Alternative to system image?

After struggling for a day without luck to get Acronis to install a system image, I've had it. This is the third imaging program that's given me trouble in the last year, so I am ready to find another solution to recovery. Would RollBack RX be something to look into? Any other suggestions would be welcomed.

 

Which other tools have disappointed you ??
Then the suggestions will flow..

RollbackRX is not specifically a system imager; it is a multi-snapshot tool.

 

have you tried Macrium Free?
it's easy to use. the linux rescue CD boots in seconds, il love it!

i love Rollback RX but i would not trust it as my only source of "backup".
because the snapshots are stored on the OS disk and there's no way to save them to an external disk.

an imaging solution that works for you has to be your top priority.
keep on looking m8.

 

Read my post if you want an imaging software that has HIR/P2P feature

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=290875

Of course, if you don't need that, they are still a very good choice!

 

I've had trouble with the imaging in Windows 7 x64, Paragon, and now Acronis. It could be my fault, I still am not clear when to use the MBR restore, but using a system partition I wouldn't think I'd need that. I will talk to Acronis about this current problem: when I try to restore the image, the system partition is unformatted, it is no longer available, and the restore fails. So I reformatted using Windows install disk, and the same thing happened when re-trying the Acronis system image install.

The system image has to be totally reliable, and it hasn't been for an unsophisticated user like me. I was hoping there was a foolproof solution. I will try Macrium next.

 

Image for windows and DriveSnapshot are almost bulletproof (never failed to restore a verified image).

Keriver 1-Click Restore Pro and Keriver 1-Click Restore Free are very solid too, and are the easiest imaging apps.

Panagioits

 

Rollback RX is fine for software recovery problems. However should your hard drive fail rollback will not save you.

Your best option would probably be to test out a bunch of other imaging programs to see if any will work for you.

 

After my experience the last few days I was hoping there would be an alternative to a system image, but from the comments here, there isn't one. Thank you for the help. I will start another thread about finding a reliable program.

 

If you are looking for an alternative to traditional bare-metal recovery and imaging; Rollback Rx is perfect for instant recovery. It will protect you from 95% of computer issues. However, if your hard drive has physical damage and your PC can not starts; then you would need to rely on a ghost type imaging tool.

Rollback Rx will be compatible with Drive Cloner Rx in July '11 which means that you can have the best of both worlds.

 

Welcome to this forum, Nick10 !

We look forward to more of your participation on RollBack Rx topics and discussions.

 

@Nick10, yes nice of you to post.

Could I suggest you identify yourself ( besides the avatar ) as "Horizon Staff".
http://horizondatasys-forum.com/search.php?searchid=11425
If that is in fact the Nick10 @ HDS

IIRC, RollbackRx is neither Bare Metal Recovery tool nor System Imager.
Happy to be corrected.

 

As long as your hard drive remains healthy (no physical damage), Rollback Rx (RB) is a wonderfully convenient backup tool. I think of RB as Windows System Restore on steroids ...it's what System Restore should have been in the first place! It can restore your system from just about any user screw-up or software corruption faster than I can write about it. It's also very handy if you frequently try-out different software (as I do with freeware and trialware). Before installing the software take an RB snapshot (takes all of about 5 seconds). Don't like the software? - no problem, just restore the RB snapshot you took before installing it (takes little more time than your usual restart) and your system drive reverts to exactly the way it was before that software installation!

That said, you really should find an image-backup program that works with your system. At this time, as good as RB is it doesn't take the place of a system backup image, which can save your bacon if your drive goes south (unlikely as that may be).

Aaron

 

I use Active@Disk Image on my netbook, I like it because the recovery media can be built on a USB flash key with lots of option. It offers diff & incremental images, and is quite fast (not as fast as Macrium, but fast enough).

 

errr,

the restore times for Macrium are know to be quite slow.
just read a few posts here @ Wilders.

restoring 17 Gb worth of data takes 10 minutes with Windows 7, 11 with Active@ Boot Disk and 20 minutes for Macrium Free.

 

Restoring 15.1 GB Windows 7 partition takes only 4 minutes here with Active@Bootable Flash

 

Hmm, I was rather speaking about backup time, not restore time. I perform more often backup than restore, so it's more important to me.

 

either you have a fast computer with perhaps SSD or i need to get a new mobo that can boot from flash/USB

if i could restore an image in 5 minutes i could get rid of Rollback RX.

food for thoughts...

 

I suspect that the backup duration will largely be a function of your hardware and the software settings you select. For example, using ShadowProtect Desktop with SAS hard disk drives (15K RPM) and with maximum compression and encryption enabled, I see backup speeds of 50MB+ per second.

 

I have restored a 16 GB image created with the built-in Windows 7 backup program in 2.5 min, from an external USB 3.0 disk (an USB 3.0 EVGA card is installed in the computer).

In my case, USB 3.0 is about 3.5 times faster than USB 2.0, so this would translate to 8.75 min using USB 2.0.

These times do not include the time needed to boot from the Windows 7 repair disc and to load the USB 3.0 drivers.

 

tnx for the info mate!

speed like these almost render snapshot type programs obsolete, don't they?...

 

My system board supports USB boot. I boot to working Active@Boot environment in less than one minutes and then can backup in less than 5 minutes (15 GB, normal compression, password protected) and can restore in 4 minutes (9.22 GB backup size). I have just backup up my latest changes in 3 minutes and 50 sec (I always prefer full image).

 

Are they not compatible now? I have been using both without issue. Mind you I have not had to restore a DriveCloner image as RX has always sufficed.