FDISR Vs Imaging

Peter,
So you did a copy/update FROM winXPproSP2-archive TO primary winVISTA-snapshot with errors and those errors were corrected by running chkdsk ?
After that you had a new OS in your primary snapshot : WinXPproSP2 instead of winVISTA?

 

You got that right, an extreme test indeed. I'm pleasantly surprised by this.

That must have been a hell of a job for FDISR to change winVISTA into winXPproSP2 by just adding, removing and replacing objects. No wonder it took 11 minutes, which is still pretty fast considering the job.
Almost unbelievable LOL. Nice test, it makes your confidence in COPY/UPDATE alot stronger, I can tell you that.

 

WOW! EricAlbert & Peter2150! I'll say that was extreme Peter, and looks like FD-ISR handled it with flair in spite of showing errors you didn't find in the log. You really take it to task as much as i take Windows to task by turning the zoo looose in it & standing up various security programs to knock them off their rocker while to give up the ghost so-to-speak. Windows gets worked over pretty good but only temporarily.

Thanks so much for that experiment, and a perhaps risky one at that, you don't leave no stone unturned and we all can benefit greatly from that. To coin a particular Star Wars phrase, Impressive! Most Impressive!

 

For someone who has an aversion to any backup/imaging/snapshot programs running inside of Windows, I have developed total confidence in FDR doing exactly that. No way would you get me relying on an imaging program in the same situation.
Pretty remarkable testing Peter. Makes you wonder exactly what you need to do to break this program.

 

Must admit I have been following the SP threads and am quite envious.

 

That too of course. After all a frozen snapshot, uses the same copy/update from archive to snapshot.
I knew it was possible in theory, but it's nice to know that it REALLY WORKS in practice.
Thanks for testing this out, I feel better now.

 

Hi Pete,

I use FDISR to boot back and forth between Vista and XP and have been using it this way for months, even before the new FDISR beta and 3.20 came out. I think FDISR is a great product.

I have 2 active snapshots, one for Vista and one for XP. I also have two Archive Snapshots for each. In addition, I have both of the active FDISR snapshots within my Rollback snapshots.

As far as your challenge......I am not quite clear on exactly what you are challenging, but I accept. I can do the same thing that you are doing, except in seconds instead of minutes, by using the combination of RollbackRx, FDISR and ATI.

Since the FDISR snapshots are within the RollbackRx snapshots, you can boot back and forth between Vista and XP using either Rollback or FDISR snapshots.

The difference is that Rollback snapshots contain both active FDISR snapshots and FDISR, using the Archives just restores the particular snapshot that you want.

If, on the rare occasion that you have to do a bare metal restore, ATI handles it very nicely. I can Recover 32 Gbs in just over 6 minutes using the Linux disk. Just do a Recover, and then restore either or both of the Vista or XP Archive snapshots and do a quick reinstall of Rollback into one snapshot, it is already contained in the others. The reinstall takes about 1 minute plus a reboot.

The advantage of using all three:

Very quick snapshots when you are testing using Rollback, less than 5 seconds with incremental type snapshots taking very little disk space. You can go back and forth between different configurations in seconds.

For example, in the last couple of days I have been testing several disk encryption programs. I take a Rollback snapshot, call it "b4 xxxxx install", install a program, get it in a working state, then take another snapshot call it "after xxxx install". Reboot to the "b4 xxxxx install", then install my other test programs using the above procedure.

You can install as many test programs as you want when testing between several. You can easily then boot back and forth between each of them and between XP and Vista and try different things out, do another Rollback snapshot if you want. Rollback history lets you easily do this. If you are boiling the test down to 2 or 3 programs from several, you just delete the snapshots of the turn downs.

When you decide on which one you want, you reboot to the first "b4 ..." snapshot, install the program that you picked, or do nothing at all if you did not like any of them, then do an FDISR Archive snapshot and you have a quick backup in case of disaster. This has been very helpful to me in testing various Vista and XP drivers and programs, testing to see which programs work in both, etc...

When you boot, there are two pre-boot screens, first Rollback, second FDISR. If needed, you can go the snapshot that you want. This gives you a lot more flexibility plus a two tiered snapshot system. Rollback uses very little system resources, has one of the fastest defraggers I have ever seen (I defrag with PD before installing Rollback) and it makes my computing chores much more efficient and fun.

The cons of adding Rollback....it takes about 5 seconds longer to boot because of the Rollback preboot screen.

In the rare bare metal scenario, it takes another minute or two to reinstall Rollback and you don't get back all of your Rollback snapshots, but you still have your FDISR snapshots plus Archives.

Both FDISR v3.20 and Rollback v8 are very sophisticated programs and I like the way they work together along with ATI Workstation 9.1 with Universal Restore.

Silver

 

Same here.

There is no "archive feature" in Rollback, so, in my opinion, you could not do what you suggested without FDISR.

You need FDISR with Archives on an external disk.

Silver

 

rollback version 8 does have archiving to an external disk, i use it.

 

Is that possible ? Two operating systems (winXPproSP2 and winVISTA) on one harddisk with RBRx on it ?
I thought it was impossible, but I could be wrong.
Wilbernl told me, RBRx was able to work for more than one partition, now I hear from Silver than RBRx also works for only one partition, just like FDISR.
I read nothing but contradicting information about RBRx, it makes me crazy.

Combining FDISR and RBRx is not for average working users. They want KISS. I can't sell this idea at work.
They didn't even appreciate 3-dimensional spreadsheets at work.

 

You must be talking about the "Backup Snapshot" feature, which you may be thinking is an Archive. It is not an Archive as in FDISR .

This Backup Snapshot, is really not an archive, but is just like any other backup imaging program, except that it is slow, and does not work on Raid drives.

If that is what you are talking about, it really cannot be construed as an Archive. If you are referring to some other part of the program, please explain how you use it.

Silver

 

If you mean two operating systems on one partition, yes, it is true. Again Erik, give it a try before you come out so negatively on a product that, I surmise from your posts, you have not experimented with.

It will work only on one partition. That partition, however, can contain several operating systems by using FDISR along with Rollback.

Try it at home. It is alot of fun. Just like FDISR, the more you understand and experiment with it, the more you appreciate it's attributes. It does not have all of the features that FDISR has, and FDISR does not have all of the features that Rollback has. But used together, along with ATI, they are an amazing combination.

If I could only have one, I would pick FDISR. The synergy of using them both together, however, is incredible. It does take a little time to completely understand the program, just like it did with FDISR. In my opinion, the time is worth the benefits you get.

And once you understand it's functions, it will KISS.

Silver

 

If I understand you correctly, yes, you can by using the Rollback "backup snapshot" feature, which is really just an image of one snapshot. You can do the same thing with ATI.

This would not be the way to do it for me however, because your FDISR method is much faster and easier.