Drive Snap: Drive Snapshot Frontend

You still have to continue to Backup in WinPe as usual. When your system fail you will need to restore it. You will do that in WinPE too but Drive Snap has now DOS restore. It restores your image in a non Windows environment. It instant no time wasted waiting for WinPe to load. You insert the CD and bang its loaded literally in seconds.

 

Ok, but how is that DOS Restore CD created?

 

Aaron, right click the image. Easy from then.

 

My main computer has SATA HDs and the UDMA driver is simply ignored and not loaded. As you know it's only of use for IDE HDs where the BIOS isn't fully compatible with UDMA.

 

It's done automatically. Select the image as Brian said and a CD image will be created in the same folder. Insert a blank CD and click Start and it will be burned to the disk and ejected.

 

It's just as i initially thought then lol. You have IDE still. Interestingly is restoring to IDE/ATA with UDMA faster than restoring to a SATA drive?

 

No need Drive Snap Restore disk is already DOS boot . Brian is trying to make it so it restores faster as i have not included a UDMA driver as he uses IDE. I will include it on next update.

 

No, I'm not saying that. SATA restore is fast.
It's just the IDE test computer is slow if I don't load a UDMA driver.

My main computer has SATA HDs.

 

It works 100% as your Windows is natuarally always the boot drive. I am just giving a warning. It be fine if you have a C and you boot off C.There is a way where you can install Windows onto D but the boot info and boot.ini is on C. In this circumstance you have to image the drive with boot.ini on and auto restore this with the CD and you also have to image your Windows drive. Essentially the boot info is on another drive or partition to the Windows folder.

There is lots of solutions to backup but few restore solutions. I know how for some it's a pain trying to create a BartPe etc. Users are put off taking the time to create a restore disk. Drive Snap Restore CD takes the hard work out of it. It's a way to get back with minimum effort and its automatic. You already restoring your system back even before WinPe or BartPe has finished loading.

 

So true. This method will revolutionize image restores.

 

Understood so far. Once I have done that and burned the CD will the same CD work for every subsequent DS image I create (each with their own unique file-names) if they are stored inside the same USB drive and folder - or will I have to burn a new Restore CD for every subsequent image-file?

 

Aaron,

I thought about that question last night. You can get by if you keep your latest image in the folder the CD knows about, but it must always have the file name the CD knows about. That's easy. Just change file names as needed.

 

Yes and you restored back a few percent already while usually you be in a menu clickiing on a few options and deciding is that what i want to do? The auto restore removes the human error aspect also. Like you said it's a no brainer .

 

You just pick the relevent image and it will auto restore back the filename you selected. If you want to auto restore back another filename image then you have to create another CD for that. You could restore back another file on the system if you rename the file to the same image filename you originally made the CD for but then you would have to change the filename for that too as there in the same folder and then it would mess up the image names what corresponds to what and in the end it won't be as smooth operation. One day you get clumsy and end up restoring back the wrong image.This is bad practice. It just simpler to burn off another CD. The system is designed so you don't need to change filenames. The CDs nicely match the image filenames listed in the Restore Tab. Don't mess up a beautiful system. It's automatic restore afterall. The hard work done for you.

If the CD could restore back all filenames then it wouldn't be truly automatic as you have to have some user intervention to decide what image to restore. I could do a restore disk menu where you can decide to put back which image at the last moment. If you want to limit yourself to 1 CD for all images then you have to have a menu.

The majority have 1 image for C and so only need 1 cd created. A possible solution for regular backups could be take a original backup of C and then take 7 daily differentials. You then use 7 CD-RW and label them by the day of the week. You keep the original filename CD but every following week for the new differentials you use the same filenames week after week and so can then use the same 7 CD for ever more and have the other CD can always go back to that original system configuration.

Like i said you can use CD Rewritables for the amount of images you got and use over and over again and so keep the cost down.

I can confirm if you store your image on USB then the DOS restore will still find and restore it .

 

Ok, so say I make a full image of my c-partition and name it c-full[date]. If I understand correctly I should then immediately make a DOS Restore CD and label it accordingly.

Now assume that each of the following days I make a differential backup, naming each one c-diff[date], making a DOS Restore CD of each immediately after they are created and labeling them accordingly.

