HoizonData Rollback Rx

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Rico, Dec 29, 2014.

  1. Cruise

    Cruise Registered Member

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    I presume that ALL of those backups were all performed as 'COLD' sector-by-sector backups - is that correct?
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2015
  2. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Cruise, that's the only way an Acronis BOOT disk can operate (same with other BOOT disks, I imagine).
     
  3. Cruise

    Cruise Registered Member

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    Froggy, I'm well aware of that, but when DVD said that an IFW all-sectors backup failed to restore his Rx system the only explanation (I can think of) is that it was a HOT backup. When I was a devout Rx (v9.x) user I never had a failed restore with COLD all-sectors backups (using DS or IFW/IFL/IFD)!
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2015
  4. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    At the risk of being called 'stupid' I just LOVE using Rx so when I saw this thread I couldn't resist posting. What I really HATE is that in all this time the developers still haven't figured out how to retain a prior build's snapshots when upgrading (it being necessary to uninstall the prior version of Rx before upgrading, thereby losing all but one snapshot in the process). This became especially painful with the evolution of v10.x where there have been about 20 builds (and still counting)!!!

    Fwiw, I do "cold-raw" backups, because that's the only way (that I know works) to completely image a Rollback Rx system with all snapshots intact (not that it does any good for the aforementioned update process)! Nevertheless, I have been 100% successful backing-up and restoring my Win7-Rx environment on every attempt using either Drive Snapshot or Acronis True Image. Back in the day, Froggy discovered a way to do this via hot-raw backups, but it only worked with IFW (using PhyLock). As I don't use IFW, I do not know if that method is still valid. :doubt:
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2015
  5. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    PV, what COLD imaging tool do you use?
     
  6. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    Hey Frog, how's it going? Anticipating that question the answer is now in my post above (they are the same backup programs that I've been using since the 'good ole' days).

    Happy New Year!
    pv
     
  7. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    The IFW HOT method died around v2.78 and hasn't returned that I know of. I had to stop HOT imaging at that point in order to keep all my snapshots. At the moment I'm not using RBrx... I've been playing extensively with AX Time Machine... trying to help the developers come up with a good snapshot/imaging solution.

    ...and a GREAT New Year to you as well!
     
  8. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    Sorry to see you abandon Rx but I understand given HDS' track-record for empty promises and killing the good old forum. But I'm hanging with the program in spite of that because Rx still works like magic for me!
     
  9. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I actually gave v10.2 a shot and it failed miserably on a system that never had a problem with v9.1. After much back'n'forth with HDS Devs, it turns out they didn't like my MBR (prior to RBrx install) even though it was totally legal (it was a BOOTice MBR). They said it wasn't a MicroSloth standard MBR. I told them that didn't mean a thing as long as the MBR met documented specifications. After lots of back'n'forth they decided they were wrong and made some fix to the production version to accommodate non-MS but legal MBRs. All was fine at that point.

    Then, in pursuit of a fully supported RBrx snapshot saving tool, I gave in once again and became a BETA tester of their v6 Drive Cloner imaging tool, purported to backup a RBrx partition set and its snapshots. I installed it and after installation, one of my large data HDDs took a dive (a non-RBrx protected drive)... the drive was fine, the structure got mangled, I know not by what... but it was a nasty coincidence. I couldn't even recover the lost partitions using every tool known to man.

    At that point I took a break from HDS... for a while.

    EDIT: The "good old forum" you reference was extremely useful to users, but a bit damaging to HDS themselves... waaaaay too many problems exposed for their liking.

    The abrupt NEW FORUM and non-access to the old one was a real surprise and shock to me. These days, compared to days of old, the "forum" is a ghost of its former self... a real shame. The addition of Sam Smith as the new forum administrator has helped quite a bit (he's active and seems to care for the user) but the forum activity level has dropped so low that I'm not sure that "help" can be realized the way it was needed before.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2015
  10. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    Yes, v10 has been froth with problems - with the developers' attempts to support GPT, UEFI, Win8.x, etc. But in defense of HDS (one of the few times I've done that!), it's incumbent on 3rd party app developers such as HDS to keep up with Windows' various versions and SP's; it's a very difficult if not impossible task for them to also monitor and adapt to Windows changes by other 3rd party developers (e.g., BOOTice)!


    Yeah, I've given up on DCrx and HDS' empty promises of an RBrx fully integrated imaging tool. Evidently that's not an easy nut to crack. But then again, I don't find backing-up with ATI or DS to be difficult or even burdensome.


    So far I haven't even joined the new forum, and I don't see any posts over there by any of the old standard-bearers such as the likes of BG, Nexstar, Owl, or you (but I do see carfal still there).
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2015
  11. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Sorry... this one I can't agree with you on.

    HDS didn't have to keep up with what BOOTice was doing... all they had to do is design their MBR modification according to readily available and established specifications (where the Partition table lies, where the BOOT code lies, etc.), that's what BOOTice (and Grub and all kinds of other loaders) did. If they had, it wouldn't matter what kind of loader was in use when they went to do their thing. They designed it according to what the M$ loader looked like rather than the available MBR specification.

