Rollback RX v10.x (Home & Professional)

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Peter2150, Jun 10, 2015.

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  1. Coucher

    Coucher Registered Member

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    Gotcha. I truly do appreciate the efforts. At this point, I think more than likely I must concede defeat. I did end up rebooting the machine, and as long as I leave the HDD state on the original April of 2017 version, it will boot, reboot, reboot, reboot, as many times as I wish and work fine. The moment I try to roll it back (technically forward) to any of the newer snapshots, the subsequent boot blue screens. Pull the drive, connect it to another machine, shows up RAW, run chkdsk /f, corrects it back to NTFS. Stick it back in the original machine, roll it back to the original April of 2017 snapshot, back to booting fine.

    Once I'm within Windows on the impacted HDD, as described in a previous reply, using the full RollBack Rx GUI front end, I'm able to see all of my snapshots, including the ones from 2-3 days ago. Right-click > Properties on all snapshots show their status(es) as "Good".

    I'm able to mount all the snapshots, and browse all the data, it's there, and even open some files, but the moment I try to access the user folder (i.e C:\Users\<username>, I get the Access Denied error that one would typically get when you didn't have the appropriate security permissions. Again, as determined prior, unfortunately since the mounted snapshot is read-only, I have no way to take ownership of the folder and/or change the security permissions in order to gain access. I've also discovered that although I can access and open the majority of the stuff outside of the User folder on the mounted snapshot, on a few things I also get access denied. So, it seems that somehow the permissions are jacked up within the snapshot.

    Trying to just restore a file or two from the RollBack Rx main GUI goes through the entire operation like it should, but then after it completes, there's nothing there.

    Frustrating to say the least since I can almost see the data.....just can't actually get to it or recover it. Haha..

    I'm pretty sure I'm at a dead end at this point, but I'm going to continue poking at it and see if there's any way to mount or access the snapshot with read/write access. Horizon DataSys says there isn't, but I'm not sure I fully believe much of anything they say or advise at this point.

    Again, thanks for taking the time to try to assist and help.
     
  2. Coucher

    Coucher Registered Member

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    Back to the PM issue, still no option to initiate a Conversation.

    An additional oddity, I don't have the ability to quote a message when replying either. Haha..

    No need in spending more effort on resolving though.
     
  3. Coucher

    Coucher Registered Member

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    "In today's episode of, How The Hard Drive Spins...." :argh:

    In my determination to not give up, I kept poking around at the situation last night. The barrier I was hitting as previously explained was that for some reason all the security/access permissions for the User directory/folder in the mounted snapshot were jacked up, and since the snapshot is only mounted as read-only, there was no way to take ownership of the folder and/or update the permissions.

    Fully expecting it not to work because of the read-only situation, I still wanted to try the "takeown" command which has to be run via the Command Prompt. So, I started an elevated (i.e Run-As Admin) Command Prompt. The takeown command didn't work, no real shock there, but since I was already in a Command Prompt window I started jumping around folders/directories looking at things. Up until last night, all my attempts at accessing the User folder were done via Windows Explorer. I have no idea how/why this worked, but to my surprise, via the elevated Command Prompt, I was able to access the User folder completely, gaining access to all my data from my two day old snapshot. So, I immediately kicked off an xcopy to copy the entire folder/file structure of the User folder to an external USB-HDD.

    The most important file of all was my Outlook PST file. After copying it out of the mounted snapshot to the USB-HDD, I made a duplicate copy of it just to be safe, then on a separate machine attached that PST file to an Outlook install. As soon as I did, Outlook crashed, presented a message that the data file was corrupt, & that it would attempt repair using the InBox Repair Tool. That ran through it's 8 steps, said it found some errors and corrected them. Started Outlook again, and voila, everything is there. :thumb:

    I'm not sure if this would work for everyone, because frankly I'm not even sure how/why it worked for me, for anyone reading through this thread/my issue in the future, if you're trying to access a read-only mounted snapshot, and getting any kind of access denied errors, try an elevated command prompt as oppose to going though Windows Explorer.

    Thanks again for everyone taking the time to assist.
     
