FDSIR trial has hosed My Documents!

I quit this silly discussion.

 

Here are a few screenshots of FD-ISR Rescue:





Pinky,

It's good practice to move your "My Documents" folder into a separate folder like C:\Data. (Right click on "My Documents" and click the move button).

 

I agree this is the most likely scenario as far as the disappearance of the 'My docs' folder. The product manual emphasizes to backup any folder that is anchored just to avoid any possible loss as in the OP situation. I've been using FD-ISR Rescue now for a month and switched snapshots at least 30-40 times without a glitch, it'd be nice to hear not only from Todd but also from the OP if the problem persists.

 

Well, the OP was able to access the Documents folders and recover the "lost data" from a bootable CD, which means that these folders were not erased from the hard disk.

 

Hi guys,

Excuse long post. Learned, relearned a lot today. I take back what I said about manual crash recovery with Burrows UBCD for Windows. Reliable manual crash recovery isn’t a PITA it’s a huge relief. It bailed my sorry @$$ out of this mess! I’m a PITA to myself as I do similar mistakes for 30 years!

Current status with new install of FDISR Rescue:

1. First I moved My Documents to my data drive, also Outlook 2000 .pst file, made extra backup copies as well, so I can manually refresh the backups. My data is backed up all around until I install an imaging system. Don’t have to anchor anything, can access all through links or programs on both snapshots.

2. My system: self-built, Gigabyte board couple years old, 2 gigs ddr RAM, single-core AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 2.09 gig, running W2K_SP4, fully updated by Windows Update.

3. Before installing: I physically detached from my Internet cable modem, turned off OA AV+ firewall, turned off GesWall freeware application that I use to sandbox Opera 9.5 browser.

4. Reinstalled same download of FDISR Rescue, built a rescue area, and this firmly re-established my recollection of the sequence of things the last time around. I’ll describe the current install process, which is still problematic.

5. Install: Default, plain vanilla. No warnings, no errors. Rebooted from install to ORIGINAL with pop-up requesting to copy/install RESCUE area. Cancelled, verified My Documents shortcut and Outlook 2000 worked. Brought up FD Console & configured console icon to appear in System Tray always. Computed RESCUE area size of 4GB.

6. RESCUE area build: Used Copy/update on Management Console. Declined to designate folders/files to anchor in Anchoring Wizard. Build finished in about 30 minutes with no warnings or errors. Reboot after Copy/update was to ORIGINAL area. Verified that all links still worked. Computed area sizes again. That system drive is 20 GB. Original is 4 GB, Rescue is 4 GB, Freespace is 10 GB, My Programs is about 2 GB so that all fits.

7. RESCUE area boot: Booted to rescue area from Management Console. Completed without warnings or errors. System Tray icon reported boot to Rescue area. Verified that My Documents link and Outlook 2000 email program still work. DID NOT download anything to play around with. Tried to boot back to ORIGINAL according to Manual, which is to reboot and take no action when the Preboot shows.

8. NOW IT GOES WRONG: The Preboot animation showed. It was allowed to pass. The system booted to the Rescue area. All works correctly within the snapshot, but all reboot options (a) no action at Preboot, (b) F1 Y at Preboot, (c) F1 N at Preboot, ALL end in the Rescue area. I can’t get back to ORIGINAL.

I’m apparently functioning fine from here, but this NOT the way it should work. Any ideas?

More available on the very first bad installs and reinstalls if you wish. I sorted out the errors I made.

Pinky

 

Yes. The log summarizes all the actions I took, with three blue crosses revealing verbose details of 1 rescue area copy action and 2 size computations. It then records "Swapped over to BACKUP (1)". Then it shows 4 preboot checks as I tried the 4 boot options to swap back to ORIGINAL that didn't work, ends without recording any errors or failures.

Pinky

 

Like Peter, I downloaded and installed FD-ISR rescue from Horizondatasys.

I will try to repeat your sequence and see if I can reproduce your boot problem...

 

More details on the very first try from my notes:

I installed and uninstalled twice. The first time I anchored My Documents correctly using the Anchor Wizard. But did NOT verify that My Documents were accessible from the Rescue snapshots. The same failure to reboot back to the Original snapshot occurred, and I tried all options (a) letting Preboot animation pass, (b) F1 Y, (c) F1 N. Then uninstalled (from the Rescue snapshot) and reinstalled.

On the second install I made a dumb mistake because I was getting frustrated. Instead of using the Anchor Wizard I went to the Options tab and entered My Documents into the excluded folder with *.tmp. Pretty moronic, but that’s what happens late at night when your mind is (not) absorbing a new procedure and terms. On the other hand I don’t see how it could have damaged My Documents by ignoring them. Completed the rescue area build. This time I did check My Documents. Missing, of course, and by now, getting a bit panicked, I tried the reboots back, which still didn’t work. Uninstalled FD again, and when it unwound, My Documents folder was present but empty. So, in retrospect, the deletion must have occurred when I uninstalled from the first Rescue snapshot. If that happened its got to be a poorly designed uninstall. Anchored data is only mapped to the Rescue area. Surely the uninstall could ignore anchored data.

