ShadowProtect (Trial/Evaluation) what's the difference?

I realized my problem. I was thinking I could restore the C: drive directly from the desktop application like I could with Drive Image 2002. (It would just reboot and auto-run the recovery environment.) But, I see with ShadowProtect, you can restore anything BUT the C: drive with the desktop application. You must use the recovery disk for that. Even more reason to just use the recovery disk for everything. I am still amazed at the speed of ShadowProtect. Recovered my 8GB C: drive through the recovery CD in two and a half minutes. That's amazing.

 

@someone

No, version 3 will not be able to exclude free space from images of Linux volumes.

@genady

What type of restore were you attempting? If you were attempting to restore an image over your live/active operating system, then of course that would fail. You can't yank out the data from beneath a running OS. This is one of the purposes of the recovery environment - namely to enable you to boot to an alternate OS environment from which you can restore the OS on your hard disk.

 

The feature u are loking for is coming soon I think.
Grnxnm can confirm this.

 

With Acronis True Image, you can restore your system partition [C:] within Windows, once the restore command and verification is completed, it will ask you to reboot anyway and then the real restoration begins, but you don't need a Rescue CD for this.
I wouldn't go for Acronis (more and more bloatware), ShadowProtect is better.
The latest improvement of Acronis is a special backup for software settings and emails, which was unnecessary and it doesn't count for all softwares and email-programs and I consider this as "dangerous".

 

I was trying to do what I have always been able to do with Drive Image 2002. That is to, within the desktop application, select the image to restore, select the destination (C: where the OS resides) and hit 'yes'. It would tell you the active partition will be deleted, reboot, and begin the restoration would begin immediately at reboot. You said you were involved with DI2002, do you not remember this? Very easy. With that said, I love ShadowProtect, but I don't understand why you can't select the image to restore to the active partition from the desktop and it do that on reboot. I don't know why you need the CD for this.

 

it could be a safety measure

 

I see what you're saying. With PowerQuest Drive Image 2002, you had an "emergency disk" that would allow you to recover from a catastrophe, BUT....and this is a big BUT....(remember this was 2002), in the event of an emergency, the recovery began from a floppy(!) It worked amazingly well. The CD in ShadowProtect is obviously much better and you can do so much more with it. But, as long as you have the recovery disk, why not be able to select image, select destination, and let it do its thing regardless if it's the active partition with the OS? In other words, why does it have to be an either/or kind of thing? If it could work so well from a product in 2002 - why not today? Don't get me wrong, I love ShadowProtect, but that seems an obvious option to me. It would keep one from being forced to use the CD to put an image back on the active partition. It's an extra step that doesn't seem necessary. On the other hand, it's another reason to never install the desktop app (especially since you need the disk to recover the C: drive anyway).

 

This is not really a problem. If I recover partition [C:] via Windows and the reboot fails, I simply recover via the Acronis Rescue CD.
I prefer to recover via Windows, I'm too lazy to put that Rescue CD in my CD/DVD drive. As long the result is fine, it doesn't matter how you recover.
I certainly don't have all these problems, I read daily at Wilders.
Since I use ATI + FDISR all my problems of the past are gone and solved quickly, if they occur. If I get tired of ATI, ShadowProtect is next in line, but I need first a valid reason to ditch ATI.

 

Don't worry Peter, I understand your reasons too and in your situation, I would do the same thing, but my computer is for personal usage and it doesn't matter how fast I restore. At work I would have another attitude, but it isn't my job.

 

@Genady

I lose track of product version names. I was involved with the versions of DriveImage and V2i Protector that supported backup from within live/active Windows. Prior versions of DriveImage required you to reboot to DOS to image your volume(s). The version of DriveImage that I worked on was relabeled as Ghost by Symantec after Symantec acquired PowerQuest. Prior to this, Symantec's original Ghost product required reboot to DOS for imaging.

It sounds like what you're asking for is a more simplified process to restore the system volume, one where the necessary image/volume are already chosen when the recovery environment boots.

EDIT: Sorry, I had to go back and edit this a couple of times. I made the initial response while in the middle of a heated game of Gears of War with my son, so I was a bit distracted.

 

Hi grnxnm! Genady is asking for the restore option of C from within windows that is available in ATI. If you can remember me I have asked same Q from you in another thread.

So will this feature be included in version 3?

Thanks.

 

Any idea if it will be implemented in near future?

 

@grnxnm
OK
I know we are way off OT now, but I wanted to ask a couple of Q's
I think we have been through this before: "Bare Metal Restore"

My recent circumstance with work box:
boot failed first thing in the AM
OK off to techy: new bigger HD, different manufacturer in same box.
Installed XP as OS, FDISR and restored with FDISR snaps from external HD.


Are you saying I could have booted with SP CD and restored straight back onto that new disc??

You have mentioned "Hardware Independent Restore"
if I had taken the option to get a whole new box, mobo, HD etc,
ARe you saying I could have done the same: ie Boot with CD and use the "H-I-R" feature (when it is available) ??

Is the H-I-R going to be on V3?
I might sound stupid( in fact prolly do ) but I need to have this very very VERY clear in my head and to be able to tell my friends.

If we cant get the SP-IT edition for little biz then we need a very clear template.