  4. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    ADMINISTRATOR levels live at multiple tiers. If you're running as the logged in user, and that user is marked as an ADMINISTRATOR, you will be at a lower level of Privs than running a task "as Administrator." Windows Explorer runs at your logged in user level of privs... that's not as high as running it "as Administrator."

    I'm glad you got this all sorted out. The lesson learned if any... well, I think you already know what that is :)
     
  5. Coucher

    Coucher Registered Member

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    Indeed I do. Plan moving forward is to setup a NAS versioning backup solution, as well as using an encrypted cloud based option (such as Backblaze) for redundancy.
     
  6. bgoodman4

    bgoodman4 Registered Member

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    Also, I would suggest, another lesson is to stay away from Rx, its not a safe program without jumping through all kinds of hoops. A much better solution, as Froggie has mentioned, is Macrium Reflect.
     
  7. guest

    guest Guest

    Anyone tried RX Pro 10.7 on Spring Update? In my case, the installer can't even run.
     
  8. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Well, you made me get off my duff and do some brief testing with the new Spring Creator's Update (v1803).

    Built it on a Legacy-MBR platform (I have no active UEFI platforms for testing), installed RBrx v10.7 Build 20170504 in a CUSTOM configuration (protecting OS partition only), created 4-snapshots and bounced around all four randomly... no issues found with this simple configuration (WINDOWS DEFENDER only security).
     
  9. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    @guest - your installer issues may be security related rather than OS-related (unless you're running a very "vanilla" System, that is <Windows Defender only>)
     
  10. guest

    guest Guest

    Just after clean install of Spring update, planned to made my baseline before setting my OS.
     
  11. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    55% OFF - TODAY ONLY... right HERE!

    ...but be aware, @guest states (on the RBrx Forum) that at the moment the RBrx v10.7 installer does not even work with the Spring Creator's Edition (SCU) v1803 upgrade about to be hoisted upon the Windows 10 user community.
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2018
  12. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    As a follow-up to @guest post in the HDS Forum, I tried a simple installation of the RBrx HOME product on my Legacy-MBR W10 v1803 configuration. Although the installation seemed to be successful, my multi-BOOT environment BCD Store was messed up and selections other than the main OS failed with errors. Only one of those multi-BOOT selections was a LIVE OS so no special RBrx installation (dual BOOT) was required, only a single System install.

    If you're a Rollbak RX user currently, I would stay away from the Microsoft Spring Creator's Edition (v1803) until more is heard from HDS on this stuff... and don't forget about that 55% Discount above :eek:
     
  13. guest

    guest Guest

    that suxx a lot

    or install spring update and stay away from RX until a updated version is made , using Macrium free in the meanwhile. (it is what i do LOL)
     
  14. Yin Cognyto

    Yin Cognyto Registered Member

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    I think these particular events (i.e. conflicts between W10 updates and software like RBRX) are more MS's fault than HDS nowadays, since the "brilliant" new MS policy of "providing Windows as a service" basically guarantees that every W10 update is closer to a new Windows version published under the same "umbrella" than an actual OS update. This is why most software were more or less stable between previous Windows versions' "service packs" compared to the relative mess W10 updates like the Anniversary Edition or the Spring Update produce on third party software (not just HDS).

    Not to say HDS or RBRX are fault free in general, but on W10 such conflicts are bound to happen each time MS releases an "update". The forced update system applied by companies like MS or Google nowadays doesn't help much on this issue either. The only advantage here is more unified standards (I don't buy on the "improved security" rhetoric, LOL), but conflicts like these are the logical cost of it.

    P.S. I also changed to Macrium (from Acronis though), but HDS and Macrium provide different sets of features to their software - so comparing Macrium vs Acronis makes more sense than either of them vs HDS.
     
  15. guest

    guest Guest

    For some reason 10.7 start "re-working"
     
  16. Yin Cognyto

    Yin Cognyto Registered Member

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    But I thought you stayed away from RX for a while...:D
    That being said, a stable W10-RX-Macrium setup would be ideal, if only those hoops bgoodman4 was talking about would dissapear. Such a system could definitely be possible, since personally, I've used the W7-RX-Acronis setup without any major problem for years (and a friend of mine as well, despite him not being computer savvy).
     
