Does this look familiar?

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by KaneComputing, Dec 11, 2013.

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  1. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Hi Pete! I think I understand most of the salient capabilities of RIR/FD-ISR and I'm clearly not trying to lower the relevance of the product... it is a very good snapshotting product. But like all products, it has its achilles heel.

    In the case of RIR, when you have a catastrophic failure of your protected volume, you must restore (hopefully) the latest configuration, either by using a 2nd relevant product (imaging application), or by FRESH installing an entire Windows system along with RIR so that you may re-install a previous RIR snapshot archive, should you have such a beast. Sure, it all works just fine, but not using RIR itself.

    The 2nd point was the fact that if I wanted to run a 55gB system partition, normally all I would need would be a 60-64gB SSD if I wanted the speed. With RIR, I probably would need, minimally, a 128gB SSD in order to house my system, a PRIMARY RIR snapshot of that system, and a SECONDARY snapshot of possibly a RECOVERY environment (minimal Windows + RIR) for an archived RIR snapshot. And even at that size, I really couldn't go anywhere as far as growth of the system itself, as well as required growth for the PRIMARY RIR snapshot as well.

    So, for me to really evaluate this type of system, I would need to focus on the cost of RIR, a secondary imaging system (for catastrophic protection) and the increased size of my SSD requirements for such a configuration. With FREE imagers out there, only RIR and the increased SSD cost would come into play.. but together they can be significant.

    Don't get me wrong here... I love this product, but it may not be ideal for my needs, that's why I ask these questions. Take your time with your response mentioned above (I know yer pretty busy)... I would love to understand what work(ed)s best for your needs.
     
  2. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Froggie, you are asking excellent questions and because we are all different, everyone's needs differ. One man's poison is another man's meat, what works great for me may be painful for you.

    Pete's statement should prove interesting. But let EVERYONE remember: what works best for me may be ill for you, and what works for him/her may be bad for me, and what works best for anyone may be bad for everyone else ... ad infinitum ...

    Acadia
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2014
  3. pinso

    pinso Registered Member

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    Hi Pete,

    saw that thing, seems my memory map is fuzzing out. But I am on FD-Rescue lite on the go, the previous FD-ISR, had some issue with the dual boot scenario, especially which is the boot file written on xp system by Win7 Recovery disc. Which also is essential if the Win7 boot manager needs to work and show two OS's system, but FD-ISR could only comply with Vista and not with win7, and installing RD-Rescue lite/workstation , didn't show those problems.
    2014-01-31_222314.png
    I got my image of Winxp/Win7 in my ext HDD by ImageX, what more a guy would want with all this things done.
    Thanks for the suggestion.
     
  4. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Froggie

    I don't consider it an achilles heel since it isn't billed as an imaging program or one that can do a bare metal restore. It is billed as a recovery program should your OS become corrupted.

    As far as disk space. I don't partition drives, so my c drive has everything. OS, programs and data. I like it that way. Also I use some very huge, like the full Adobe Acrobat Pro, MS Office 2010 PRofessional, Quickbooks, Paperport, etc. Including all my data my c: Drive comes in at 50gb. So adding my stripped down secondary snapshot, the total on my c drive is 87gb. Archives are another matter. I have 4 totaling 200gb, but those are on other internal drives.

    But FDISR/RIR saved me from a mess that nothing else could have done.

    I manage to get a corrupted file/folder on one of my machines. Chkdsk would detect it say it fixed but it didn't. It couldn't seem to fix it. I tried every solution and it wouldn't go away. It was problem, because I couldn't image the disk. I was warned that just replacing files/FDISR wasn't a good idea. My advisor proved right.

    ALso thru part of the mess the only images I had were slightly over a year old. It looked like my choices clean windows install and reinstall everything or restore the old image and try to bring the system up to date. Neither were appealling Then the light bulb. Simple solution.

    I created a new FDISR archive, excluding the bad folder. Then I restored the image, and then restored the FDISR archive, and system was restored, with no errors, and no corrupted folder. Total fix time 2 hours including making the new archive.

    Unique to FDISR

    Pete
     
  5. billwv

    billwv Registered Member

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    Hi All,

    I have been reading the FD-ISR and IR forums with great interest.