WE are well covered for software bork but this recent experience has shown I need to spend a little more time with HW recovery plan.
Dont want RAID unless I have to.

Again a dopey Q:
I have a little network: 1 server and 3 workstations: not all identical : I want to protect all 4: which tool??

Sorry guys, dont laugh: learning as I go

Thanks

Regards

 

Hi Longboard,
I'm using Shadow protect Desktop version and recently my 160gb Seagate hard drive failed. This was my C: drive with Win XP Pro. I replaced it with a new 250gb Seagate drive and restored my previously backed up image (about 41 gb) to it in just over 40 minutes. Restarted computer after restore and everything was back just the way it was prior to failure. Everything worked perfectly.

 

What happened to the partition sizes? You can resize it to fit, or?

 

For what it's worth:

I still use Drive Image 2002. On Windows XPSP2 using SATA HDD. Almost all backups/restores are done via Windows using Drive Image's "drop down to DOS". If Windows isn't working, I use the boot floppy recovery method OR the CD recovery disk that I have created (it's not that hard to make one). It has been 100% reliable over the span of hundreds of backups and restores. It is also very fast, comparable to Acronis et al., provided the latest SATA drivers are installed for the operating system when SATA drives are used. If it suits your needs I don't think that it has been surpassed to this day as imaging software, although it doesn't do incremental imaging, imaging while windows is running and not sure how well it works imaging/restoring to/from external media, RAID, etc. since I don't use these. I've tried all the highly regarded imaging software recently. Shadowprotect was the best of the bunch, but FOR ME, it provided no great benefits over Drive Image 2002 but required the use a CD for restoring OS partition.

 

hi Someone,
I don't partition my c: drive, so it is as large as the capacity of the hard drive. So in my case I restored my original 160gb c: drive to my new 250 gb c: drive.
Shadow Protect Revovery environment gives you the option to create a partition to restore to prior to restoring your image. Obviously, your new partition will have to be at least as large as the original partition.
I've pasted in what I hope is the relevant text from the help file below:

"This will bring up the Restore Destination dialog screen (see Figure 34). Select the location where you want to restore the backup image. You may also right click on a volume and you will have the following options:
§ Delete Volume – This will delete a volume. The deleted volume will become unassigned space on the disk that can be repartition.

§ Set Active – This will set the volume active. Only one partition may be designated as active. By setting a volume active, the computer will boot to the volume.

§ Create an exact primary partition – Allows you to define and create a primary partition on the disk. You cannot create more than four (4) primary partitions on a disk.

§ Create extended partition – Allows you to extend a partition and then subdivide this partition into one or more logical partitions.



Click Next to continue.



Note: Restoring a backup image to a volume overwrites all data currently on the volume.



Note: You must have enough space to restore the backup image. For example, you cannot restore a 4GB backup file with only 1GB of free space."

 

You are where I am. I think Drive Image 2002 was the greatest thing I have ever purchased. Curious, how did you make a recovery CD instead of having to use the floppy recovery? My new box has no floppy drive and while DI hasn't failed me yet from the Windows interface, but I do think "what if?" What did you do?

 

@aigle

Oh, right, I understand you now. We determined that the instant OS-volume restore feature of True Image was so slow that it was actually faster to boot the True Image recovery environment and restore the OS normally and then boot the newly-restored OS. In other words, that feature is neat, but so slow that for the enterprise it actually represented more down time than their normal restore procedure. That was our experience anyway.

Features are a bit in flux right now, and on-disk recovery is one that may or may not end up in version 3. It's extremely easy to implement, so if it's not in 3.0 it will be in a update shortly thereafter.

Exclusion of free space for Linux volumes will not be in 3.0.

@longboard

Correct. Bare Metal Restore means you can restore an image to a machine that contains blank hard disks. You just boot the CD, point to the backup image (out on your network or on some other internal or external disk), and specify you want it restored to your new blank disk. After restore you boot that newly-restored OS.

Correct. Hardware Independent Restore will allow you to do bare metal restores to machines with significantly different hardware than the machine which was the source of the image. Yes, HIR is absolutely going to be in version 3.

RAID is generally not a problem with ShadowProtect, by the way. ShadowProtect's recovery environment, which is based on WinPE, has all of the device coverage of Windows itself. If your RAID/SCSI drivers aren't already part of the recovery environment, it has the option that allows you to install them when you are booting the environment (and with the 3.0 release you can even add them after you've booted the recovery environment).

I suggest you apply for the full Eval of ShadowProtect and try it out for yourself. It costs you only a blank CD-R to burn the ISO.

@noway

Good! Stick with what works for you!

@genady

Frankly, I'm with noway, if your current solution works perfectly for you I can't see a reason (other than curiousity) for you to switch.

 

Well i don,t see any delay, especially at least for me the delay( if there is any) is offset by the time I will bring my recovery disk and insert into CD Rom. I can,t understand the delay. Choosing a restore image in ATI and asking it to reboot takes less than a minute and after that the next procedure is exactly same in both cases? Willl you mind to explain it?
If you say simply that it,s not a feature which is important for a corporate software I will accept but I can,t swallow the logic you have given.

I guess the corporate issue here too, so no urgency for you. I wonder the corporate people are not using linux at all?