RestoreIT from Farstone

After the mixed experiences I had with Toolwiz Time Machine I decided to test RestoreIT, these are my results:

My test platform was a notebook with an AMD x64 Turion Dual Core CPU, 2 GB RAM and 160 GB HDD running Win7 32bit. No UEFI, no GPT partitions. I used the current RestoreIT 2014 version for Win7/8 in trial mode for a little over a week. Settings left at the default values (20 GB cache size, scheduled snaps every 12 hours, no other automatic snaps).

The Farstone FAQs state that RestoreIT is not compatible with Acronis True Image, but I tried anyways, and I found absolutely no issues with the current True Image 2014. I excluded all files with the .RIT extension from my backups, and the Acronis backups restored just fine.

For testing purposes I made a lot of manual snaps, installed and uninstalled large software packages in between (MS Office, True Image), and going back to older snapshots worked well all the time. Chkdsk did not complain, and the Windows event logs also showed no issues. I really thought that I had a winner here...

But all this changed after I uninstalled RestoreIT. The uninstall process itself seemed to go fine, but upon the restart Windows forced a chkdsk. It repaired hundreds of indexing errors, after this Windows started OK. Most programs worked with the exception of MS Office. Whenever I started any of the Office programs, the Office Setup was started instead.


Conclusion: RestoreIT in its current incarnation is not ready for prime time. Too bad because I really like its concept (and it leaves the MBR alone...).



Cheers
manolito

 

Hi manolito

Interesting you mention about MSOffice, because I recall some disk imagers that also after restore some have mentioned MSOffice is not opening properly and/or not functioning properly after even an image restore with *some* imaging software. Also keep in mind...Farstone makes it clear that it is not to be used with Acronis due to compatibility issues, but you chose to use it along side Acronis, in this case I would not be too quick to blame RestoreIT in your case.

The way I handled RestoreIT 2014 in regards to disk maintenance and drive imaging is to disable RestoreIT which will clean out all snapshots, which was fine for me because I would make sure the system was stable, then after disabling, I ran chkdsk and defragged, then COLD imaged my entire disk using IFL, 2 partitions: OS and the storage partition where I had setup the virtual partition files. This way, at least for me, when I would restore an image while using RestoreIT, I knew the partition where the virtual partition was setup was in tact along with the OS, and then I would simply turn RestoreIT back on via its interface and a new snapshot was created.

It was my choice to handle it this way, as I initially only imaged the OS partition, then after enabling RestoreIT it would appear to create a new snapshot, but I had problems in a couple restores, so when I began to image the full disk, restores were fine. This is just how I handled it and it appeared to be more stable. I also found it works best to setup the virtual partition on another volume/partition of the fixed disk other than "c:" as this reduces the disk image size of the OS as it does not have to copy the virtual partition files.

I still much rather use disk imaging, and have since removed RestoreIT, but it was easier to manage than say RBRX, etc. Some have had problems with RestoreIT, but it worked fine for my purposes, but now I am back to images only.

By the way, Toolwiz time machine was not a good experience for me. I tried it twice, but had strange issues and a blue screen as I mention in the TTM thread.

Thanks for sharing your experience

Jim

 

Hi Jim,

I found it very interesting what you say about MS Office, so I did some more tests...

With RestoreIT everything is fine as long as I do not uninstall it. Badly written uninstall routine?

Next I tried the free version of SysRestore again. The technology is very similar to RestoreIT (also uses "true writing") with the exception that it does modify the MBR. The result was that it behaves exactly like RestoreIT in regard to MS Office. No problems with restoring older snapshots, but after uninstalling I get many chkdsk complaints, and MS Office is broken.

Could it be that these two programs are based on the same original code?


On my computer Toolwiz Time Machine does not show any problems with MS Office, but this software is not really usable for me, mainly because it cannot mount older snapshots. So it looks like I will go back to good old Rollback RX 9.1. This version has always been solid on my computer (Win7 32bit, no UEFI / GPT), so I never felt the need to upgrade.

Just like you I also use traditional disk imaging (Acronis - still the fastest of the pack), but a fast snapshot software in addition is very convenient because I always mess around with my system. I had high hopes that AX64 could be my only backup and snapshot solution, but right now it does not do what I need.



Cheers
manolito

 

Farstone total recovery 10 I tried and bad results ,a backup of my hard drive 75GB compressed to 50Gb by this program took an awful long 2 hours and 10 minutes to complete to a external drive. I will never use it again, best paid are macrium and Acronis, best free hands down is Aomei backupper have used it 3 times to restore and backup and has never failed.

 

Hi polly77

I agree, Total Recovery Pro in its current state does not perform as "advertised" in my opinion. I have tested TRP versions 9 and 10 and these were unable to restore properly without altering/making modifications to ones disk, meaning what was restored was NOT an exact copy of what was imaged, and it is baffling.

I stopped testing when I contacted support and asked them a simple question: Does TRP make any modifications to a restored partition/disk? I explained to them what I found after a restore and in the case of version 9, my disk usage actually increased by 2GB AFTER a restore.

The response was basically TRP restores the image the same "for the most part". That last part was enough for me to stop trying because what one images is exactly what one should see upon a successful restore, not a modified result, especially when it is the identical machine the image was taken from without any user modification. I will say that the older version of TRP 7.1 actually did work fairly well and restored what was imaged. How they have arrived at the point they are at now with version 9 and now 10 is still baffling to me. They take far too many liberties with ones data upon restoring in my opinion with the later versions. For me, it also always wanted to perform a "Dissimilar hardware" restore by default even when it was the exact same machine. So I would manually UNcheck that option, but it made no difference.

So your experience is unfortunately too common and in my experience the support reply was indirect but enough was said for me to know yes, indeed "for the most part" it does modify the restored data because I had it happen more than once and so have many others who examined their disk closely after a restore.

Good choice with Aomei by the way. it is indeed a very useful imager.

Thanks for sharing

Jim

 

RestoreIT 2014 free licence for a limited time. The licence needs to be activated within a week.

Link:
-www.windowsdeal.com/w/farstone-restoreit-2014-discount-coupon/-

 

Thanks.
I have never tried it before, and probably won't bother this time either.

 

Hi
Does anyone know if it is possible to erase restore points in Farstone restore it 2014 - i can not find a way to do it so it seems like it is not . Does that mean that it self erase points when it gets full ?..or what ?

 

Anyone have an answer to the above ?

Also - my laptop went from 1.10min to c:a 2.0min in start up time after installing Farstone - is there anything one can do to lessen that .

 

Hi pb1

You cannot erase restore points other than by disabling RestoreIT, then the snapshots will be removed and when you re-enable it, a new snap is taken automatically. I would suggest if you continue to use this, to go into options, and stop it from doing auto snapshots. Then you can take them manually when you need to. Also if the space gets used up, the program will remove some snapshots to regain working space.

In regards to slower boot time, perhaps this will improve if you stop the auto snapshot process, which if I recall correctly it is set by default to take one as little as every 15 minutes or upon other factors such as file system changes, etc., which will use up the snapshot space quickly and that constant activity in most cases it is simply unnecessary. I would set it up so that there are NO auto snaps, only manual snaps when YOU decide.

Hope that helps
Jim

 

Jim

Okej , then it is as i thought namely that one can not erase restore points manually .
Changing the snapshot process was the first i did so i am only doing it manually , the big impact on the boot up time is a bad thing but if that is the price to pay , so be it , but what i really want to know is if it is a common thing with Farstone restoreit .