COMODO Time Machine BETA Released!

Fuzzfas is right about Rollback/Eaz-Fix regarding third party defraggers. But according to the small FAQ section on comodo's site comodo time machine can be defragged.

Is Comodo Time Machine compatible with defragmenter software ?

 

I can give it a try, but it's not even powered on. The system doesn't even see it.

Not sure why it would make any difference.

Edit: Nope, no difference. Same message. If I go to check out the drives on the system, I have a bunch of removable discs, but these are just the removable card slots, I'm assuming. There isn't anything actually connected at all and same message.

 

I don,t think using a defrag is good with CTM.

 

its best to play it safe with these kind of software and not defrag unless using the built-ioin defragger (rollback rx has, dunno if CTM does)

 

Exactly! I should have added a qualifier.

 

Would I be correct in thinking that this would also be the safest method of imaging a disk partition monitored by CTM: i.e. uninstall CTM, make the image, reinstall?

 

Just a word of caution/advice based on personal experience.

DO NOT use any utility to wipe the free space on a disc protected by CTM.

I used the wipe free space application in Glary utilities and the hard drive became unusable.
The CTM restore snapshots I had created were corrupted and unrecoverable. The OS (XP Home Edition) was "frozen".
Rebooting to safe mode or "last known good configuration" was impossible; the computer would just endlessly cycle to the boot screen, pause, then restart.

Because it was one of my 40 gig "practice" drives, no real harm was done.

I wiped and formatted the drive, then installed a backup XP Home image and in about 30 minutes was up and running.

To confirm that the wipe free space function had indeed caused the problem, I again wiped the free space, this time using CCleaner, and, again, the drive was unusable and could not be repaired using CTM, system restore, or "last known good configuration".

Just a word of warning.

 

Hi

Having finally got CTM installed I want to ask one or two questions please.

1) Is CTM intended to be a bare metal backup and restore like say ShadowProtect?

2) If not how do you use ShadowProtect (or any other Image software) with CTM installed? What I mean by this is:

a) to either back up or restore an image with ShadowProtect do you have to uninstall CTM?

b) If not how do you make a bare metal backup and restore with CTM installed? Which snapshot is used? Baseline or a newly created snapshot

c) Are there any pitfalls to watch out for on a baremetal restore?

Thanks

Terry

 

any thing that accesses/ writes to the disk directly wil mess up CMT.

 

Does CTM keep it's snapshot data on the drive or on some strange sector? I had a recent problem with eaz-fix, it made my drive d dissapear in windows 7 and after reformatting drive d and puttings files back I uninstalled eaz-fix and it killed drive d again. After uninstalling eaz fix I've had no issues with my drives since. Another issue I have with eaz/rb is that the snapshots show a small file size but gb(s) end up missing. I hope Comodo learns from their errors.

 

so with ccleaner do u mean the wiper or the registry cleaner?

 

Please post a bug report in the bug report thread in the Comodo Forums if you can please!

Thank you!

 

I don,t think it,s a bug.

 

its an inherent flaw that chips away the efficacy of what is otherwise an excellent solution be it rollback or ctm

 

Don't think i am an expert on this, i 've only read some topics in the rollback forum a few days ago since i bought EAZ Fix.

So, without being 100% sure, i think i remember that you CAN make an image without uninstalling, BUT, the image will NOT contain your CTM snapshots. Only the current snapshot that you are using.

This, because as other stated, Windows can't "see" the snapshots. With this kind of program, it's like Windows is running within another operating system, the one booted by CMT/Rollback/EAZ Fix. For this reason only the program itself "sees" its own snapshots, but even EAZ Fix's built-in imaging utility, can't make an image of the snapshots , because it works as an independent drive imaging software (which is why in Rollback they 've separated it and sell it as standalone drive imaging software. Well, that and to make more $ by selling 2 software instead of 1).

It's my understanding too. No bug. In the "free space", the wiping utility simply wiped out the sectors where CTM was keeping the info about the location of files. Windows can't see them so they were appearing erroneously as "free", wiping the out resulted in wiping the snapshots and CTM had no way of finding a "working" snapshot and kaboom!


I myself earlier this day for some reason had a boot message "improper shutdown, checking disk" (in EAZ Fix, not CTM). I don't know if it was really Threatfire the culprit (i can't think of another addition with low level drivers that could have caused it), fact is that i have reverted to a snapshot without TF and i don't get this message anymore. This is a program with many quirks. Very useful, but if you don't read and learn about it and learn the things that doesn't like, you 've got a ticket ready for PC disaster.

 

The data are on the drive, but not readable from Windows. CTM passes all data through its own driver and knows where they are.

On your case, i 'd have some comments:

1) Does Windows 7 have an automatic defragmenting ability? I think Vista does. I 'd find a way to switch that off immediately.

2) AFAIK Rollback 9 SHOULD work on most Windows 7 installations, but it's not YET officially supporting Windows 7 (i read so in their forum) and gives minor errors sometimes and 5% of total failure. They say that soon after the release of Windows 7 they will release a release which officially supports Windows 7.

 

Pete, you are wrong on this one.
With Eaz-FIX/RollbackRX I always wipe the free space when I want to perform a sector by sector backup.
It is not a problem with the technology; since those apps create a huge file filled with zeros EAZ-FIX/RollbackRX can handle them without any problems as long as the user performs the wipe from the main OS enviroment and not from a PE Disk.

Panagiotis

 

You are right. Not all the wipers use this procedure. But CCleaner is one of those that use it.
It's easy to check it out. Simple start a free space wipe and check the root directory of the drive; you should see one big file that grows every second (or several new big files; on fat32 drives).

If one performs the same task from a pe enviroment, it will zap not only the snapshots but also the preboot enviroment/OS.

Panagiotis

 

Thanks for the reply. From what I'm reading in this thread, there seems to be pluses and minuses with this type of technology, so I may just give CTM a miss and stick with my current combination of Returnil and Acronis TI.

 

To firzen771;

In reference to your question in reference to my post (#222 in this thread).

The standard CCleaner disc and registry cleaners work perfectly with CTM.
I experienced the problem using CCleaners' "wipe free space" utility which is the last option in the left side menu.
That option is unchecked by default.

The problem also occurred using the "wipe free space" option in Glary Utilities.

I haven't tried any other similar application such as Eraser.
I hope that a fix for this problem can be found.

Other than that, still enjoying CTM very much.

Thanks again Comodo !

 

ah okay, good then, ive never used it before so never had the problem.