Help. I got errors while creating Snapshot 2?

Hello. When I first got my PC about 2 years ago I purchased FirstDefense-ISR, installed it and took a couple of snapshots over the years without a single issue. I just bought a Dell laptop and wanted to install ISR on it and take a snapshot right away. I installed the software and proceeded to do so. When the snapshot finished I got a screen that read "Copied 3.70 GB (25334 files, 3021 dirs) Errors 10086; 26 minutes)"

When I open ISR I do see Secondary Snapshot, but I am confused because it said there was so many errors. I contacted Raxco and they asked me to forward my Log to them, but they never wrote back. I was wondering if someone with knowledge of this program could please tell me what I should do. Since there was errors do I need to take another snapshot, update the current snapshot, or just leave it alone. Any help will really be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Raxco has knowledge, and very likely they need some time to return with constructive information.
I understand that you want fixes yesterday, but it doesn't work that way.

I suggest to leave it alone, in case Raxco needs more specific information.
"don't touch the evidence in the crime scene"

 

I understand it takes time. It just wanted to take a snapshot as soon as i took the laptop out of the box, so if I ever needed to go back it would be as if I just got it.

plus 10k errors made me a bit nervous.

 

You still have the Dell PC Restore partition don't you ? or have you already blown it away ?

 

Yes. But I havent even checked that out yet.

 

Well, it's there specifically to restore your machine to the out of the box state if something goes wrong. However, you may have disabled its recovery routine by installing FD-ISR.

The Dell PC Restore utility relies on having control of the MBR and FD-ISR takes that over when you install it.

I prefer using FD-ISR but once I realized I had "unhooked" the Dell PC restore routine by installing FD-ISR, I decided to first recover that functionality first and then reinstall FD-ISR There is information on how to do this but you may or may not find it too technical. That info is at http://www.goodells.net/dellrestoreAfter I convinced myself I could recover the function any time I want, I then burned a backup image of the PC restore partition to DVD and then deleted it to recover use of that part of the hard drive and reinstalled FD-ISR.

I certainly wouldn't blame you if you wanted to just forget that and get FD-ISR to work, with Raxco support. I just offer this information to make sure you're aware of the possibility.

You could go ahead with the FD-ISR work but leave that partition in place knowing that there is a procedure and utility at that website if you ever want to go back and hook it back up (at least for now, you may want to copy the info and downlaod the utility for safekeeping).

 

Thanks for the info, crofttk. So ISR doesnt change anything on the PC restore partition does it? I am going to burn a backup of that partition for safe keeping. Thanks agian.

 

No, FD-ISR won't change anything on the PC restore partition itself. It does, however, modify the MBR and THAT's where the information is that launches the restore routine whenever you hit Ctrl-F11 while the little blue dell.com or whatever it is shows during the boot process at the top of your monitor. If you've installed FD-ISR, this little splash is probably now gone along with Ctrl-F11 functionality but the PC restore partition will still be there unless you've already purposely done something to it.

 

Thanks again, crofttk. I am still awaitng a response from Raxco on how I should proceed.

 

They may be a dumb question. Does the PC restore partition already come loaded from the facory? I ask because I have 2 drive C: & D:. I am assuming that the D drive is PC restore partition, but when I check the D drive it says Total Space 12G, Free Space 12G.

 

No, D: drive is just another partition. The PC restore partition you won't see unless you go into something like Win XP's Disk Management console application. There you will find the PC restore partition, a HIDDEN partition, maybe taking up like 5 GB with 3 GB used, depending on what software your machine came with.

This is on there from the factory and is just there so you can "press a button" and your hard drive contents are restored to out of the box state -- including wiping out ANY DATA you may have added to the C Drive since you took the machine out of the box.

 

Thanks once again, crofttk. I wish I knew about the Dell PC Restore from the beginning. I installed ISR to avoid problems, but I hope I didn't make thing worse.

Raxco just sent me an e-mail saying "It appears that this same problem is also happening on a secondary snapshot. We are still researching the problem and I will get back to you as soon as I have more information. In the meantime, if you have any additional questions, please let me know."

 

Well, don't feel too bad. FD-ISR is MUCH more than the PC restore partition.

You won't be hanging out too badly IF you paid the extra $10 for a Windows XP install CD. If not, you should either see what it takes to get one from Dell or back up your system very well and permanently as soon as possible.

Many folks don't seem to care too much about the Dell PC restore partition anyways because most (myself included) immediately strip out many of the unnecessary things that Dell puts on there -- AOL, partially functional software, etc. -- and never intend to go back to out-of-the-box state. Some folks always want that back to out-of-the box route -- I hedged my bet by backing the partition up.

If you want help getting this PC restore partition functionality back (partition is their, you just can't do anything with it as is) or otherwise doing something about it, you probably should start another thread over in the "software & services" forum.

Good Luck.

 

Yes. I did get Windows XP install CD fo $10. Do you mind telling me if you used the to Win XP's Disk Management console application to backup the Restore partition on a DVD?

 

I don't mind as long as the moderators don't mind. No, you can't do anything like that with the Disk Management console. I made an image of it, IIRC with Image for DOS, and then copied the whole shebang over to a DVD.

 

Thanks, but thats a little over my head. I get the image part, but have no idea what IIRC means.

 

Terribly sorry old chap: If I Recall Correctly.

 

Ah, my bad. I should have know that.