ShadowProtect vs. ATI

That's what I'm trying to tell. A user paid $70 to get a restoration and nothing else.
If you recommend SP to someone, you better tell him that he has to know how to create partitions in case he needs to restore on a harddisk without or damaged partitions. SP is obvious not for everybody.

 

Tell me which imaging software IS for everybody !

 

lol your right there is none which will work for everyone.
an imaging app cant be compatible with al software.
lodore

 

Image Backup is in principle a simple software, you always have a source and a destination for backup and restore, the rest makes it more complicated : compression, encryption, mount, dismount, schedules, etc...
I guess most average users prefer a full restore, rather than learning how to restore one file.

 

Eric, u did not reply this.

 

your right disc imaging does sound simple but in reality it must be hard.
with hot imaging its even harder, you have got to image the whole disc/partistion with services and programs running and still make a perfect copy of it.
then the other problem is driver support.
alot of the time people have to create bartpe cd's to get the extra driver support.
alot of adverage home users will go to pc world buy norton ghost and make an image e.g. weekly.
they wont ever try the recovery cd until windows wont boot.
if the recovery cd misses a driver they are stuffed.
lodore

 

As I already said in this thread. ATI restores everything on a disk, even when it has been zero-ed. I've told this numerous times at Wilders.
If you don't believe me :
1. take a full backup with ATI.
2. zero your harddisk
3. restore that image.

Try the same with SP and you will see the difference.
Don't you remember my torture tests of ATI anymore ?
I only create partitions with Windows, not with an Image Backup Software and that happens only during the installation of Windows.

 

I had no problems with understanding ATI, but I had alot of problems with understanding BING/IFD/IFW. I don't have a problem with understanding SP either, it looks like ATI with of course differences.
You just copy data from one disk to another disk, it's like copy/paste in both directions, From A to B (= backup) or from B to A (= restore). What is so difficult to understand about that.

 

I already answered that question. Did you never test your own backup software. ?

 

Of course they can, but SP requires a partition repair first, done by the user.
You still don't see the difference or you don't want to see the difference.
You seem to have a hard time to admit this.

 

Boy, I thought imaging was going to be easy. Now we're talking about creating partitions and zeroing my hard drive. As Erik says, consider me a housewife. LOL I don't have the knowledge to get into these gymnastics. I need an app that lets you check the C drive and click make image. Then click restore and it restores. Well, maybe not THAT simple but you get my point. Can you steer me in the right direction? Thanks.

 

Check out Drive Image. When I used it years ago, it was very simple.

If it ain't broke, you haven't tried hard enough

regards,

-rich

 

Odd. I also had no problems understanding True Image, it's just that it never understood what i wanted, or my machine/system, so it consistently refused to cooperate. Never got one restore to take with it. Made plenty of coasters though.

Next, i wouldn't touch BING with a twelve foot pole, not that it isn't a great imaging app or anything at what it does, but that it looks too complicated and the GUI is rather flat IMO. I also don't get excited easy either over all those ADD-ONS they put up on their site. Why not combine everything into a single program. (Duh)

Norton Ghost, i gave 2002 a whirl and still have an almost new Ghost 2003 as a relic. Please don't ask, they didn't perform for me either.

ShadowProtect is a virtual newcomer in this field and i do hope they make a lot of good noise. Some results are already in that have my undivided attention, but it will take a ShadowProtect w/ Universal Restore feature to sway me from PARAGON! Especially after i'm getting ALL positive returns from it now.

 

You have problems understand my message,what i mean coding this tough stuff with with ease off usebility in mind is some challenge ( don't underestimate) were vendors has to deal with,its some sign that SP3 looks like ever delayed,its not easy to make this stuff work on millions different configurations with transtions from IDE to SATA and Duocores,Quadcores----Multicores you name it.To make hot imaging work for everyone is indeed a real challenge !!
We are already spoiled by the very good app. like Ati,Paragon and PS and ultimately there is not that much difference between them,if you Erik are oke with Ati than stay with it,i had many problems with Ati in the past so i switched over to PS and it works for me.

 

sorry,in my post i mean SP not PS !!!

 

I'm only warning users in advance, that SP doesn't act like ATI, when a harddisk has no partitions or damaged partition.
For these users SP is a step back regarding restoration.

Suppose a user doesn't know this and he has 4 partitions on his harddisk and after years of normal restorations, he suddenly gets a message from SP that it can't restore the image, because the partitions are damaged or gone.
If he doesn't remember the size of these 4 partitions or he never wrote them down, he is in deep trouble.

You don't see this as a problem of course, because you think that everybody is like you.
I always look through the eyes of a less-knowledgeable user and these users expect from SP that it will restore images, even when the partitions are gone or damaged, that's why they paid $70 for it.

And don't tell twl845 that it isn't complicated, because it took me awhile to figure out what I had to do in SP, to get my partition back and I had only 1 partition. It would have been alot more complicated, if I had 4 partitions on the same harddisk. I was just LUCKY that I had a basic knowledge of partitioning and that's why I was able to fix a harddisk with ONE partitiion. If I didn't have that knowledge, I wouldn't be here anymore to write this post, because my computer would be dead.

 

OK let me ask this question. I have no partitions on my C drive. Using an imaging app, can I produce an image of my C drive contents in my ext. Maxtor drive that is formated NTFS, and after a melt down, restore the image to my C drive? Question #2 Is zeroing your drive an option or a requirement?

 

You do have a partition on your harddisk called [C:] you just don't realize it because this partition C: is as big as your harddisk. This partition is created when you install Windows.

Most popular Image Backup software won't have a problem with backup and restoring, but you have to test it, which means not only backup but above all the restoration and one of my first tests is restoring an image on a zero-ed harddisk.

No you don't need to zero your harddisk, but I like to do this after a destructive malware attack or when I re-install Windows manually/image, so that no trace is left of any malware, simply because I don't know for sure how sneaky a malware can be, so I don't take any chances.
According my readings, I'm not the only one who zeroes his harddisk.