Rollback RX v10.x (Home & Professional)

Horizon DataSys has a standalone WinPE-based utility called "The Scavenger." It's tough to get a hold of, even through their SUPPORT. It has been proven to be fairly unreliable in the past at retrieving snapshot data, and I haven't seen a working version of it since the introduction of v10.

The success of snapshot retrievals is inversely proportional to how long the screwed up System is run following a failure. Since the snapshot data blocks becomes fully allocatable following the successful BOOT of a un-protected Windows System, if the BOOTed System starts to re-use those blocks, the snapshot data disappears along with any structures that may have been able to get you to that data. The same happens if you successfully BOOT that System and schedule a ChkDsk... it will most likely destroy the snapshot data as well as any path information (FileStructure) that may lead you to that data.

Once a Rollback protected System fails... the best thing to do is stop using it IMMEDIATELY and contact Horizon DataSys Support for further instructions... and don't necessarily hold your hopes up for snapshot DATA retrieval. That's the best chance you've got to get your hands on any old snapshot DATA.

 

Your question shows that you look at Rollback as a security tool. It isn't, you still need to do regular image based backups even when using Rollback. And then you hopefully made a Rescue disk or a USB rescue media from this image backup software (Booting the rescue environment at startup from the BCD menu does NOT work when Rollback is installed).

Cheers
manolito

 

Wow... I never realized that! I coulda sworn it's worked in the past (haven't used it in a while).

Did a quick test with v10.7 and Mab is absolutely correct... the BCD BOOT structure is non-functional. Bummer!

 

Denied access to BCD could be deliberate. With RBRX installed, malware can access bcdedit and smash your system. So once the bootloader is borked, the user has to do a clean install or something else anyway.

I do know HDS made some changes with regards to BCD, but precisely what I do not know.

 

Booting a rescue environment from the BCD while Rollback is installed did work under the old version 9.1 (which I still use under Win7-64). But I do not think that it is wise to use it this way. HDS renames WinRE.wim for a reason during installation of Rollback. Booting into a rescue environment from the BCD means external access to the RB protected partitions.

One thing is a bit hazy for me. Booting into a rescue environment from the BCD means that it works under the control of the RB low level driver. This is very different than booting the rescue environment from a CD or a USB boot medium where there is no RB low level driver. Shouldn't this mean that I can use this rescue environment just like the installed Windows backup software, i.e. I could make backups from this rescue environment without losing RB snapshots?

If true then it would be possible to use the backup software without installing it under Windows. A backup would then contain the current system (as opposed to a backup from a rescue CD which would only contain the baseline). Need to test...

Cheers
manolito

 

Mab, turns out that is not the case. Any image (WIM, ISO, Dual BOOT OSes, etc) that is invoked via the BCD Store is loaded into memory in the same exact way as if it was being loaded from an external media... the existing driver set in RAM at that time is not used in any way to execute the image being loaded. All loaded images must provide their own driver set just as if they were loaded externally... the only slight difference is the loading mechanism.

I don't know the exact mechanism that Rollback is using to pollute the BCD Store function but I don't believe it's due to the special RBrx driver in use by the protected System... it's something else which is stopping the actual access of the BCD images involved in the BOOTing request (something a little more sophisticated than the old WIM to DAT trick on the WinRE environment). The BCD Store failures under Rollback all are based on the same basic issue... the needed device (where the BCD referenced images live) is never available when trying to access them... matters not whether a Windows loader is in use or another (Grub mostly with LINUX ISOs), that's what the loader errors show.

 

After installing creators update I enabled rollback protection and on boot got unmountable boot volume. Now system can't boot. Need your help guys.

 

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

Time to do a clean install or restore from image. You can try to do a repair using the Windows Installer created with Windows Media Creation Tool.

 

Me too! Have talked to Horizon about it and they seemed unaware of that type of problems. Hmm.
But i fixed my system with reinstallation and a backup image.

 

HDS is aware of very few issues with Rx if history is any indication,,,,,,,,this is one dangerous piece of software and HDS is one of the worst for touting their program with at best misleading information and at worst outright lies.

 

You didn't tried repair with OS disk? Would it be helpful?

 

I had problems with getting anything to boot up in any way so when the install media suddenly worked i went for it knowing that i had an image i could put in afterwards. So, anything can be helpfull, try it out.
Good luck!

 

OS disc - Repair - Startup repair worked here And system booted fine.
Further chkdisk /f fixed few errors.
Now running sfc /scannow

Anyway, thanks pb1, Lockdown & guys

 

In Disk Management, I see Disk 0 partition 3, 482MB, 482MB Free
Is it Creator Update related or RollbackRx remnant?

 

I have been saying the same thing for a few years now.
Using this POS is asking for trouble.
Still always there are people who won't listen.
Now even the vendor themselves don't have a clue what's happening with this problem with Creators Update. They will have no clue either in the future when new Windows updates roll out, and there will be still someone come here and cry.
Human nature never changes.

 

RBrx has no remnants... It's either "normal" looking or completely trashed.

I'm sure it's CU-related...

 

I think was CU related, deleted & merged it.

 

Yash Khan,

You might have deleted the Win10 Recovery partition. At an Admin Command Prompt type this and press Enter...

reagentc /info

Does it say
Windows RE status: Disabled

If it does then type this and press Enter...

reagentc /enable

Does it say
REAGENTC.EXE: The Windows RE image was not found.

 

Brian K,

Yes, Windows RE image was not found.

I kinda knew, it was WinRE.
Anyway, going to do a clean install in few days, & have image/backup & Win10 CU bootable USB

Why a separate recovery partition was there in disk management?
I mean WinRE was there before CU update but there was no separate partition in disk management.

 

I wonder if this old post by Froggie still applies for the Win10 CU update:

Cheers
manolito

 

Unfortunately, you have little say in whether you get a Recovery partition or not. Some systems with a GPT disk get a new Recovery partition every time Windows is upgraded. They can have multiple Recovery partitions. With a MBR system, having four primary partitions on HD0 will prevent Recovery partition creation.

You should be able to fix your Recovery Environment...

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=587

 

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I'm respnding here in the general Rollback RX thread as to not pollute the "unOfishul FAQ" thread... current issues should really be here.

Yes, it's been an issue for quite a while... just never talked about by HDS. It has to do with executing regular Rollback DEFRAGs (not normal System volume defrags), followed by System reSTARTs. This is the only way to get lost storage back that isn't directly involved with either the Rollback Baseline or its snapshots... and it doesn't always work. Many times a Rollback uninstall/reinstall is required. Possibly, with the new v10.7 version which now includes the new deACTIVATE feature, a deACTIVATE followed by an ACTIVATE will accomplish the very same thing. In both cases you will lose your snapshots during the process.

That's all I'm aware of at the moment...

 

Yes, that was me who was having my SSD consumed by "unknown" files...I de-installed RollBack Rx and then re-installed the next day.
It's been 5 days and my problem seems to be fixed.
I was waiting a few days before returning to say that the re-install fixed the problem.
Sorry if I posted in the wrong thread.

 

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