  17. guest

    guest Guest

    @Yin Cognyto until i observed it worked properly again, anyway, i always do a classic backup with the Windows Built-in utility.
     
  18. Yin Cognyto

    Yin Cognyto Registered Member

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    I see. Please let us know if RX stops working again, just to be sure it's definitive and not an accident.
    I used to do Windows Built-in utility backups as well before discovering RX, but as far as I'm aware of, Windows doesn't do cold bare metal backups on both used and unused sectors, which is essential for capturing RX's snapshots (hence my Acronis/Macrium choice). But yeah, some sort of classic backup is highly recommended, even with RX installed - just in case.

    Thanks for the info on this, by the way.
     
  19. guest

    guest Guest

    installed on 2 machines since several weeks, no issues so far.

    The snapshots are just temporary for me, i usually update the baseline once i observe there is no issues.
     
  20. Yin Cognyto

    Yin Cognyto Registered Member

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    Great! :thumb:

    Same here - and I think it's the common usage scenario, except when testing stuff (where one might need more flexibility).
     
  21. dbenis

    dbenis Registered Member

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    does any know how to use scavenger? I have downloaded scavenger9.iso from horizondatasys but i don't know how to use it. Thank you. I had to reply here because i didn't manage to open a thread or start a conversation
     
  22. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    THIS is the only document I've ever seen concerning the SCAVENGER (it's in my DropBox and will be there for 48-hrs). I also believe Scavenger9 is for the v9 version of Rollback... if it is, it will not work if you're using v10.x.
     
  23. dbenis

    dbenis Registered Member

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    thank you very much for the reply. does any one know where to find scavenger10?
     
  24. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    @dbenis - the last known version (known to me anyway) was a BartPE-based RBrx v10.2 release in September 2013. A "secret" WinPE-based RBrx v10.2 version was made available to me in May 2014 (why it was "secret," I have no idea... possibly it was totally unsupported and didn't work very well). Anyway, the WinPE version does BOOT on modern Systems (CD/DVD only, no UFD ISO boot version worked very well) and presents the interface shown in that earlier documentation I posted. Since that time, I'm not aware of any release of Scavenger since that date (and all previous releases were made on a "need to use" basis only <not publicly> and worked only for some users, maybe).

    If you really need an updated version of Scavenger, you'll have to go through HDS Support to get it. If you did and they only gave you v9, then clearly the history (and ability of support) of this tool has disappeared through the years.

    Scrounging through my archives, I have found the WinPE (custom) v10.2 version of this tool in the form of an ISO. You will need to burn this ISO to a CD/DVD and BOOT from this media. As I mentioned above, when I tried to create a BOOTable UFD version of this ISO, once the media was BOOTed into, it says it cannot find the file necessary to start the process. This is not a problem when using a CD/DVD version of that ISO media.

    Another caveat may be that Scavenger v10.2 may not be very compatible with the current v10.7 release... but I guess it can't hurt to try. If you find it doesn't work and are successful in gaining something more current from HDS Support, pls post that info here and it would be great to make that media available for others to use. This whole RBrx crash/recovery process for snapshots has been a complete crapshoot for users over the years and anything that comes even close to working in today's RBrx environment would be very welcome to this particular user community.

    Anyway, the Scavenger v10.2 WinPE ISO (98mB) is available HERE in my DropBox... pls let me know when you've picked it up, thanks!
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2018
  25. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    I stand corrected... the tool I was using to create the USB Flash stick was the problem, not the Scavenger v10.2 BartPE version. If you want to try the BartPE version, you should use the RUFUS tool to create it with the BartPE ISO I will post in a moment. Rufus will not work with the WinPE version of Scavenger... it does not like the compression scheme used for that ISO... that ISO works fine if you burn a CD/DVD.

    Who knows how or why HDS creates these things... we just try and use them.

    I'll have the BartPE version available shortly (it's uploading as I type)...
     
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