Acronis & Rollback Rx

Hi Guys,

After install of Rollback, I decided to remove TI-10 which did not go smoothly. After many safe mode trips + UBCD4win sessions. I could not delete

HKLM\software\acronis regassassin failed, full permissions + regedt32 failed to remove acronis.

I found M$ "Mr Fix It" & acronis is history. Just what is Mr Fix It & did I just open up another can of worms? seeThis

Next - How do you edit windows registry on the c drive, when in UBCD4win? I got stuck viewing UBCD4win's reg.

Next - When I unzip MBRFIX see This I've unzipped it cannot see it from UBCD4win unrecognized command & from windows run > cmd > mbrfix.exe is not recognized as a legitmate command.

With Acronis gone I was going to use DriveImage XML or Paragon Drive Backup, Paragon won't work & DriveImage complains about vsscx.exe. for drive c:\, no problem with drive d:\. I've already tried starting & stopping services + regsvr32 many dll's plus a couple with "/i". Anyway this problem with windows shadow copy, has been solved using mbrfix from winpe, with the command "mbrfix /drive 0 generatesignature". But I can't get the command to work.

When DriveImage complains about c:\ it always says check to see if vssvc is running it is. Then it says it cannot lock the drive. What does lock the drive mean?? Then it says the backup can continue, but may be damaged, is this likely??

Oh! While in UBCD4win I can see & play with mbrwiz just fine. They have a list signature command. Done that! & change the sig to xxxx, not sure what to assign as opposed to mbrfix would generate.

I assume the mbr is included in Rollbacks snapshot right?

Thanks
Rico

 

Do you still have your very first RX (installation) snapshot. If so backup any files you created since that time you want to keep and then roll back to that snap. This should put your PC back to the sate it was in when you first installed RX. Then uninstall RX, uninstall TI 10, reinstall RX install any programs you may have added since installing RX the 1st time, copy your data back and you should be good to go.

I believe I had posted this previously for you in another thread, am I incorrect about this?

If the above fails you can reinstall the OS, restore the PC to your last ATI 10 image made before you installed RX, then uninstall TI, install RX and you should be good to go.

I hope this helps.

 

Hi Bgoodman,

First RR is "snap" is gone as during the 1st Acronis un-install RR became damaged and needed to be re-installed.

As for restoring Acronis from usb hdd, this would require using the Acronis boot disc, to re-install to essentially re-install & already removed program. I could perhaps re-install TI-10 again, now that everylast mention of that word has been scrubbed from this machine.



1 . What is M$ "FixIt" anyone in the community have experience with this?

2. What is "Lock" the drive, as in what happens when & why prior to image?

3. How do you navigate In UBCD4win to c:\windows "registry.

4. Does anyone have experience with "MBRFIX.exe" This file is not seen in
UBCD4win, nor is it a legal command? What am I doing wrong?

5. Mbrfix.exe will generate a drive signature, MBRwiz you can assign sig
What's the diff? How would you know what to assign?

6. With vssvc.exe error backing up on "c:" only the backup can continue
but warns backup may be damaged. Anyone have experience with this

FYI - RRx does NOT include MBR in it's snapshots & if mbr is fixed a re-install of Rx needs to occur!

Thanks
Rico

 

As to reinstalling TI I would suggest you have nothing to lose and much to gain. Mind you, you probably would not need to actually reinstall TI as you could load it from the rescue disk, however once you do the restore TI would be back on the PC because it was there when you created the image.

as to #2 - the drive to be backed up is locked so that there is no data change while the backup is in progress. This does not mean you cannot use your system while the backup is in progress, just that any changes to the data will not affect what was there when the backup began. ..... At least thats my understanding of the situation.

 

Bgoodman

You actually answered #2 & 6 - If you can't "lock" before backup, then the possibility of a write, to the non-locked disk, would/could muck up the bu.

Thanks
Rico

 

I hope it helps you solve the problem.

 

Two choices amigo:

a) find out why vssvc.exe balks at c:\


b) use an imaging program that does not rely on windows shadow copy



a) requires mbrfix /drive 0 generatesignatire command which I can't see or use
b) Acronis <shoot me first> before reinstall, perhaps image for windows.

Idea's appreciated here!

Take Care
Rico

 

FYI -

No it's not! Plus RRx will have to be re-installed. Plus It reverted to the previous snapshot "not the current one"

Should you contemplate doing something to the mbr, I would uninstall RRx, then operate on the mbr.

 

Not sure if this would suit you or not but I hear very good things about ShadowProtect and plan to use it to replace both RX and TI on my desktop when I get around to setting it up. What makes it a RX replacement for me is the fact that it can be set to take images as frequently as every 15 min and will collapse the days images into 1 image at the end of the day, then it will keep these collapsed daily images for 1 week and then collapse them into 1 weekly image, etc, etc.