Postings and tech support help requests followed. Then I booted into my UBCD recovery CD and found everything had been deleted into free space but not overwritten, so the actually recovery was pretty easy, actually even getting a lot of the directory structure back. The tech support at HDS has not responded since I sent the requested logs on 6/20.

So we seem to have 2 possible issues, if anyone can reproduce them. (a) a faulty reboot back to Original snapshot, and (b) having anchored data deleted during uninstalls from the Rescue area. The first time I installed, I had unhooked by cable modem and exited the OA AV+ firewall, but the GesWall Free application was in use sandboxing by browser only. This present time I exited GesWall as well, and don't think I'm hosting anything else that could interfere. In any case, nothing warned either time.

Pinky

 

On the recovery with the bootable CD it was by only accessing the entire free space on the system drive that I located the missing items. They had been deleted, presumably during the very first uninstall from the Rescue snapshot, and fortunately not overwritten. So then it turned into deleted data recovery.

I much appreciate your interest in this!

Pinky

 

Not getting back to ORIGINAL is indeed ABNORMAL, you must be able to boot in any snapshot, otherwise it doesn't make sense anymore. Maybe FDISR PC Rescue doesn't like your total system, I can hardly believe that this is a bug.

 

Pinky, you are right.

Once you boot into the rescue snapshot, you are trapped and there is no way that you are able to boot into the original snapshot.



And the boot screen only gives you the option to boot into the rescue area when you press F1.
FD-ISR does NOT boot into the original snapshot by default either.

This is not a bug, but a feature left out!
Todd, are you reading?

Did you select program only, when uninstalling?
That way both snapshots would remain and be accessible after reinstalling:



Also uninstall/reinstall of the program only does not fix the problem. FD-ISR continues to boot into the rescue snapshot.
It seems that booting into the rescue snapshot is a one-way only road.

I also want to report that I didn't notice any issues with the anchored data.

 

wilbertnl, SO GLAD you were able to reproduce this! No, I uninstalled everything. I see what you mean by "feature left out" but when it doesn't perform as the Manual says it sure feels like "bug" to the user! But uninstall/reinstall DOES leave one in the Original area right after installation. Its only after executing the first Copy/Install to create the Rescue area PLUS booting to it the first time, that you have entered the one way street.

Well, since I moved all my data and my Outlook .pst file to the data drive, I think I'll just uninstall this now and monitor the forum here. If the developer can get this fixed I'm available to beta test because I'm still interested. Is there anywhere the previous versions are available and supported? Was there a fork somewhere? I'm not familiar with the long term development history of FD. Any other suggestions for this Crash Recovery capability?

Thanks for all the very fast help guys! Waiting to hear whats next in this saga!

Pinky

 

That's not the way I saw it when I first installed it: Depending where you are('original' snapshot or 'backup' snapshot) booting to the rescue area could be to the original from the backup or to the backup from the original. In other words there is no rescue area assigned by default, Original and backup are interchangeable. If one wants to return to the ORIGINAL from the BACKUP snapshot, one has to boot to the RESCUE area(in this case it is RESCUE area for the BACKUP snapshot).

 

I confirm.

There are ORIGINAL and BACKUP snapshots. Booting to the rescue area simple means booting in the other snapshot.

 

When I open the FD-ISR console it always shows "BACKUP" as snapshot indication. Like in the screenshot of post #40.
I never got any indication that I booted "Original". Even The Balloon didn't show that I switched to the other snapshot.

If this behavior is by design, then it's poor design.

 

I think that the names Original, Backup, Rescue Area, could be interpreted wrongly, one automatically associates Backup snapshot with Rescue area, whereas they should have made it clear that two identical OSs have been created in parallel and can be used alternatively.

May be redesigning the gui would help, but the program works as advertised. The tray icon should also show all the time in which snapshot you are in. If the console shows "BACKUP" then you are booted in the "BACKUP" snapshot, and from there if you want to go to the "ORIGINAL" you have to activate the command to boot into the "RESCUE AREA" (which is now the "ORIGINAL"), or press F1 - YES from the pre-boot screen.

 

I take that back.
When I select "Rescue" in the menu of the console, or press F1 at boot, I do switch to the other snapshot. I even created a file C:\rescue.snapshot in one of the snapshots, to verify the difference.

It didn't seem that way before I reinstalled FD-ISR rescue...

 

...And this is supposed to be a simplified version of the classic FDISR!

 

The interface is confusing.
I understand the reaction of Pinky, and since Pinky has the skills to recover lost data, I think he has the qualifications to do a successful evaluation.