Rollback RX v10.x (Home & Professional)

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Good luck!

 

Actually, this is something I will be testing in the future..
I won't be testing Drive Cloner RX, cause Sam@HDS told me it's not Windows 10 compatible, and I'm on Win 10 x64.

 

First snapshot...
With VSS it's definitely taking now A LOT longer to take an snapshot. (7200rpm drive)
Stuck at 90%, been waiting for a few minutes now...
It could be my Norton Security conflicting with RX,but so far Norton didn't say anything.. (and I already added RX on it's exclusions..)
I will give it 5 minutes more, if it's not completing, I'm gonna do a "hard shutdown" test, and rollback on the baseline..

edit:
Did a "hard shutdown" and computer recovered normally, and the snapshot which got stuck wasn't there. (RX mentioned about improper shutdown,and did a snapshot defragmentation prior to loading Windows 10..)
Did a new snapshot, that went fine..
Added a few files on my C-drive, and took another snapshot..
Rolled back on the baseline..
everything seemed to be fine, deleted the latest snapshot,and rolled back on the first one.
Now I noticed I had lost about 30 GBs of disk space on C-drive.. did a snapshot defragmentation, and got that free space back.
So far everything seems to be working fine, I like the exclusions option,so I can keep my password etc. files intact, between the snapshots.
I will take a few more snapshots, then I'm gonna do a COLD sector-by-sector backup with the latest Macrium Reflect..

 

It's unlikely, a user would confront so many hard shutdowns i been doing, but I did it anyways ..
On all those scenarios you suggested..
(And I did all these tests on my MAIN laptop, HP Pavilion 15-p255no, Windows 10 Home 64-bit with 1TB SSHD UEFI)
It worked fine on all scenarios, except for the last one which I decided to repeat again...
First I did a COLD sector-by-sector backup with the latest Macrium Reflect off my Win 10 OS partition (INCLUDING the hidden partitions),
then I restarted Windows..
While shutting down Windows 10, I did a forced "hard" shutdown...
After that my computer informed...
"Boot Device Not Found, Please install an operating system on your hard disk."
prior to that forced shutdown, I had already decided to restore a sector-by-sector backup with Macrium, cause...
My Keepass password database file had became corrupt and refused to be loaded!
At this point, I was 100% sure Rollback RX had caused it to become corrupted,as it was on my exclusions list..
But...
After doing a COLD restore on that Macrium backup (took 5 minutes with Delta restore!) the password file was working again normally.
(I think the file getting corrupted was caused by Windows itself, with all the hard shutdowns i was doing..)
Also, all snapshots are there, and working fine. (yes,I went thru and tried all of them..)
My conclusion...
Is Rollback RX robust with Windows 10 ?
Well, I would definitely NOT only just rely on it, but if you make a COLD sector-by-sector backup with a reliable software, like Macrium then you're safe.
Now bear in mind i did some hardcore forced "hard" shutdowns, so I was expecting to get somekinda disaster scenarios, which I did.
Just make sure to keep backups of your important files, like password files on external hard drives (I always do this anyways!),
and I would suggest doing also atleast once a month a COLD sector-by-sector backup with some robust backing up software,eg. Macrium Reflect.
You should never rely on this software as your only backup solution, cause it really isn't an backup software.

While I have the software installed, if you would like me to test some other "special" scenarios, post below and I will see about it.
As for now, I'm gonna keep it on my computer and keep on using it.
It's now actually better than I was expecting it to be.. (I didn't expect anything else than catastrophes.. lol.)

Bottom line..
The software works fine, atleast on my laptop.
If you gonna use it..
-FIRST do a full sector-by-sector backup of your OS partition (as an precaution,include all the hidden partitions too,if on UEFI system)
-THEN install Rollback RX, and after taking some snapshots, do ANOTHER FULL -COLD- sector-by-sector backup.
-Take atleast once a month a new FULL -COLD- sector-by-sector backup. (the more frequently you do it, the smaller is possible loss..)
-ALWAYS have a backup of your important files on another hard drive.
-If some catastrophe with RX/other reason would strike, you'd just restore the latest -COLD- sector-by-sector backup which you did.

