Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

MPSAN,

Sorry, I think the latest version won't fix those problems. I'll see if I can figure out the cause of those problems

Isso

Missed your question:

The compression is always on.

 

amazing! i really like this program, did a restore using the usb recovery media. recovery enviornment loads super fast and the restore process was super fast, much faster than my PING Unetbootin set up.
works flawlessy for me now.

 

967 appears to be working with no problems.

(Licensing link appears to lead nowhere, but mechanism is working when 30 days have elapsed.)

With regard to those Storage Volume Shadow Copies - I now have 4 and it seems to be staying that way.

I deleted the original 5, which I suspect may have been some kind of a glitch as I had an issue with a corrupt MFT a few days ago and altered the disk offline and at that time also removed/replaced AX, so that may very well explain that.

The Class Upper Filters in each instance do reference AX and no sign of any similar entries due to Macrium activity - but they don`t appear to be a problem, more of a curiosity.

 

ISSO, V1.0.967 installed flawlessly. Thanks! Suggestion: I like the "tip of the day" but am wondering if a AX64 Manual would be necessary for folks who buy without the benefit of following this thread. Perhaps in a downloadable PDF form or in a Help folder in the app.

 

Thank you. I will wait to see what happens. Without rescue media I would not be able to recover from a big failure.

 

That's right. You have some options though:

- If you have another OS (preferably Windows 7 or higher) you can build the recovery media on it and use on your XP machine. It should work fine.
- If you have any other PE based recovery media, you can embed AXTM into it. All you need are 3 files - AXTMApp.exe, AXCore.dll and AXTMImageBrowser.exe. Upon launching of your recovery media just run the latter and do the restore.
- You can copy above mentioned 3 files to a USB stick, launch any other PE based recovery media, browse to the USB stick and start AXTMImageBrowser.exe from there

Isso

 

My resume from hibernation bug does indeed seem to be fixed with this release

 

yankinNcrankin, I'm happy to hear it, thank you for sharing the information!

Isso

 

Fad,

Thank you for the information, we are now investigating this "Shadow Copies" phenomenon. Doesn't seem to cause any harm, but is annoying.

Isso

 

twl845, you are right, we will be creating a manual, most likely will store it online.

Isso

 

Scoobs72, great to hear it, thank you!

Isso

 

Great!

 

I have a windows 7 pc. I've successfully used all versions of AX64 with very few problems. I'm currently using 1.0.932? Yesterday I decided to restore to a one month old backup. That went flawlessly. When I decided to restore to the most recent backup, the icon for restore was not active. I had a image of the partition, so I was not concerned. I rebooted and opened the AX64 browser again. This time the restore icon was active and restored normally. What gives? Also when I restored to the one month old backup, the AX64 program reverted to an earlier version. Is this normal behavior? Finally, what is the mount button for? After mounting the C drive, I'm unable to use the windows browser and see any old files.
Allen

 

Sevenstar, I'm only guessing here but...

When you went back 1-month on your restore, you definitely go back to the AXTM version that was alive at that point... that's why it's probably older than the one you started with.

As far as not being able to RESTORE a given snapshot, my guess is that during that time frame, the image format for the snapshots changed. If the version of AXTM that you went back to was a version using the older imaging format, it probably won't be able to restore to a newer format image.

Isso and the team announced very loudly when the imaging format changed and at that point there was no way to continue the incremental stream, especially using the older version of AXTM to process newer snapshots. These kinds of things WILL happen during the ALPHA and BETA phases of program testing... that's why these forums need to be followed fairly closely during these testing phases.

You should be fine to start from the current image with your latest BETA release... but you'll have to start with a new baseline to eliminate this type of problem during the testing phases.

 

Hello! I am looking for a replacement for the now discontinued Comodo Time Machine and came across AX64 Time Machine. I have a couple of questions before I commit to AX64 (I tried searching the forum, so please forgive me if I missed it). First, can AX64 take "snapshots" of more than 1 hard drive in a computer (Comodo Time Machine can, but Rollback RX can only work with the 1st HDD in a system)? Second, can I use optimizing software, such as PerfectDisk, in a system with AX64 installed? Thanks for your help.

 

Thanks TheRollbackFrog. I remember now that you "jogged" my fading memory about how each iteration will not play nice with other numbered versions. My only other question is about mounting. I've not gotten it to work. Maybe I'm not understanding how to use it. As an aside, I hope to use this instead of Rollback on my laptop.

 

Turns out this only happened once during the BETA testing period... but it did happen.

What's "supposed" to happen is when you go into AXTM's BROWSER window (<click> on "View backups - Recover files or entire system), you can select whatever snapshot you'd like. When that selection settles (pop-up occurs in lower right hand BROWSER window), you can then select "Mount" and Win7 should mount the state of that snapshot as a separate storage device (another lettered storage element under Computer). At this point it's like having your current storage elements along with the system state at the time of the snapshot in the mounted new storage element. You can open the mounted disk and see everything that was there att he time of the snap and accordingly, copy stuff to your hearts content as far as file recovery is concerned... if you need any files from that time snap. When you're done, just use the "UnMount" button in the main AXTM window to dismount that storage element.

it should work pretty smoothly unless there's some sort of problem on your system.

 

I am using it instead of Rollback on all my test systems. Other than losing a little time in the "rollback" process (RBrx is definitely faster), it's worked flawlessly for me. AND... I have a complete backup solution to boot (as far as my root system partition is concerned).

 

Well, I may try that. Macrium Free did create a good PE DVD for me. So my system will work with it.

 

I tested the latest build 967 on my Win 8 system and both the AXB and AXD files are now being created. Awesome!

I checked Device Manager for the Generic volume shadow copy driver... and I have over 40 of those!!

Well, I stopped counting after 40. That's a lot.

EDIT: I decided to count... I have 117 of those drivers. Dunno what to do with them...
EDIT 2: I don't think all of those are specific to AX64. Some show a creation date of Sept 2012 so obvious there's something else...
EDIT 3: I had System Restore enabled and I thought it was disabled. That got rid of about 50 of those shadow drivers.

 

We just tested with a plain program that only creates VSS snapshots and then releases them - the problem is observed too. Also tested with Macrium Reflect, and the number of those devices increases with every backup as well. So it seems to be a problem with Windows, rather than our software. I'll look into it more however, to see if I can find a workaround.

Isso

 

I have another suggestion. There should be a right click menu item on a mounted drive that unmounts it.

 

It is an odd thing to observe, but so far there is no evidence of problems. I had a chat with Google and people have been reporting this for years. This is far from a new phenomenon. It may just be how it works. In any case, it is just something weird noticed, but I am not experiencing any problems. And it is definitely not AX64 specific.

 

Well, I've noticed an issue that when one or more of the copies got corrupted, any backup I tried doing resulted in an error when it got to 100%.

 

Hello,

This is definitely a Windows issue as I have seen it personally in Vista, 7, and 8 with any program that uses the Windows Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) service. It is not isolated to AX64. As far as I know, if VSS is used, there is no way to prevent it happening (or not one I have seen or found yet).