Another Time Machine!!

This is rogue?

 

Man,I dont know,but there is a lot of wierdness in the air.
evaluation for 7 days? 366days?

Fake awards?

As far as I am concerned in the best of cases, this is a troublesome technology.

I want to try one of these "Roll-Backers", but I always loose gut.

 

Not sure about PC Time Machine in particular, but I've successfully restored backups to virtual machines with Rollback Rx. However, you need take extra measures to make sure it works.

Here's what worked for me.
1. Booted to BartPE with Image for Windows on it.
2. Made a complete backup of C: drive (only drive on that vm) including
pagefile, hiberfil and unused sectors.

3. I then booted the vm again to make some changes: I deleted some files, made some new ones, took a new Rollback snapshot, deleted several old ones, defragged C: with Rollback.

4. Booted to to BartPE again and chose to restore the previous image. (did select not the 'update mbr' option).
5. Booted to vm and checked that files and snapshots I had deleted in step 3 were again there (they were) - and the ones I had created weren't. Finally I rolled back to one of those snapshots and that also worked.


BUT: I tried this earlier with Macrium and AyRecovery - I made the Macrium image while Windows and Ay were running, made changes, restore image and tried to boot vm but it failed to load.

So my initial thoughts are:
1. Use a sector based backup software (or sector-to-sector backup which is or was an option with Acronis at least).
2. Do not make any changes to the protected partitions while Windows and rollback program are offline. (Make sure your backup software doesn't leave any log or driver files behind).
3. Back up the complete hard drive (all partitions). If you have multiple partitions on the same disk, you could try to see if backing up and restoring only the system partition works, but it's better to only try that once you already have a complete backup on hand. (And of course, make a backup before you even install a time machine or rollback program).

UPDATE: Macrium worked too from BartPE with the 'Exact Image' option selected from the 'Advanced' menu. (i.e. Macrium Reflect Full trial let's you make Reflect PE plugin for BartPE, which is what I used - the trial expires, but the plugin does not. However, to use it you need to build your own BartPE boot disk which can be tricky the first time).

UPDATE 2: I did one more test: Divided a virtual hard disk into 3 partitions: C: (for system - WinXP), E: (for data/backups) and F (for BartPE), and added a boot menu so that I could boot directly to BartPE which has my backup program plugins and such. I then did a custom install of Rollback Rx so that I could set it to protect C: only and I ignored the multi-boot issue i.e. I did not install on the BartPE partition. I then repeated the whole backup/restore process using Image for Windows from BartPE, but this time I only made backups of C:. It worked perfectly on the vm.

 

have a look!

Virus Total link removed.

 

.
FWIW, I tried Comodo Time Machine for a while and it worked OK. I was also able to uninstall it without problems, however some people report their computers won't boot afterward because the MBR is not properly restored. This kind of software can be very useful for people who test drive lots of software and want to quickly and easily revert their systems. I find a combination of Data backup and imaging meets my needs better though, and I don't want to deal with the issues that roll back software throws into the mix (defrag, compatibility with imaging software, etc.)

 

@Victek123:


No,I do not want those issues either.

I don't know why I have never thought
of downloading something like CTM on my VirtualBox!

I can play with it there.

I am curious about this class of software.
But the borked MBR?
not that curious!!

rat

 

It does indeed.

Weird.

I just contacted AyRecovery and ask them about PC TimeMachine and they specifically told me that the product is NOT theirs and that they DO NOT OWN that web site.

 

Also this points to Eaz Fix.

http://whois.domaintools.com/pctimemachine.com

http://whois.domaintools.com/eazsolution.com

 

Softpedia lists both AY Recovery and PC Timemachine as products of Anyue Technology Ltd.
http://www.softpedia.com/developer/Anyue-Technology-Co-Ltd-55298.html

I tried both applications last Saturday.
If they're not products of the same company, someone should be suing someone; both have the same icon cache.

 

renegade08

Wierd indeed as AvinashR's screenie clearly shows



and pajenn's shows



wtsinnc

http://www.k62.net home of AyRecovery but NO mention of PC TimeMachine ?

Maybe they were connected at one time, but have since, err split

 

Apparently this is product from EAZ-FIX. They confirmed.

It's based on source code of EAZ-FIX v8 and it's stripped down version of EAZ-FIX.
It's not a free version, it's evaluation for extended time.
EAZ-FIX has agreement for this and several others products with another Chinese company under open source agreement for EAZ-FIX v8 in effort to enter some Asian PC builder markets.
Other company is not suppose to entering U.S. and European markets, but here they are. EAZ Solutions are trying to clean those up over time.

 

OK,renegade08,that pretty much covers it all.
thanks for the explanation.

respect,
rat