Rollback RX And Lost Snapshots?

Has anyone here ever managed to delete their Rollback snapshots by through defrag, restoring a drive image without the hidden files, or other methods?

I'm wondering, if an image is restored without restored snapshots, if the system even boots up and runs. Of course the Rollback software would automatically start, but does it run or even automatically generate a baseline snapshot?

Has anyone ever had experience with this?

 

Greetings, Empath!

DEFRAG - standard type of defragmentation (re-orientation of used disk sectors to allow for sequential file block placement) will not cause a loss of snapshots... but it will cause an immense amount of Rollback overhead to manage its ever changing disk structure, producing large snapshots in the process.

DRIVE IMAGING - If a Rollback protected drive is not imaged in its entirety (All Sectors, RAW, whatever term is used by the imager) and is only imaged based on its USED sectors (standard imaging DEFAULT), all snapshots will be lost in the process (image and restore), whether the image is done HOT (under Windows) or COLD (under an external CD or disk-based OS <WinPE, BartPE, Linux, etc.). A HOT image produces an image of the CURRENT SYSTEM STATE at image time (good BOOT, no functional Rollback), and a COLD image produces ONLY the Rollback INSTALLATION baseline... all successive snapshots will be lost and the BOOT process (unless a standar MBR is retired via the imaging tool) will not be guaranteed.

Any HOT imaging process that uses Windows VSS (Volume Shadow Service) to provide for the "active" Windows image (and that's most of them) will also lose the special MBR (Master Boot Record) installed by Rollback. When the system is restored, Rollback will not be functioning properly (it will need to be unINSTALLED and reINSTALLed).

The ONLY successful HOT imaging method (known to me) has been done by the "Image For Windows" imaging product. Even with this product, if you want all your snapshots AND Rollback returned during your restoration process, you need to image your ENTIRE protected disk/partition AND a Windows system REGISTRY patch is required to insure success.

Successful COLD imaging may be done by many imagers but only as long as you're imaging the ENTIRE protected image/partition.

If a HOT used sector only image is restored along with the imaged MBR, the system should BOOT just fine (the MBR restored will be the standard Windows BOOT MBR) but all snapshots AND a functioning Rollback will be gone. A standard used sector HOT image will restore the current system state at imaging time, not the installation baseline. A standard used sector COLD image will restore ONLY the initial Rollback installation baseline... all snapshots since that installation will be lost.

Due to all the above situations and anomalies when using Rollback and imaging your system, most long time Rollback users will unINSTALL Rollback to the CURRENT SYSTEM STATE prior to doing all their system related tasks... DEFRAG, re-PARTITIONing, etc., then reINSTALL Rollback. This, of course, will lose you all your previous Rollback snapshots, but these types of activities are usually done when you can best afford to lose them (happy with your current system state).

Yes.

 

Hi Froggie,

We meet again and thanks for all your help.

Best regards,

KOR! (aka aladdin)

 

Thank you, TRBFrog. The excellent answers are certainly appreciated.