First defense vs Rollback Rx

I've been extensively testing Rollback Rx and was planning to post to my earlier thread.

I discovered some serious problems, spend a lot of time reproducing them and testing solutions from HorizonDataSys and reporting my test results back to them and was waiting for them to report their test results. Only to discover they never reported back to me, but posted the problems on their online knowledge base. After mailing them that I was disappointed that they didn't notify me about the solution they posted on their website I never received any response. So I'm somewhat disappointed in their support. Apparently you have to monitor their knowledge base and don't expect to receive a personal answer.

A little about me:
I've been using Diskeeper Undelete, but whas looking for a solution that didn't require a seperate partition or folder to store it's information. At work I'm using a Network Appliance filer which uses snapshot technology. Rollback Rx is using similar technology on Windows. Rollback Rx uses low level drivers to accomplish this. This means you can not perform low level disk tasks such as creating partitions while Rollback Rx is active.

I'll post my test results of Rollback Rx to this thread instead of my older thread.

Introduction
Diskeeper Undelete and other programs use recovery bins (reserved disk space) to implement versioning. Rollback Rx looks like an interesting concept that doesn’t store snapshots in recovery bins, but uses a technology claiming to only use 0.07% disk space.

Features

• Recover deleted, corrupted files.
• Restore an earlier version of a file.
• Restore the entire system to a clean state after virus attacks.
• Restore crashed system to working state.
• Reset publicly shared system to clean, pre-configured states after each session.
• Remove unwanted software installations.
• Back out failed software deployment process.
• Fix daily user or program problems.
• Try out software products before actual deployments.

What is a snapshot?
Each snapshot is a "map of the occupied sectors on the hard drive", so there is no actual data backup in certain folders or files. The "maps" are stored on the hard drive within Rollback Rx's data structure area. It does not exist as files, it only exists as sectors on the hard drive. Rollback Rx Professional supports up to 60,000 snapshots. Theoretically, Rollback Rx only takes 0.07% total hard disk space to create all those snapshots.

Differences to GoBack
See How does Rollback Rx Compare to Nortons Goback 4.0

Installation
For the best performance and system integrity, we recommend you to go through the following checklist before setup Rollback Rx on your computer.

• Defrag the hard drive if it has not been defragged in a long time.
• Run Anti-Virus software to detect and clean any viruses on your system.
• Disable Anti-Virus software after scanning.
• Backup important files to the server or CDs.
• Check and decompress NTFS volumes if it is compressed.
• Read the User’s Guide to familiar yourself with the product.
• Study and plan the type of setup you need.

Configuration

• Restoring a snapshot will restore everything on all volumes. If you restore a snapshot, because a software install went bad, this all restores any document you were working on to the moment the snapshot was taken. Rollback Rx’s default setting is to always take a snapshot of the system before restoring a snapshot. If something goes wrong you can always restore this snapshot.
• You can exclude folders when you choose to restore a snapshot. The problem with this is that you can only set this on a folder level. If you have a data partitition you want exclude, you have to select all the folders and if you configure Rollback Rx to always exclude folders you always have to remember to add new folders to the exclusion list. In case you forget to exclude folders with data that changed after the snapshot you are trying to restore you can always recover from the snapshot that Rollback Rx creates before restoring a snapshot.

Test results

• Good documentation, but I would have liked to see more technical details. Technical details are added to the knowledgebase.
• Installer creates a setup folder in the root of c:.
• I can’t add new partitions to my internal harddisk using disk management. Disabling Rollback Rx services doesn’t solve it. I have to uninstall Rollback Rx to be able to create paritition. Uninstalling means you loose all your previous snapshot.
• Rollback Rx uses various drivers like shield.sys, shieldf.sys, shieldm.sys and shdbus.sys. Using this method I was able to restore otherwise locked system files like the windows kernel.
• If you encounter a complete system crash, you are not able to start Windows operating system. You can still use the Rollback Rx sybsystem to restore the system. Verified by taking a snapshot, excuting “del /f /s /q c:\”, verifying windows would not boot, restoring the snapshot from the Rollback Rx subsystem. After restoring the snapshot it looked like nothing had happened.
• Wiped my test system by replacing the mbr and removing all partitions. Using the Rollback Rx subsystem I was able to restore to the previous snapshot as if nothing had happened.
• You can recover files, by right-clicking on them, choose synchronize and select a snapshot to recover from. It would have nice if it would only show the snapshots containing the file instead of all snapshots. Another method to recover a file is to search for it’s name, wildcards e.g. *.doc or folder name. This still requires you know which snapshot contains the file. I prefer the user friendlyness of Diskeeper Undelete, but that’s an entirely different concept using a Recovery Bin. Rollback Rx is still much better than Windows’ Recycle Bin. To be honest this is not the primary use of Rollback Rx and file backup software with searchable catalogs is much better suited for trying to retrieve files or folders who’s name or date you don’t exactly remember anymore.

