk signature" one after the other, then I restore the image to that drive.

I now shut down, remove the sata data cable off my main working hard drive to simulate it's dead, reboot into bios to enable booting off the eSATA drive.

Last week I did get the correct boot menu with both WinXP and Win7 selectable for booting into but only WinXP would work.

Yesterday I didn't get a menu at all, I got that error message with a long GUID ID number in it saying something was wrong. When I pressed enter after that message, it boots into WinXP.

So that's where I am now. Anything come to mind?

I will try Shadowprotect again IF I can get it working. I manually go to make an image now and it seems to start but the progress bar does nothing. Is there a bug with Shadow Protect regarding VSS??

Thanks
Tony

PS, You say I can't have two drives with the same signature, so does the Win7 bootstore require the same exact signature for a replaced hard drive? I would think not, because every hard drive you buy is different, so what am I not understanding?

[pinso]

I just want to stray a little away from the discussion, is their any chance that the author would integrate Disc Back Up from DOS , i know at this age and time many Users aren't comfortable with DOS and like,,,but some users with Floppy Drive could really make a use of it. I still use D.S v.1.40.0.14557 and have no plan of switching to any version, i only had one error in all this time.

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by pinso

Disc Back Up from DOS

pinso,

Do you mean Entire Drive or Partition? I've used partition backup/restore from DOS.

[pinso]

Originally Posted by Brian K

pinso,

Do you mean Entire Drive or Partition? I've used partition backup/restore from DOS.

I useD.S to backup my entire Drive which is 30 GB in my 300GB External HDD, i want no partition especially in this DISC, just feel having partition tends to make the DISC respond slowly (IMO), that said the procedure for BACKUP/RESTORE is quite same, have you made Backup from DOS, hope you are not using Batch file to achieve this man......cause i too use Batch file.

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by pinso

i want no partition especially in this DISC,

But you do have a partition. You have the operating system partition.

What did you want to do from DOS?

Markymoo had an excellent app called DriveSnap that worked with DS to enable automatic DOS restores. But it is no longer available. Has anyone heard from Markymoo in the last year or so?

Edit... I don't think DS can do an entire drive image where all partitions are imaged to a single file. It can do multi-partition images but I think the images have to be restored one at a time rather than as an "Entire Drive". Correct me if this isn't true.

[pandlouk]

Hi Tony,

When you restore to the e-sata you must not have the original disk installed or you should first delete (clear) the disk signature from the original sata and then update the disk signature to the e-sata.
If you restore/update the disk signature GUID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Pa...ion_type_GUIDs) and a device already has the same id windows will not allow you to use it on another device. In your case probably was a id conflict in disks and in the partitions.
Try to restore again the image without the internal disk.

Earlier you said that with shadow protect it worked. Did you had both drives installed when you rebooted? If yes, your bios booted the e-sata and then the windows bootloader, booted the xp and 7 from your internal sata. If not shadow protect corrected/updated the entries in the e-sata bootloader to reflect the new ids.

ps.Do not confuse the the disk signature (GUID) with the hardware ID of the disk.

Panagiotis

[pandlouk]

Originally Posted by Brian K

Markymoo had an excellent app called DriveSnap that worked with DS to enable automatic DOS restores. But it is no longer available. Has anyone heard from Markymoo in the last year or so?

Have not heard from Mark from 3-4 months after he made the paid version of Drivesnap (never worked correctly on my pc).

ps. Drivesnap would be obsolute with the 1.40x version. The new reboot to restore feature (introduced in February) is simply fantastic.

Panagiotis

[Brian K]

Originally Posted by pandlouk

Have not heard from Mark from 3-4 months after he made

pandlouk,

Same here. His email address doesn't work anymore.

His DriveSnap worked fine on my computer but I can't recall if it could automatically restore an image to an empty HD. Do you remember?

[tyee]

Panagiotis
I see what your saying but you want me to clear the disk signature of my main hard drive so I can restore the image to the eSATA drive? How would I do this in real time. I'm running Windows from this drive.

The only reason I do this method is so I don't have to boot from a recovery disk and copy my image to a new hard drive if the main one fails. This way I have the new one already installed (eSATA) and just plug it in when the main one fails. A lot faster restore isn't it?

[Brian K]

Tony,

So you are keeping a cloned HD as a backup. Most of us don't do that but it is interesting that both of the apps that you have used, SP and DS, are not able to create a direct clone. Creating a direct clone cuts the time in half and you indicated you would like to save time.

[tyee]

Hi Brian
What app would you suggest to do a clone that works with Win7? Since I seem to like this method better maybe I should look for a real good cloner that's not 50MB to run. That's what I love about drive snapshot, so small and it just works, except in my case here.

Oh and the cloner must run from within windows and allow me to overwrite a partition that I select. I think I tried PartitionWizard recently to do this and it would only copy to an unallocated drive which is not good.

Any ideas??