    The other thing that's cropped up since v10 is that occasionally (the 1st I believe was the W8.1 to W8.1.1 upd) MicroSloth updates cause RBrx (and RBxp and Drive Vaccine, etc.) to explode upon impact (it's not supposed to happen if you're fully supporting M$ and their changes). Since that update, and more so since October 2014, other M$ updates have been blowing up RBrx and its other rooted applications. This has happened so much that now the current version of RBrx turns off the M$ AUTOMATIC UPDATE mode on your system. HDS has been telling all their users to not use it and, instead, wait for "cleared" updates from HDS. This whole thing just smacks of them disabling the Windows Repair WIM under previous versions (and probably continue to do so). I'm not sure they'll ever be able to properly support that product in any sort of ongoing development environment around Windows.

    If you're happy running RBrx under XP (and maybe Windows 7), I'd be very careful moving forward/upward with your OS and being caught by the current euphoria that may exist with RBrx on your systems... it can be very addictive.
     
  12. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    Ok, now that you explained the situation, I do understand.

    I see (again). I'm very content with W7 so I haven't been affected by any of their W8.x development issues. When W7's EOL approaches that will be another matter (assuming I'm still above ground in 2020)!
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2015
  13. appster

    appster Registered Member

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    I see that many of you have negative views of HDS and RB. I've just been using RBXP for a few months and it's working great for me, but recognizing the importance of backups I've been booting my backup recovery CD and making sector by sector backups. If normal images (per Cruise's post) are what I think they are that would make backing up a breeze. If I understand Cruise correctly, that would restore my current snapshot, but all other snapshots will be gone and I'd also have to reinstall RB. I can live with that if a "simple normal backup image" means I can run standard image backups inside WinXP. o_O
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2015
  14. Rico

    Rico Registered Member

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    Hi Guys,

    Per post #24 I've uninstalled Rollback Rx, upon uninstall I choose "base line" to restore to:

    Now to my surprise Rx is not gone. You would think, the baseline would not include RX anyway:

    Found

    C:\ rollback10.2
    C:\windows\panther lots of stuff for Rx

    Question(s)


    1. Does anyone know if the have a removal tool?

    2. Can I remove the two mentioned?

    Thanks
    Rico
     
  15. manolito

    manolito Registered Member

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    This is how I have been doing it under WinXP for a long time, and it works nicely. However under Win7 it happened to me once that after restoring an Acronis image the PC would not be bootable. I had to use the boot repair utility from the Win7 installation disk. Since this time I always have a copy of the MBR stored on an external drive (made before installing Rollback). I used BootICE for this task.


    Cheers
    manolito
     
  16. manolito

    manolito Registered Member

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    1. No, currently they do not have a removal tool. For the older version 9.xx there was a removal tool on the EAZFix website (a Rollback sibling) which you can download here:
    http://www.eazsolution.com/download/tools/eaz-fix-manual-removal.zip
    I have no idea if this is still useful for version 10.2.

    2. I am quite sure that you can remove these two safely. Rollback itself resides in a folder "Shield" under program files. The folder C:\ rollback10.2 is probably the folder where the downloaded archive has been extracted to prior to installation of the program. And the "Panther" subfolder under the Windows folder is used by the operating system for storing setup and upgrade related stuff. Most folks seem to agree that this folder can safely be deleted. Maybe you want to rename it first and see what happens...


    Cheers
    manolito
     
  17. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    Not to reply for Cruise, but the answer is a qualified yes. If you run your image backup program from inside Windows, just backing up the sectors in use by Windows, upon restoring that image you should get the results Cruise indicated. Note that you should do a normal restore - do NOT restore the MBR. After restoring the image Rollback will not be functional so uninstall Rollback and then reinstall it, respecting Rollback's instructions to restart Windows and activate Rollback.

    manolito, that instance when your W7 would not boot sounds to me like you restored the MBR captured by the hot image (which would give you the Rollback modified MBR and therefore make the PC unbootable).

    While that hot backup approach works, I still prefer the 'cold raw' backup approach as it retains the integrity of the Rollback installation including snapshots.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2015
  18. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I can't speak for v10.2... yet, but a HOT image under previous versions DID NOT give you the Rollback MBR. Rollback saves a copy of the original MBR when the installation occurs, and when you HOT image your system, you get that MBR, not the Rollback specialized one. That's the main reason Rollback WILL NOT WORK when you restore that HOT image. The original MBR has no knowledge of RBrx's sub-Console or code that uses the special "under Windows" environment. The MBR that was saved in the HOT image is the original Windows MBR (I've looked at it many times). The MBR saved in the COLD imaging process is, of course, the special Rollback RX MBR (there's no way it can stop you from getting it).
     