Rollback Rx is no replacement for backup software, because it offers no protections when your harddisk is no longer accessible. There are options: file level backup or disk image. Disk imaging is not supported by Rollback Rx. The disk image software only creates a backup of the baseline snapshot created when Rollback Rx was installed for the first time. Any changes to the system are not visible for your disk image software and not included in a disk image. Horizon DataSys recommends using their own disk image software HDS Clone, which doesn't support writing to CD/DVD.

I'm still evaluating Dantz Retrospect for file level backups. Retrospect supports point in time recovery using snapshots. After finishing the evaluation I will test Retrospect with Rollback Rx and HDS Clone.

Disclaimer: all tests performed on a dedicated test system with WXP SP2 without any other programs installed.

 

diginsight, thank you VERY much for all of the testing that you did.

Does the disk imaging program that they provide copy ALL snapshots besides the baseline?

Acadia

 

Acadia,

According to the HDS Clone features page it works with RollBack Rx snapshots and can create or restore a hard drive with Rollback Rx snapshots. According to the KB "HDS Clone can transfer an entire system configuration including RollBack Rx snapshots to other systems using mulitcast." The question on the KB was if it was possible via the network, but it should also be possible with local images.

So the answer is yes, but I haven't tested it. This test can be performed as followed:

• Restore base image with default xp
• Use external storage or create partition to store HDS clone image
• Install rollback rx = baseline
• Install ms office or similar large program
• Create Rollback Rx snapshot = office
• Restore baseline snapshot while preserving office snapshot
• Create HDS Clone image
• Verify: size of image = xp + office?
• Burn HDS Clone image to CD/DVD
• Erase disk using hard drive eraser
• Restore HDS Clone image
• Test: Rollback Rx still functional
• Restore office snapshot

I'm currently using my test system for other purposes, but if I have some spare time I can perform the test above. I'm also curious if HDS Clone works as advertised or not. If this test is succeful then we have to identify how large HDS Clone images will become.

 

Thanks, diginsight.

Acadia

 

diginsight:

Your observations regarding RollBack Rx Pro were interesting indeed. A few months back, we evaluated it where I work and as you determined, it was found to be of no value for disaster recovery purposes. We are currently evaluating RestoreIT (by FarStone), which does include disaster recovery provisions. The jury is still out, but so far it's looking very good.

Fwiw, Retrospect has been the primary means of backup at my company for the past 3-years and I will say that it has been completely reliable. Although it is a file-by-file backup program, it is capable of backing-up open files and therefore, it is reliable for disaster recovery purposes, as well for individual file/folder recovery. The one big disadvantage of Retrospect is that it's backups take a long time!

Regards, pv

 

Yo, pvsurfer, two things:

RestoreIt is made by FarStone,

and why was RollBack Rx deemed unacceptable? Thank you.

Acadia

 

Hey Pvsurfer,

Just like Acadia, I wonder why you say that Rollback Rx is no good for recovery? Could you elaborate a little bit more on that point?


Thanks,
Atomas31

 

Acadia~ Thanks for pointing out my typo as to the developer of RestoreIT. Guess I was thinking of RollBack Rx... Anyhow, I've made that correction in my post.

Atomas31 & Acadia~ One of our criteria in the selection of a 'System Restore Alternative' is the capability for performing a full recovery in the event a workstation's HDD fails (hard crash, corrupted MBR, or whatever). Rollback Rx failed to satisfy that requirement (RestoreIT provides for such a situation)!

~pv

 

Ah, yes, you are correct, very few programs will protect you from that. Have you checked into a program called Casper by http://www.fssdev.com/ ?

Acadia

 

For what I've read Casper is a disk cloning rogram. A disaster recovery program should be able to burn to bootable removable media like DVD, so you can boot the DVD and restore the system without having to install windows and all the programs. With Casper's disk cloning you don't have access to removable media like DVD which you can store offsite.