I really like this especially since the images can be made to an external or 2nd internal drive while RXs cannot. For my laptop I will continue using RX even though there are issues with 3rd party imaging programs when RX is installed on a PC. ShadowProtect just does not make sense on a portable device so for these devices I feel RX is the most sensible choice. To deal with the imaging issue where RX is concerned I am using RXs imager (part of the program in the previous version --- which is the one I am running --- and available at what seems to be a fairly reasonable price as a stand alone program to be used with the current version of RX). In addition I will periodically uninstall RX in order to image with an 2nd imaging program, in my case this will be TI 11 since I have a licence for it already and it has served me well for many years, but any 3rd party imager would suit for this purpose.

I hope this helps.

 

Good Morning Bgood,

SP3.1 I owned & had problems getting to work correctly, even with Nate's help. They refunded my money, very nice of them. I believe PC Mag rated SP3 the highest of any image progie. SP3 has alot of respect & fan's here, hope it works for you.

Previous version of RX, your talking version 8? I have that on laptop, & ver. 9 on desktop, perhaps I need to flip them. I believe your talking about Rx's "Drive Cloner? If so this program does not work for me, because of the VSS issue I'm having. NOTE! SP3 may be problematic as I've read about issues with vss, at Shadow Protects forum. Also previously when I had SP3 installed the vss problem did not come up.

Drive Cloner
Drive Image XML <Rico's fav>
Macrium Reflect <Gizmo's favorite>
Paragon
Drive Snapshot

ALL REQUIRE THAT VSS WORK PROPERLY.
__________________________________

TI <Leo Laporte's fav>
Image for Windows <Steve Gibson, Spinrite fames favorite>

Do not require VSS
________________

Norton - is a bad word, so not sure if it's vss dependant or not.
__________
__________

I could use some recommendations in the NON vss dependent category.
_______________
_______________

Regarding "mbrfix.exe" re-downloaded unzipped. I get "mbrfix.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command." When placed in the root drive "C" it cannot be seen using bart or ubcd4win.

I wonder if Rx is making mbrfix behave, in this manner?

Question - From XP's repair console "Fixmbr" what does this do? I was given prior to running it. The non standard mbr warning. Does?

windows fixmbr generate a new signature LIKE

mbrfix /drive 0 generatesignature command <would or could?>



This is what I'm trying to do but mbrfix is very un-cooperative:

Thanks Amigo
Rico

 

Rico, nothing is simple is it...I hope you can find a workable solution,,,,there must be one out there,,,the problem is of course finding it. I wish I could offer more help but I have reached the limits of my knowledge. Sorry about bthat.

 

Hello Bgood,

These boxes we call PC's are really electric "Rubiks Cubes."

News:

MBRFIX - was being blocked by Rx, I removed Rx & mbrfix worked lke a charm, from UBCD4win. I then tested (sans Rx) "Macrium Reflect" nice program > install Rx 8.1 > re-test "Macrium Reflect" all systems GO, made a "full backup" to USB hdd, in what seems to be record time. Rx 8.x was in trial mode, during the Macrium full backup. Uninstall Rx-8, install Rx-9 & immediately Macrium breaks.

Next - Just tried Paragon Drive BU Special Ed, this program also fails. I don't believe its Rx, as previously without Rx, I could not get this to work. I'm not sure if, sans Rx doing a "mbrfix /drive 0 generatesignature" the installing "Paragon" would cure the Paragon blues.

What's interesting my laptop "XP-Pro" would with Rx, run just fine with Paragon Drive Backup, my desktop "XP-Home will not run any Paragon program with or without Rx. The list of regsvr32 dll's does not help, so it back to the mbrfix thingy.

Next - Ill try to downgrade Rx 9 > 8 <fingers crossed here>

Take Care
Rico

 

I am not terribly knowledgeable when it comes to tech matters but it seems to me you would only need to run FIXMBR if you needed to fix the MBR due to a restore of the PC from an image. Since images do not backup RX backups/snapshots, which would include even baseline images, in a sense RX would not be functioning on the restored PC and thus RX could not block anything. As I understand it the reason you would need to do a FIXMBR upon an image restore is because RX is not active and the MBR is looking for RX as the PC boots,,,,,,this, to me, at least strongly implies that it does not matter if FIXMBR is blocked by RX or not since its only nec to run it IF RX is not active and cannot simply be activated (in a sense is not fully installed on the PC). Also, as noted above, this whole issue disappears if you are using Drive Cloner to create the images because a restore from a Drive Cloner gives you an intact and fully functioning PC including RX based on the snapshot active when the image was created as well as the MBR from that same time frame,,,,so again, no need to worry about if FIXMBR works or not.

