Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Th

Thanks Aigle and Froggie. Your logs have been received and we're looking at the issue

Cheers

 

Hi Gjbth,

Thanks for the report. Please send us your logs and this description regarding the NAS devices and mounting issues to info@ax64.com

To save logs click on backup tools then on about. Here you export logs.

Indeed the mount button should
Mount the backup as a virtual drive.

 

A lot of users have voiced their dislike of the new interface style. So if I may I would like to vote in favour of the new UI.
In my opinion an improvement over version 1.

 

Hello Wajamus, I,ll get the logs sent off as soon as I can.

Did you see my earlier post about the Time Machine installer giving the user the option to install in a directory of their choice, then going ahead and installing in C:\program files anyway. It does however create an empty directory in the location I chose.

 

A few more items with v2 on 32 bit xp pro.

First, when I do click the Time Machine desktop Icon, it opens to the tray. Is there a way to stop this. I am talking about trying to start TM v2 from a cold boot of XP in the morning.

Next, I can mount an image OK, however, when I try to unmount it, that Icon is not enabled. If I shutdown the browser, I can enable it again and then I CAN unmount the drive. It shows the drive letter when I do the unmount, but when I did the mount, it did not show the drive letter.

As I mentioned...and someone else saw this as well in NZ...when booting from the rescue CD, EXIT does nothing.

P.S. Kapiti...We loved NZ when we were there visiting!! Queenstown was great fun!

 

Hi Pim! VISTA never provided a WinRE recovery media... BUT, when this was discovered during the ALPHA/BETA phase of v1, it was dealt with under v1.0.878 and beyond without problem. Apparently this was lost in the v2 development.

I would report the inability to produce a VISTA RECOVERY MEDIA to <info@ax64.com> just to be sure they get the message. This forum can get pretty busy nowadays.

 

What is a warm restore anyway?

 

I'm just wondering how the hardware independent restores work on drives with different sizes? For example lets say I have a backup of a 1TB drive but only used like 10GB and then try to restore that to a 250GB drive, would that be successful?

 

One that you initiate from within Windows, i.e., whilst in Windows, where as a COLD Restore is one that runs outside of Windows.

 

A cold restore is initiated and runs within a preboot environment. It restores every sector.

A hot restore is initiated inside of and runs within windows. It restores changed sectors only.

A warm restore is initiated from within windows (like a hot restore), but runs within the preboot environment (like a cold restore). It restores changed sectors only (like a hot restore).

 

Small correction:
It does not restore every sector of the partition, it restores every sector used by the file system of this partition. AX64 does not support sector by sector imaging and restoring.


Cheers
manolito

 

SanyaIV, haven't had a chance to test that yet but "hardware independent restore" usually means different hardware base... i.e. different mainboard, disk channel type, processor, etc. and disks, I assume. And I'm not sure that feature is alive in the initial v2 BETA... if it is there's no indication on how to use it (some help here, please from the TM developers).

v1 would restore only to exactly the same partition (by signature) or a blank unallocated disk that was bigger than what was saved (partition size not used space).

 

Waj, I'm about to start an acid test with this feature. Can you please explain exactly what it is and how to go about performing it... I don't wanna guess (what OSes supported, disk size minimums, any hardware restrictions, etc... plus maybe a procedure).

 

Thank you taotoo! Hate to be like my grandchildren (why, why and why again! lol) but what advantage is there to the warm restore?

 

I guess they will fix the issue on windows tablets with eMMC storage. I am happy that at least I am able to do both warm and hot restore while version 1 was not even able to make a snapshot.

 

Many users of v1 have had HOT RESTORE issues with restores hanging in the middle of the restore. The only way out of this was to COLD RESTORE.

If you've never had HOT RESTORE issues then using the HOT RESTORE option under ADVANCED OPTIONS in the v2 restore window will perform the same thing. Otherwise, WARM RETORE is purported to eliminate issues with the previous HOT RESTORE.

 

That really was a surprise. I now at least have a restorable TM BASELINE of that tablet

 

OK, thank you! I won't try this for many days or weeks but am curious if the boot creator has the MS mouse driver. If disaster were to occur (something beyond the convenience of the never failing hot restore) and I wanted to use AX64 boot CD or drive, I would have had to pull out the tower and hook up a PS/2 mouse. Then recently, I discovered a cordless Logitech laptop mouse worked fine, and not inconvenient either. Support informed me that the new boot media would contain many more drivers.
Should I eventually try v2, if I leave the snapshots/images on the backup drive, I can remove the current version and if v2 is buggy restore the current version, correct? Or restore current version via a Paragon or W7 image, correct?...and thank you!

 

Wow, 2 hours for the backup on your XP system?

That may explain why it seemed like my backup attempt on XP just sat there forever and looked like it froze, making me quit and reboot. I must have had mine sit there for 20-30 minutes, and all the while it just said "Preparing."

Is 2 hours acceptable for a first backup? That's a long time!

 

1- on win8.1, i observed that the local rescue media, once installed use the old Win7 "text line" BCD menu , how to keep the original Win8.1 BCD ?

2- i can only see my v1 backups via internal bowser but can't load them for restoration.

 

Thank you Wajamus for delivering on your multi-partition promise. Now I can join in with the others in the testing process. I won't repeat what has already been written about in the case of XP systems, and which I see as well, but I would like to add a little of my own.
1. Tools>Rescue Media Builder>Startup Manager>Install: I get the error message "Your version of Windows is not supported"
Is this a bug, a feature not yet implemented in XP, or a permanent design decision?
2. Backup Browser>Backups window: my four backed-up partitions are listed in a rather odd order, namely D:, F:, E:, C:. Nobody has mentioned that yet, so it may be a problem unique to my machine. Is it?
3. During restore, it would be nice for the UI to indicate which partition is currently being restored.
4. During a restore, I am required to select each of my four partitions in turn: select one, wait until it completes, select another, and so on. This is not only cumbersome and very inconvenient, it is highly prone to error since with over a hundred backups listed for each partition (eventually, of course, not just yet), there will be a substantial risk of not choosing a compatible set (that is, with the same date/time stamp). Perhaps when choosing the system partition in those systems backing up more than one, a button could be added enabling automatic selection of the other backups made at the same time. I realise that this is not just a UI change, but it is important and consistent with your philosophy of providing an interface that minimizes the risk of user error.
Congratulations on a job well done, and best wishes for its future development.

Norman

 

Haven't watched this forum for a couple of days, but the flurry of new posts made it obvious that the beta had been released. I have now installed this, and started a backup to see what it looks like. Some questions with the multi-partition support - it is currently setup for C: and D: which are my main drives on this laptop, but it is not all the partitions. Is AXTM with multi-partition support expected to be used with another backup program to cover other partitions (e.g. boot partition, recovery partition), or is it expected to be complete in itself. If only the former, it is going to limit the product to only people with good understanding of backup regimes, and not an average user. If I had a complete hard disk failure, it seems I would need something else to make my system bootable on some again, unless I have misunderstood something.

 

BCW, the "special" partitions (EFI, Recovery, M$ SRP, etc.) are a given. They are automatically pre-selected, if they exist, in the imaging process. In the RESTORE process, they are available for selection under the "Advanced Options" (DEFAULT is "Selected").

 

guest, I'm not sure what "internal browser" means. Doe this mean you can see them in the list offered under the TM Browser but can't select them for RESTORE, or does it mean you can see them with the Windows Explorer but they don't show up in TM's BROWSER?