Anyone using ActiveImage Protector?

It has 'Include free space in image' as an advanced option.

 

Beat me to it... As noted, there is a Include Free Space option that will do all sectors. I've done a handful of restores now and it's been solid.

 

Thanks guys, I assume you are referring to the Desktop edition? - I'll burn a CD when I get home and compare AIP to my current favorite (DS).

Aaron

 

Yes, the Desktop Edition.

I got this from support, just to confirm...

"The boot CD or the Recovery CD will both perform a cold or raw backup. As for the sectors, by default, temporary files, page file and empty sectors are ignored during a backup. By checking the “include free space” box in the advanced settings, empty physical sectors will be included in the backup image."

 

It turns out that the Create Custom Recovery CD program appears flawed. Most WinPE disks do not have the necessary driver for my desktop's Promise controller and this was no exception. As a result, the CD couldn't 'see' 2 of my 3 HDDs.

So I attempted to use its Custom Recovery CD program to create a custom iso by loading my Promise driver, but the darn program simply would not create the iso on my one HDD that it did recognize!!!

After 6-attempts I gave up and notified support of my situation...

Aaron

 

Funny I work with a guy with a Promise controller for his array and he's always had issues with drivers and creating CD's.

I hope you can get it to work! The support has been pretty good when I have used it.

 

Finally got it working - with help from 'Roberto' (AIP-Support).

Now I can start checking it out...

Aaron

 

Hi,

I have noticed that from time to time, I can mount the latest incremental image but it appears to be empty, meaning it is somehow corrupt. I suspect the tracking service got lost somewhere and the not all modified sectors were correctly saved, but that's just a hint. This happens mostly on my Win7x64 system, and maybe after using a defragmentation tool (O&O Defrag 14 x64)

Anyone else noticed that ?

I have reported the issue but I guess this will not be easy to find the cause.

 

I haven't, but since I am running the same OS and defrag as you, I can test this hopefully tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up. I don't do incrementals (usually a weekly full) but I'll try it.

 

Hi,
I have tried O&O defrag & AIP on a XP Pro 32bits machine, no issue this time. Maybe this is a x64 issue, or something totally different.

 

Not only are 'hot' incremental images unavailable on-demand, neither 'cold' incrementals or 'cold' differentials are available [period]!

I find AIP imaging restrictions way too limiting for my way of life - but that's just me.

Aaron

 

You can perform hot incremental images after you have defined a script. When defined, run it in full (base) mode, then run it at will in incremental mode.

 

The main feature of AIP is that it monitors constantly the sector changes of a given partition (say C , changes from to the last image done on a given target. When a new incremental image is done, AIP already knows which sectors to save so it increases a lot the whole process.

This, plus the possibility to optionally add files to a mounted image, and to consolidate several incrementals into one, with a correct price tag, makes it quite unique.

Still, it seems some small issues remain here and there, so it seems it's still a work in progress.

 

MerleOne,

Good input. Like I said before, as someone who only does offline fulls, I don't have any limitations. Still it's nice to learn about other features. Thanks!

 

Besides Napoleon, has anyone else successfully restored an AIP image? ....my one try failed.

Aaron

 

I have not tried it yet...

 

Aaron,

Curious what fails for you? The restore process or booting up afterward? Thanks. I've done a few fine myself.

 

I have also restored a data disk, all seems ok so far.

 

Not to hijack this thread, but for the purpose of answering the question, some background is necessary.

I am a Rollback Rx user. Every week I use Drive Snapshot to create a cold-raw image of my C-volume as that's the only way DS (and most other image-backup programs) can accurately capture a RB-enabled system.

So I used the AIP boot-disk to create a cold image of my system including the free-space, which (supposedly) is the same as a raw-image, and upon completion it verified successfully. After restoring the image my system booted and appeared to be operational but my RB enviroment was not functioning.

That has never happened to me using DS (thank goodness I had also backed-up with DS)!

Aaron

 

Hi Aaron! That will always happen if the MBR was "refreshed" with a STANDARD version rather than restored from an imaged version or remain untouched during the restoration.

I dont know why any imaging tool would do anything other than restore the MBR it saved at most (and then only if asked to do so). Sounds like AIP is "tinkering" a bit.

 

Hi Frog,

This was my first and last cold-raw backup-restore using AIP's Recovery CD. I don't have a clue as to what it does re MBR restoration, nor (for that matter) do I know for sure that selecting its 'Include Free Space' option actually creates a true raw image. AIP was worth a look because of its potential speed advantage, and it did indeed 'outrun' DS - but while faster is nice, not at the expense of reliability!

As a side note (and slightly OT), are you still experiencing 100% success with your IFW hot-raw imaging method? As a long-time RB user I am tempted to try your method, although I don't see it being much of a time-saver over cold-raw imaging.

Aaron

 

Greetings! See other thread...

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=289829&page=9

 

Apart from trying to image a RB-activated PC, is there any report of restore failure (for the active OS partition) ?

RB configuration are a little bit specific and I'd like to hear more about standard configs (no instant recovery mechanism installed).

Thanks !

 

I've done 5 or so restores between my laptop and desktop (no special configs or anything) with no issues at all. My needs are pretty basic...I do an offline full image weekly, and when necessary, I'd need to restore it back to the same disk or to a larger one. I tested both options (restore to same and to larger disk) fine.

 

Merle, that's certainly an understatement of the involved complexities and I do recognize that my AIP restore failure was most likely due to the RB environment.

Aaron