The real value of FDISR

Not sure what you mean by the Leapfrog Forum Pete - move it wherever you wish.

 

Peter means the FirstDefense-ISR Forum, the first one on the frontpage of Wilders.

 

Hello,
I'm a user of these two softwares and just happen to be looking for some help here, but I can provide some info for you in this thread. I use FDISR to recover from unwanted changes to my system in a quick and efficient manner. I use ATI when using FDISR is not possible because there are certain things you can do ( like installing drivers or programs) that causes conflict in the system and FDISR can't help you there.
Insofar as real values go, FDISR is going to save you lots of time, but ATI is going to save your bacon from real problematic situations. FDISR is quite a disk hog if you maintain many snapshots because FDISR isn't able to take incremental snapshots. I use it in my system like this:
1. Maintain 2 snapshots on C:\ with FDISR
2. Take incremental backups of the whole C:\ drive.

That's it! When FDISR fails, ATI will recover the whole drive and you're good to go.

 

Thanks Ragzarok

That is what I had gathered from the various threads on the subject.

I think also it may save time where you are in a time saving enviroment, but for me whether it takes 4 minutes to recover or 15 minutes it is not now that important. ATI does serve me well and I cannot justify the price of FDISR

 

Thanks Eric, but I would not have thought of discussing this comparison in this section.

 

Exactly...If you have have a stable system without many frequent changes, FDISR isn't helpful to you. If you test software a lot...FDISR will save you time.

 

Firstdefense can be helpful in other ways, beyond involving whether or not you make frequent changes to the system- you may want to create for yourself different configurations and working environments.

Also, you may enjoy the convenience of having fresh windows installs to build snapshots from, in lieu of having to manually install windows, when you need a new start.

For instance, I did a clean install of windows, and took a snapshot. From that snapshot, I created 2 new snapshots, 1 to install everything on, and one with just updates, drivers, and a few basic programs.

Now, I don't have a tv, so I use my computer to watch dvds on, but the snapshot with everything installed has so much stuff on it, that watching dvds can be iffy, because of all the memory useage. So when I want to watch a dvd with a friend or somethin and have it play nicely, I boot over into the snapshot with practically nothing on it, on which the dvd plays smoothly- this is just a basic example. You can have up to ten snapshots, leaving alot of room for imagination and flexibility.

When you boot into a snapshot that you haven't booted into for a month to do some updates or work with other snapshots, and find yourself feeling like you're on a journey away from your computer, you know then that you're using the program as its intended to be used....

See image:

 

Having ATI is a must. Working with a computer without Image Backup is asking for losing everything.

Having FDISR is luxury, you don't really need it, but it is nice to have and like any luxury, once you have it, you don't like to lose it.
The big advantage is that FDISR restores your system quicker, so it depends on how fast you want to be back in business in case your system is corrupted.

Besides that FDISR
- can be used as a multiple boot system with different OS (win2000pro, winXP and winVISTA)
- can be used for different work environments
- can be used for different test environments
- can be used as second backup (archives)
It also has additional features, like frozen snapshot and empty snapshot.
You can have maximum 10 bootable snapshots (minimum 2) and an unlimited amount of archives.
All snapshots are independent and can be created, copied, updated, removed, renamed, archived, restored, ... at any time.

If you don't need all that, stick to ATI.

 

For me fd-isr is the first line of defence in a recovery scenario, and the last line, quicker and more conveniant than restoring an image, but possibly not by much. I have found it very reliable in this role. Why the last line? Because images fail from time to time, if ATI fails I can go back to a windows install, install fd-isr and recover my system from the archives I have on another disk, a much longer process, but that is a worst case scenario. It is unlikely that both methods would fail at the same time.

Secondly it acts as a boot manager for my main PC, I have a work snapshot and a recreation snapshot. My work one has only what I need for work and is only used for work. My recreational snapshot is for my downtime, photo editing the odd game and general web browsing. I could no doubt setup a dual boot if I did not have fd-isr, but I am used to it now and I like it this way.

 

I forgot to mention what I do with FDISR :

I have only two snapshots, two daily archives, two clean archives and one freeze storage.

1. Off-line Snapshot
It has no internet connection, except when I have to activate or update a software, but never for a long internet activity.
This is the snapshot, where I can work quietly without any form of disturbance or losing my concentration.