With Macrium Reflect, the snapshots work 100% when you do -COLD- full sector-by-sector backup, and restore is very fast with DELTA.
Just remember NOT to do any incremental/differential backups, or you will mess up your rollback RX snapshots, the backup has to be complete, full sector by sector.

 

you are brave my friend

this happened to me too when i used v8 or v9

you were luckier than me,

indeed but for a soft that claim to recover from any disaster , those scenarii should be included

good advices and procedure.

i still thank you for daring to test my scenarii , even me i wouldn't do it

at least all RX users will know what will happen in hard shutdowns scenarii.

 

Hi.
If they still claim RX recovers from any disaster, that is NOT true.
But with a 3rd party backup software, it can be very useful piece of a tool.
Now that they use VSS to take the snapshots,I do think it's a lot more safer now than before.
Personally I do not mind of the snapshots now taking longer to take,due to that.

It's vital you do a full sector-by-sector backup before starting to play with this software, that's for sure.
Incase your files would get corrupted, you could then easily restore a fully working backup of your system.
Even if RX messed up the sectors, they would be fine after the backup recovery..

 

Found on the Macrium Forum: According to a usually reliable source (InfoWorld's Woody Leonards) there will be two W10 updates in short succession:

- A "cumulative W10 update" on Tuesday (I saw this one this morning)
- The formal W10 Fall Update (now called: the "1511 update") on Thursday of this week.

People with concerns about the possible havoc these may cause, are well advised to take system images before system down on Wednesday and at CoB on Thursday.

Of course only one Frog's opinion... FWIW.

Looks like one or both may be a problem for RBrx... prepare yourselves. Based on your configuration, it looks like the onslaught has already begun (see HERE). I hope it's not as bad as it looks...

 

Thanks for the tip.
A friend told me he had to keep his comp open over the night for the update, and that it was huge one..
Shrug,dunno... nothing came thru to me yet.. only Windows Defender updates..
but gonna take an incremental with macrium right now, i uinstalled RX already cause I really don't need this software anymore,
Macrium's incrementals and delta restore are so fast now,so it kinda makes this software a bit obsolete for me.
But anyways,since like every thread here more or less praises Macrium hype, maybe we should keep this topic on HDS RX .... bad me, baaaad!!
I'll be playing again with RX sooner or later,since I have a genuine license for v10.x

 

Your experience is the same as mine. Only those requiring lightning snapshot speeds and don't have a lot of patience really need that kind of snapshot solution.

 

a co-member on Malwaretips , didn't bother to removed RX , upgraded Win10 = PC unbootable , reverted to baseline.

personally , i downloaded the iso and made a clean install

 

maybe a bit off topic, but is there a genuine download link on M$ for that ISO?
Thank you.

 

Windows media Creation tool

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

Stode... pls remember, unless your System has already been "upgraded" through the FREE MicroSloth process (or you go through a convoluted process of saving needed data for future ACTIVATION), that ISO will only allow you to install an unACTIVATED version of W10. If you've accomplished the previous upgrade/activation successfully, you may use that ISO for a CLEAN ACTIVATED INSTALL on that particular system only.

 

WARNING: Observation from my personal Windows 1511 installation/upgrade: If your system doesn't already have at least a 450mb MicroSloth System Recovery partition, this upgrade will create one (just like the Windows 8.1 > 8.1.1 update). If there isn't enough unallocated space on your disk to do so, it will carve it out of your C: partition, essentially shrinking its size. If it does this, it will TRASH Rollback RX since no partition size change may be made to its protected partition while is is in play. This will most likely happen to System configurations that DO NOT contain or use a MicroSloth System Recovery Partition.

The results of this partition modification will play in lots of different ways depending on your System configuration. On my fully utilized Legacy-MBR 2-partition system (Windows + DATA only), the update carved out a brand new 450mB SRP from my existing Windows BOOT partition (C: )... but since the System was Legacy-MBR (with the Windows partition being the ACTIVE/BOOT partition), nothing was changed in the BOOT path... it just created that partition for the heck of it (I believe.. need further checking to be sure). If my size-modified Windows (C: ) partition had been protected by Rollback, Rollback would no longer be working properly

On other configurations I have no idea what will happen with a LIVE Rollback RX involved... as some have mentioned, BOOTing stops. I would suspect that anyone who came from a Windows 8.1 Update 1 system during the initial W10 upgrade (it most likely would have already had the needed 450mB RECOVERY PARTITION) will probably be just fine... but that's a guess on my part.