 

RestoreIT is also on my list of programs to evaluate, after I've finished evaluating Retrospect.

I'm very impressed with Retrospect. I agree with it's backup speed, otherwise I might have considered using Retrospect for creating snapshots.

 

I feel that it is a shame that you couldn't run both FDISR and Rollback. I wouldn't trade FDISR, but it would be nice to have the speed of RB to create a test environment when you want one.

 

Retrospect is very slow in comparison to the imaging program I use on my home computer (TrueImage), and also in comparison to all the 'System Restore alternative' programs. However, in several situations over the time we have used Retrospect, it has never failed to successfully recover a crashed workstation! We are looking for an alternative (at the moment, RestoreIT) because Retrospect is so slow, not to mention more expensive for all our workstations.

~pv

 

They don't issue licence/registration keys as it's integrated into the program. When I purchased FD by download from Raxco, I wasn't given any keys by email either.

 

You're evidently correct as FD-ISR installed fine from my CD without asking for any license key. I wish I could get a straight answer regarding what the latest version of FD-ISR is. Raxco's webpage for making purchases lists v2.1. The Provantage invoice accompaning my CD said I have FD-ISR v3.0. When I installed FD-ISR from the CD, the program stated it was v1.04 build 164. I downloaded a small update from Raxco's support/updates webpage, and now have v1.05 build 166 (which that webpage said is the latest build). This is just a tad confusing.

Last night, I ran Ace Utilities' program for overwriting unused disk space for the first time since installing FD-ISR,True Image, and Online Armor. In the past, it took a few hours to do a single overwrite and a couple hours more to do three overwrite passes. Since I now have a couple FD-ISR snapshots, and thereby less free space on my C drive, I expected the process to take less time than previously. After eight hours elapsed, I was surprised to see the single pass overwrite was only 77% complete and appeared to be stalled. I cancelled the operation and tried again. It finally completed an hour or so ago. I was still puzzled why it took hours longer to run when I tried to open up a WordPerfect12 document. All I got was a screen filled with vertical lines. I checked WordPerfect files I had stored on CDs, DVDs, and on my second hard drive: same result.

I first tried to restore my system using a TI backup image with no success. So far, my experiences with Acronis True Image have been, to put it charitably, erratic. I rebooted, hit the F1 key for all it was worth, then booted up using a backup FD-ISR snapshot. Now, my WordPerfect12 files are working fine and my wife is no longer frothing at the mouth. Do any of the computer experts here have a plausible explanation why FD-ISR, TI or Online Armor would cause the overwriting of unused disk space to take substantially longer and what could have caused the peculiar problem with WordPerfect?

 

Hello Pete,

As the forum's leading FD-ISR guru, can you tell me what the latest version of FD-ISR is? v1.05 build 166? v2.1? v3.0?

I just completed a successful restoration using TI v9 before noticing your advice to disable FD-ISR preboot. Have you experienced problems using TI without disabling FD-ISR preboot?

I noticed during my TI restoration that TI, once again, inexplicably shows my second internal hard drive labeled as E instead of K (but only during the recovery process). Before commencing the recovery, TI stated I had 7.383 MB of "unallocated" space on my C drive and would have this same amount of unallocated space after the restoration. This is the first instance TI reported any "unallocated" space. Do you have any clue what accounts for this?

This was the first time I made a TI restoration since installing FD-ISR. Previous image restorations took around 15-16 minutes. With just one FD-ISR backup snapshot on my C drive, TI took around 40 minutes to complete its recovery process. I'm glad I didn't make all ten possible FD-ISR snapshots.

Best regards,

James

 

I'll leave the technical answers to Peter, but v1.05 build 166 is the latest version. Note on the splash screen that it is FD-ISR Professional, I don't believe the earlier branch had the Pro dsignation.

Blue

 

Thanks for the response. What I find baffling is that Raxco's website clearly states the workstation version (as opposed to the server version) of FD-ISR they and their authorized resellers are selling is v2.1. I e-mailed Raxco and was specifically informed the FD-ISR download they're selling is v2.1. Their resellers I contacted said they were selling CDs of v2.1, v2.11 or v3.0. My invoice from Provantage clearly states they sold me FD-ISR v3.0 whereas the CD they sent me actually contained v1.04 build 164.