  19. DVD+R

    DVD+R Registered Member

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    Cold with Acronis Yes, as for IFW it failed me once it wont fail me again, I threw it out :argh: ( no seriously, I didn't have a spare CD to make a boot disk so I only know that it wont recover while live)

    However, I have changed My mind several times recently and Acronis has recovered every single time, so these 2 are all I need I think
     
  20. Cruise

    Cruise Registered Member

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    Since you didn't have a spare CD (to burn an IFD/IFL boot disk) can I conclude that you performed a HOT backup and restore of your Rx system with IFW?
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2015
  21. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    From the FWIW department...

    Just finished some follow-up work on comments above. Both IFW and Macrium also appear to COLD image (all sectors) a RBrx-protected volume just fine with complete restoration capability... just make sure your restoration geometry is correct when restoring using IFW.

    The test consisted of using FOUR very large archive files (2-RAR, 2-ZIP @ appx. 1gB each).
    1. Add 1gB archive, take Snap #1.
    2. Add 2nd 1gB archive, delete 1st archive, take Snap #2.
    3. Add 3rd 1gB archive, delete 2nd 1gB archive, take Snap #3.
    4. Add 4th 1gB archive, delete 3rd 1gB archive, take Snap #4.
    5. COLD image RBrx-protected volume.
    6. ZERO out all data in RBrx-protected partition.
    7. Restore using image from Step #5.
    8. BOOT system and return to each of the snapshots, opening each of the large archives, and extracting included files located at the 1%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% points of each archive.

    All snapshots, including the BASELINE, tested just fine... RBrx was fully functional after restoration.
     
  22. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    Of course, I was definitely off-base on that comment to manolito, and I stand corrected. Nevertheless, would you not agree that I'm correct in saying to successfully restore an Rx system after a Hot backup (used sectors only) the MBR should NOT be restored?
     
  23. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    So now we know for sure that IFW and MR along with ATI and DS are capable of successfully restoring their Cold-Raw backups of an Rx system.

    Btw Frog, would you please elaborate on your "restoration geometry" remark?

    pv
     
  24. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    If you restore a HOT "used sectors" only backup without the MBR, AND your Rollback MBR was not hosed (which would cause you to try this restoration), the result would be kinda tragic. The reason why... your Rollback MBR would be in tact but nothing associated with that special MBR (the complete sub-Console along with the snapshots and their database) would be available due to the "used sector" only image... would probably result in a BSOD or BLACK SCREEN w/blinking cursor. Most of the important Rollback stuff exists in HIDDEN disk sectors which would not be imaged in a "used sector" mode.

    The safer restoration would be to include the MBR. If you do that, you get a standard MBR restored (the one RBrx gives you during your imaging process) which should allow you to boot into a running Windows system, albeit with a neutered RBrx. When I used to do this I would wind up at the last system state before the image was taken along with a completely neutered RBrx. I would then have to completely unINSTALL RBrx (it took much longer to unINSTALL a neutered version due to timeouts <missing sub-Console> than a normal version) then reINSTALL it with its new baseline and no snapshots. At least this method produced a running Windows system.

    I would wanna test this thesis thoroughly under v10.2 since some RBrx architectures have changed with that version... I have not done that. Even during my COLD imaging testing I came up with strange results (explained in next message).
     
  25. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Sure. With RBrx, you absolutely have to return that partition to the exact same boundary it was when you imaged it. That's not the case with normal BOOTing as the BOOT loader only needs to know where the ACTIVE partition is on that disk, nothing more. It uses an offset into that ACTIVE partition to start the BOOTing process in the PBR (active Partition BOOT Record). That information is contained in the Partition Table which will be updated by the imaging process when the restoration is performed.

    BUT... it appears RBrx doesn't use a relative offset to race through its non-standard BOOTing process, I think it uses an ABSOLUTE offset based on what things were when it was installed... this is really risky and will cause real YUK if the protected partition is restored to a different place than where it was when RBrx was installed, even if RBrx's MBR is in place.

    I noticed this in spades when I COLD imaged, via IFW, a RBrx-protected partition that was located on a 1mB partition boundary. When I restored this partition to a different boundary by accident (the IFW Global Setting was set to CHS <sector 63> instead of a 1mB boundary <used primarily for SSDs but work just fine for HDDs>), the RBrx sub-Console was non-existant and Windows BOOTed into the original RBrx baseline with an error or two about things being missing for Rollback. This condition was consistent until I restored to COLD imaged partition to its 1mB boundary, at which point all worked well.

    What I'm saying is you better know your partitions boundary info prior to the COLD imaging operation or you could run into glitches like I did. Both IFW and Macrium allow restoration to either boundary so it can be corrected. The problem is that their DEFAULTs may not be correct... you have to check them prior to activating the restoration process at their last step. My error above was assuming that the imager would DEFAULT to the geometry of the imaged partition which IFW did not. I'm not sure about Macrium as its normal DEFAULT is set to the 1mB boundary so it worked without a wrinkle. IFW's DEFAULT is CHS unless its Global Settings are changed and saved... and I don't know if when this is done whether that change makes its way out to a created WinPE with your current defaults or not. It's those DEFAULTs that made for my initial IFW test to go awry.

    Believe me, when it comes to RBrx and imaging... this stuff is not for the faint of heart, and anyone trying it should test it very carefully before assuming anything.
     
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