ShadowProtect 3.1

Hello,

On the moment I'm trialing SP and I'm very impressed with it's speed.
It also seems a reliable proggie: the creation/restoring of images went flawlessly. I'm most likely going to buy SP.

Am I correct that you can't clone a HD with SP or am I looking with my nose (as usual ).


cheers

 

Pete
Am I missing something,but would have assumed that in order to copy or clone an image to a new disk(hardware),just use the HIR function,save the resulting HIR image,then restore the HIR image to the new disk ,after ensuring that the new disk is recognised.

To copy or clone to an existing disk,how about using the disk map-delete volume and then restoring the required image.

edit; What SP doesnt have is a proper Restore Files and Folders,just an ordinary copy and paste function.

 

My understanding is that you with HIR can transfer an existing system to a very different machine (take an image on one pc and restore it to another that has entirely different hardware).

What I mean is this:
Can I copy my internal HD (consisting of 3 partitions) in one go and put it in one go on e.g. an external HD. Or do I have to create 3 images and put 1 image at a time on the external HD.

 

Egghead-

Not really sure how HIR would perform in this case.

The assumption would have to be that HIR could be used for a new disk which should be the same conditions basically as a new machine ,or even an existing disk on the original machine,as long as the disk is formatted.Then you could transfer in one operation.

Worth trying ,if you can backup the external before formatting,otherwise of course you would have to restore per partition.

 

Except if you want to restore an app. file,you cant do it by copy/paste.
Admittedly doesnt happen often but Ive had to do it with ATI,which restores it to the original position ,plus all the dependent bits and pieces.
You can only copy/paste data successfully with SP, as a single function.

 

My wishlist for SP:

- Ability retore image on a smaller partition( not yet supported if I am not forgetting).
- Ability to boot n retore without CD.
- Ability to flush empty space while imaging in raw mode

 

I like to see the option of enabling "verify image" during the preparation of the backup job.

 

Its sad that verifying good is no promise for a smooth restore,i donna scare you but a more sure way is a restore immediately after backup,so you know for sure that the image can be restored or not in the future. Luckily SP has a solid reputation on these so don't worry to much if you do a restore.

But as with everything nobody can give you 100% guarantee.

 

If the verification goes good, it means that you have a solid image. Failing to restore it might involve other factors. So, I prefer to do both, verification and restoring. I also store checksums (CRC32, MD5 and SHA256) of my images in a text file to do on-demand integrity checking.

 

Curious about the " other factors " . Diskrot come to mind,maybe there several more ?

BTW in my eyes if you have solid image then there is no need for restore afterwards.

 

Hardware factors causing corruption in the data stream, corrupted data in partition tables, bugs in the imaging software, etc.
But yes, a verified image should restore fine in 99.999 % of the times. This has given me the confidence of defragging images and moving them around.

 

Good review in PC Mag:

 

I have no SP install,just the recovery CD ,good enough for me,and yes blasingly fast !!

 

Great review from a respected source-hopefully this will be accepted by those who say SP isnt faster-only on your machine etcetc blah blah.

 

Yes, that makes for a very reliable backup; however, to use the Hardware Independent Restore (HIR), you must have ShadowProtect installed inside the image before creating the backup.

 

Question: Does ShadowProtect support command line backup and image verification operations? No mention of it in the User Guide, and haven't received an answer from StorageCraft.

 

i like it tooo
but i can i test it?

in the trial version is there not the ability to make a bootable cd to recovery the backup , so how can i test it?

 

thanks and can i backup & restore with the cd?