I also use this snapshot for
a. Backup because I like to keep my external harddisk off-line (ShadowProtect + Karen's Replicator)
b. Copy/update to archives or creating many snapshots for testing.
c. Disk defragmentation (PerfectDisk)
d. Video-editing and CD/DVD-burnings
e. Text-processing and spreadsheets.
This snapshot is never in trouble and that's why it's also my refuge snapshot, in case my on-line snapshot is corrupted.
I use its archive mainly to clean my off-line snapshot.
So I copy/update alot more from archive to snapshot, than vice versa.

2. On-line Snapshot
This snapshot is frozen to correct the mistakes of my security softwares.
It also recovers automatically after each reboot in 1m52s (boot-to-restore).

I use this snapshot
a. For surfing
b. For emailing
c. For testing and trying softwares, which I usually ditch afterwards.

This snapshot needs constantly recovery and that's why it is frozen. I call it my Garbage Snapshot.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I have a better understanding of it now. For me though it would be a luxury rather than a necessity. ATI will do most of it albeit at a slower pace.

 

Like djg05 I also use ATI and am happy with it. Might give Returnil a go, it's
free.
As this is all about online security, I wonder what browser ErikAlbert is
using ? If it's Opera 90% of his security concerns will be taken care of.
Just visit the Secunia site and check out the "holes" in the various
browsers and whether they were patched. Opera has none, all others,
especially IE, have numerous unpatched security issues. Opera is similar
to a sandbox, nothing gets written directly to disc. I think IE in Vista
is also like this.

 

I would say a good reliable imaging program is the backbone of your recovery arsenal, it should get you out of trouble when all else has failed. So I would have to say, if I could or would for whatever reason only have one, then it would have to be imaging.
As Erik has said fd-isr for most people is a 'nice to have' luxuary for others a very useful tool. Depends a lot on what you are going to get out of it.
Returnil is well worth a go.

 

I'm using Firefox, divided over two partitions [C:] and [D:]. I do the same with Thunderbird, to keep my bookmarks, emails and email-address-books, ... on my data partition [D:].
I wonder if I can do this with Opera ?

 

I suspect if you moved the Opera profile folder to your data drive this would work, I will try it and let you know, since it is something I shoul have already done, but have been too lazy

Erm.. that folder also contains the Opera cache, so moving it into another drive may not be such a good idea, will give it some thought, maybe just move the Opera6.adr file

 

I see a folder "cache" (Firefox) on my data partition. Is that bad ?

 

LOL, this is where I show my ignorance of all things computing, but is the cache not where the browser stores its temporary internet files and the like, since this would then be outside the scope of Returnil, that would not be a great thing in my case imho.

Have started another thread to seek help on this and not mess this one up.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1088399#post1088399

 

The real value of FD-ISR is in it's dependability or rather, it's complex inner design which where even if the FD program AND heaven forbid, all your snapshots were KO'd by malware OR even a sudden Windows corruption, so long as you have archived your snapshots to another drive or even partition, you can completely rebuild/restore your system 100% and be right back up and running WITHOUT PARTIAL/COMPLETE DATA LOSS.

I just experienced this first hand myself by letting out of the cage a file infector virus that poo poo'd ALL my snapshots AND FD-ISR program. Yeah i could still boot to one-fourth my contingent of 9 snaps, but even those had programs still affected even though a popular AV claimed them "cleaned"

I feel this is FD-ISR's biggest asset to it's user, a most reliable recovery system that simply will not be refused, if used properly, that is either exporting snapshots to alternate drives/partitions or like i am so routine to do, archive the snaps, much faster and you can Copy/Update them regularly to keep them current enough.

Leapfrog is really done a great service with this creation and earned for themselves a legendary place in history, at least in my books.

 

Having read a lot of other threads around here I am getting a better idea of how FD-ISR works, and understand its popularity.

There is one area I am not sure about. As I understand it, it only protects your O/S drive/partition. Does it matter if it is not on the C drive?

Secondly if you install a program to another partition presumably when you restore your image the program will be gone from the O/S drive but will remain on the other partition where it was installed, unless you can protect more than one partition.

Thanks.

 

FDISR works only on the partition where it is installed and where Windows is also installed, which is normally partition [C:] on most computers and that also means that each bootable snapshot (minimum 2, maximum 10) must be installed on the same partition.
Archives can be stored anywhere and the number of archives is unlimited. Archives are NOT bootable, they need to be restored first in a bootable snapshot (new or existing).

FDISR ignores any other partition or harddisk.
FDISR is designed to recover your system partition : Windows and Applications.
ISR = Immediate System Recovery.