My recommendation... just be very aware and make sure you have a good usable image backup in place before any of this happens to your system. The Rollback world under the W10 AUTOMATIC update philosophy appears to be a crapshoot at best.

 

Further checking: eliminating that "neutered" new 450mB MSRP did not affect the BOOTability of my system in any way... the partition was created and never ACTIVATED for BOOTing purposes by the W10 update, it's just a Windows RECOVERY PARTITION.

 

Yeah,I noticed...
Well,the app asks me if i want to do an upgrade or download iso ..
First I chose to download the ISO file.... that +5GB installation media only allows me to install a new version with the recent big win 10 update integrated...
So, 2nd time I chose to just upgrade, and my machine is working fine...
But the upgrade messed up everything, My Macrium Reflect registration+incremental chains, it's doing a new full synthetic backup.
Gonna start a new chain, no big deal.

 

(See Horizon DataSys WARNING concerning Windows 10 v1511 update)

 

Sam from HDS says in this "Warning" that yes, Win10 will not be bootable after this update if Rollback was installed. But according to him all you have to do in this case is press the Home button on startup to go to the Rollback pre-Windows console and restore the latest snapshot before the Windows update.

If this is true then I do not understand the whole hoopla about this update. If Rollback can really restore the state before the update then it can do exactly what it is supposed to do. All backup (or snapshot) software which uses a tracking file is equally affected by this update as Rollback, i.e. the tracking file will be void afterwards.

And I still stick with my position that Microsoft has no business to alter the size of my system partition during an update (at least not before warning me and request my explicit permission).


Cheers
manolito

 

If any Snapshot OR Baseline data was located in that 450mB RECOVERY PARTITION that MicroSloth pulled apart, the system is toast. I believe that's what happened to that first user that reported problems after his v1511 upgrade. He kept going back to previous snapshots (all failed) and finally found a stable system at his baseline. It's the baseline FileSystem that outside processes see (MicroSloth updates) when they make changes to an unprotected system. Rollback, in no way, can restore partition changes done from outside (or inside) a Rollback protected system.

My guess.. the support people "tested" that scenario with a very small system and lots of freespace located at the end of their protected partition... that just might have worked.

+1 on Mab's concern above about partition changes during updates. It's not just Rollback but any app that needs to know previous partition sizes (probably every imager on the planet that uses DIFFERENTIAL and INCREMENTAL imaging).

 

...and if there's any Rollback baseline data that exists in the 450mB area to be used for the new RECOVERY PARTITION, it gets moved by MicroSloth (file structure compression and defragging) to other areas of the disk that it thinks are free. Of course, Rollback has tons of snapshot data in those areas that M$ thinks are free... what do you think is about to happen to Rollback's snapshot data when M$ moves all that baseline data into that space?

As I said above... TOAST is about the best description I can come up with.

Good luck, long time Rollbackers!

 

Actually, when you install (or buy a pc with) windows 10 you agree to receive any and all the updates without aditional notice. If you don't agree you shouldn't install it...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Windows/10/UseTerms_Retail_Windows_10_English.htm

Panagiotis

 

Well, if rollback really worked as it should, it should have redirected all the changes (including partition resizing and the creation of the recovery partition) to free sectors and should be able to handle this update.
At least if it was configured to protect the entire drive.

Panagiotis

 

The problem is... MicroSloth makes those changes OUTSIDE of the Rollback protected LIVE Windows environment.

 

No, it does not. The update is initiated from the live system and the preboot enviroment of RollbackRX is loaded after the reboot.
If RollbackRX (and its virtual drivers) worked correctly it should have intercepted all the changes.... period.

e.g. if you have time run the same upgrade procedure from a VHD for running the live OS. It does not suffer from anything similar.
http://www.neowin.net/news/guide-how-to-install-windows-10-using-vhds

Panagiotis

 

Right, and this is the reason why I will not install it in the forseeable future...

Microsoft has adopted the very same attitude which Apple had forever, and this is:
It is not the user who is in control of his computer, it's us. We decide what the user can and cannot do with his machine (because we believe that users are generally stupid).

And now that Win10 is basically free they think that they are completely entitled to show this attitude.


Cheers
manolito