Doing this, I would have as many DOS Restore CDs as I have DS images (each one capable of a fully automated restore)! ...or I could just use the original DOS Restore CD (for my full-image) which would also see the subsequent differential images and present them to me for selection before proceding to do the restore. Is that correct?

 

@Aaron

First of all you have to establish a backup plan. How often do you want to backup your system? My suggestion is backup every day either using differentials or full backups then you can restore back and only lose several hours changes and not several days.

The situation is to restore back a differential image in DOS you got to first restore the full backup image and then the differential over the top so you need to do 2 restores. This is made easier by Drive Snap. In Windows or Windows recovery, this is done in one action.

You got to recycle the 7 day or 14 day differential backups every week or two or you would have a neverending amount of backups and run out of space. You can go back to 1 of the last 14 days anytime. On top of that you take a full image once every 2-3 weeks so when you recycle the 14 day backups again you don't lose the changes of those last 2 weeks. If you keep using the same filenames for those 7-14 days you can keep using the same rewitable CD's over and over again. You don't then have to keep making CD's. If you have a CD for every backup it means it easier to auto restore to that backup time. If you don't make CD's of a recent change and your system goes down and you want to auto restore you suddenly can't make a automatic restore cd without a windows to do it. You have to settle on auto restore from a further time back or have to resort to using WinPe the usual way. By making all the CD's first you can easily auto restore back to alot different times.

Alternatively what could be more pratical is have 1 restore CD that knows all your images, you press 1 key and it restores the image you want. This is semi automatic . If you use a fixed amount of image names then you wouldn't have to keep creating or update the CD. 1 CD will work for good.

 

Very occaisionally drive snap stops responding ,in this case i was testing drive snap, i did a fefw images , all ok then i enabled "allow graphics" the image was made ok but drive snap stops responding , see:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2174/2496941588_472ebccc9c_o.jpg
and:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3242/2496119945_54d2f5e96b_o.jpg

Lin

 

Hi linp, it's not that it 'failing to respond' it's actually still running ok as can be seen in your Task Manager there is 'no responding' msg. It's not detecting properly when Drive Snapshot has finished and locked in that position and so doesn't pop up again so you have to resort to using TM to close it. It same bug lodore mentioned. I will fix it.

 

sorry ,.overlooked that post ,Lin

 

linp + lodore

That annoying bug is now fixed won't happen again. Delete any other version first and download here.

http://artco.adsl24.co.uk/markymoo/Drive Snap.exe

 

thanks
btw seems there was some issues with my c: partition and chckdisc fixed the issues. so may try the restore cd again later. the issue has been fixed well done.
the verify at around 30percent onwards slowing my system down majorly bug is still there.
i have no idea what is causing drivesnapshot to be using all the ram.
doesnt if i create an image and verfiy without the front end.
i will see if it does it without the front end if i choose the option to not split the image with verifying.

 

I had made the Drive Snap Automatic System Restore CD too automatic. It restored your system but if you wasn't there to remove the CD at the end of restore it would auto boot and reload the CD again and start restoring your system all again in an endless loop .

I could of made it so it restores your system and boots the hard drive but if you leave the CD in or forget to take it out then subsequent boots would load it again, so i have instead changed it so when the CD boots there's a 20 second timer, press a key and it load the CD, press Escape key or let the countdown goto zero it will boot the hard drive. So you can now press a key to restore and walk away, and it will boot the restored hard drive at the end of the restore .

When you right clicked in the Restore window on create either of the Create Restore CD and you didn't have a image highlighted it would still create a ISO. This is now fixed. Delete the old Drive Snap.exe and get this.

http://artco.adsl24.co.uk/markymoo/Drive Snap.exe

@Brian

I have now included the UDMA driver to speed up IDE. The CD loads so fast you won't see it but it's there.

 

@markymoo,

Wonderful work! Does the restored image include your MBR and First Track of disk? Thanks. I am familiar with using SP and Image for Windows but not with Drive Snapshot because I feared the command line restore interface but you have done wonderful work with your interface app and auto restore. Thanks.

Gary

 

thats great news markymoo ! 10x a lot for the time spend mate..... i gona also check this out

cheerssssss

 

markymoo,

The UDMA driver and "Press any key" are great. Nicely done.