Now as I said my knowledge is limited here so if I am out to lunch with this I would be grateful if someone would correct me,,,,,after all thats the best way for me to learn,,,,certainly better than by having to learn after the fact when I am having a problem with my PC.

 

AS I understand it the real issue is not making the images, its what happens when you restore the image......At least thats my understanding from the research I did here on Wilders back when I was looking for a program to replace GOBACK. For details of this try searching under my name (bgoodman4) for MBR and you should (hopefully) find the questions I was asking about this and the ans I received.

By the way, I was told when I was researching RX, that if you do a sector by sector image the MBR issue is not an issue,,,, that the image would include all RX snaps (or was it only the current one) and that a sector by sector restore would give you a PC that is in the same state it was in at the time of the image,,,,including a functional RX (but possibly missing all but the snapshot being used at the time of the image). if this is the case, and you want to use Paragon or Macrium, the problem you mentioned with RX preventing these programs from running, obviously becomes a significant issue.......

I have created images with ATI of my laptop while RX was running but I have not tried to do a restore from one of these as there has been no need to,,, I have images created with RXs imager as well as images created without RX installed,,, I made the ATI images with RX installed just because I could,,,,and because I wanted an extra layer of protection just in case.....

EDIT: I may be getting confused between this tread and another where questions about RX are being raised so please excuse me if my comments are off focus.

 

True, but only if you first bootup into a standalone ('live') Windows environment, like BartPE, UBCD4Win, etc., and then use ATI (or another disk-imager) to create an 'all sectors' image of your C-drive. I have been doing just that over the past few years on the family desktop using Acronis TI with no recovery issues. The only caveat is that our desktop has Rollback Rx v7.2.1 (the final v7 build) on it, so I can't say with first-hand knowledge that subsequent RB versions wouldn't behave differently.

 

Hi Bgood, Jo Ann:

News - A couple of posts back I reported making a full backup using Macrium to USB drive. Today Horizons downgraded my 9.0 > 8.1, Okay uninstall Rx 9 clean up the drive, defrag reboot, making sure all is well for the Rx 8.1 install. Install of Rx complained something about license file, but continued to install & even took my new license, next Rx failed to update mbr. Rx now needs to reboot to finish, installation. Now I'm in an endless loop, next get the UBCD4win disk, mbrfix /drive 0 restorembr <xxx>, reboot still endless loop, back to UBCD4win & mbrfix drive 0 fixmbr, reboot still no luck. Next I had made a Macrium boot disc. I restored c: no problem, then when c: was back to normal I used Macrium to restore d:

Prior to installing Rx 8.1 I did two things:

1. jv16 regclean
2. Smartdefrag with deep optimize

then installed the problem child Rx 8.1 < could one of those cause mbr problems?>
___________________

Macrium works well & is reliable with Rx 8 installed. Note Rx 9 = broken Macrium

Maybe I'll try the Rx 8.1 one more time.

I don't understand why I could not restore both drives, the first time, perhaps that has something to do with the free version.

Take Care
Rico

 

I will leave it to Jo Ann to help further if she can as my knowledge is on the subject is exhausted. The only thing I can add is you might want to try letting Horizon support take a shot at the problem as well as posting the issue on the RX dedicated support forum. http://horizondatasys-forum.com/horizon-datasys/

Sorry I could not be of more help and I will keep my fingers crossed that things work out for you.

 

Rico, I'm sorry but I don't have any experience with Macrium, so I can't begin to answer your question about restoring both volumes, but your difficulties with Rollback Rx, may be due to a 'dirty' boot-sector.

You said that you did a FIXMBR. If that indeed 'took' it should have restored the original MBR code (effectively wiping out RB's code and any other non-standard entries).

It's usually a good idea to follow that with a FIXBOOT in order to restore the Windows' native ability to boot with the NTLDR file and bootloader.

There's also a BOOTCFG command which allows you to modify boot parameters (just like you can from inside Windows by modifying the boot.ini file under Advanced System Properties). However, I don't think that has anything to do with the problems you have experienced.

Btw, back in the RB v7 days, HDS had a special cleanup program that they would provide to clean up after uninstalling RB. You might ask them if they have one for v8 and v9.

Good luck and do keep us posted.

JA

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PS. Getting back to using Acronis TI with RB (the subject of this thread), you should only use Acronis' disk imaging/cloning features with RB and NOT it's Secure Zone feature, which creates a hidden partition and modifies the MBR. RB wants full control of the MBR and does not 'like' any other non-std entries! That includes the hidden partition (F11) recovery functionality often provided by PC manufacturers!