    I am currently using RollBack 9.1 and IFW, IFL on an XP system.

    I have two questions:

    1. I would use IR much the way Pete has laid out – Primary and Basic snapshots along with Archives. What is the procedure when you want to update IR with a new release? Do you install it in Primary and then install it also in the Basic ss; and in the event you had to restore an Archive with older IR to Primary, install it again? Would this cause license or activation issues?

    2. At some point I will replace my XP system with a new Win 7 or 8 system. If I purchased IR now for my XP system and in 6 or 9 months removed it from the XP system could I install it on the new system using the same license?

    Thanks for your help and for all the information in these forums.

    Bill
     
  6. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    @billwv

    1: There are two methods that can be used depending on the what you want.

    As expected, the older FD-ISR (registry settings) will be on all snapshots that new IR is not installed on.

    You can copy them over or boot each snapshot and install IR.

    If you want to keep the historical snapshots as-is and not fresh copies, they would to opt for the second method.

    2: Yes.
     
  7. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    @Bill
    about 1. Longboard's answer is correct for upgrading from FD-ISR to InstantRecovery. But in case your question is about updating from 2.0 to 2.1, 2.2, etc. you only need to update only one of your active snapshots (at least that was the procedure with the old FD-ISR).

    Panagiotis
     
  8. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    Just installed InstantRecovery on Win 8.1 and made secondary then tried booting to make sure it worked. The pre-boot screen appears and disappears very fast, I can see I will have to be quick on the button if I need to press F1 :D

    Obviously my bios is legacy.

    Will be making archive next.

    Does anyone (Pandlouk?) know if the same exclusions work on 8.1?

    By the way I used the 50% discount today mentioned here, it was still valid.

    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=358213
     
  9. twl845

    twl845 Registered Member

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    I sadly haven't used FDISR for a few years, but I remember that you can set the pre-boot screen to stay on as long as you like. It's somewhere in the settings. :cool:
     
  10. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Tools>options>boot menu
     
  11. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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  12. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    Thanks Pandlouk :)
     
  13. billwv

    billwv Registered Member

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    Hello All,

    I have installed IR -- replacing RollBack -- and completed some initial usage testing.
    I am very much liking this program -- "Power in Simplicity."

    I want to thank all who answered my questions and everyone for the information in these forums.

    One curiosity -- in creating an Archive I notice it is not compressed, yet the manual indicates that they are -- actually, I prefer that they are not.
    Has this changed? What are others experiencing?

    RollBack 9.1 served me very well over four years, but IR seems a worthy replacement.

    Thanks, again for your help,

    Bill
     
  14. billwv

    billwv Registered Member

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    Already, I have a question --

    If I create a schedule to run daily, will that schedule run regardless of what Snapshot I am in at the scheduled time or only if I am in the Snapshot in which I created it?

    i.e. -- hypothetical -- schedule is to copy P to S -- but S is active at the time?
    What happens?

    I have decided to adhere to Pete's advice and do all copy / update from my Basic Snapshot. But, I still need to get my head around how all this works -- the what if's ...

    Thanks for your patience,

    Bill
     
  15. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Archives used to be compressed but the copy engine in this last version doesn't compress them, but it runs much faster.

    Pete
     
  16. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Indeed, all of the flexibility this program offers takes a while to figure out. :cool:

    Acadia
     
  17. billwv

    billwv Registered Member

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    Hi,

    In Options > Tasks > Verify destination snapshot of the copy.

    What does it do? Verify target against source, or just check some bits in target?

    Do people use it?

    Thanks.

    Bill
     
  18. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Hmmmm, I must admit that I did not even know of that option's existence. After 10 years of using IR and its predecessor, I have never had a Snapshot or Archive go to the wrong place.

    Acadia
     
  19. mata7

    mata7 Registered Member

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    i totally forgot how good this program was, i just brought it and use the 50% coupon "thanks stapp" installed on my Win 8.1 PC and work just like years ago, love it

    thanks guys
     
  20. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    seems it does,t support GPT disks.
     
  21. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    They are working on that for an up coming release.

    Pete
     
  22. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    good to know. thanks
     
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