First Defense Question

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by WilliamP, Nov 13, 2004.

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  1. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    Ok I have installed my new hard drive and First Defense ISR . I have made a secondary snapshot. Now that I have two snapshots on the drive can I run defrag. I have XP Home Edition.
     
  2. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    WilliamP

    I don't have First Defense on my computer yet but I don't see why not. I did trial it.
    Did you defrag first before doing the snapshots? And they also say you can disable sys restore to reduce the size of the snapshot.
     
  3. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    I defraged before making the snapshot. I didn't disable system restore. After the secondary snapshot was finished I rebooted to the secondary . It worked great . You couldn't tell the difference.
     
  4. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    If you are using the built-in Windows defragger, Yes, you will have no problems. If you read the FAQ and Knowledgebase at Raxco, http://www.raxco.com/support/windows/SupportOptions.cfm
    , you will see that some third-party defraggers move the $ISR.BIN which FD-ISR creates. The location of this file is recorded in the Master Boot Record (MBR) which FD jealously guards. When these defraggers move this file FD loses the pre-boot screen, or something like that. You can either use one of the later versions of Raxco's own defragger PerfectDisk which is designed to leave this bin file alone, or use the built-in MS defragger which never messes with this special file in the first place. It was one of Raxco's tech support people who told me that it was safe to defrag using the MS utility and I have now used it many times without incident. Good luck.

    Acadia
     
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi All

    I defrag all the time with First Defense. I have turned off System Restore. Seems unnecessary with First Defense.

    Also in a conversation with one of the tech support folks I asked about having the $isr.bin moved, as if you use a disk image program and then restore certainly that file will be moved. As I recall he said that when the file is moved the first boot the preboot won't be there but once you get all the way up, First Defense will have located the file, and the preboot will be there from then on. I have chosen to avoid testing this.

    Pete
     
  6. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    Hi Peter. When defrag is run is it going to defrag both snapshots?
     
  7. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    According to the Raxco tech support person that I corresponded with, Yes, the ENTIRE hard drive is defragged including ALL snapshots.

    Acadia
     
  8. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Yes and the snapshots are not kept separately. If you smart placement which I recommend, then the files are place based on the recent modifications dates. This causes the files of all snapshots to be intermixed. This has never caused me any problems whatsoever.

    Pete
     
  9. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    I would have thought the secondary snapshot would be seperated from the primary. I have another question dealing with scheduling Backups. My understang is, if I schedule a weekly backup from the Primary to the secondary it will only change the files that have been changed. First,is that correct? Then,what about files that have been deleted from the primary snapshot? Are they removed from the secondary? And what were you talking about [smart placement]? I don't remember seeing anything about that when I created the secondary.
     
  10. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Yes, when you update a previously created snapshot, ALL changes are recorded. All files that have been added are added, all files that have been deleted are deleted, all files that have been changed are changed. After you update a snapshot, that snapshot and whatever snapshot you used to update it with ARE IDENTICAL except for the paging file, temp files, hibernation file and I believe the Recycle bin (even the exceptions make sense in this program). FD does not copy the paging file, temp files, hibernation file or Recycle bin; otherwise those two snapshot are NOW IDENTICAL in every other way.

    Peter, I thought I knew FirstDefense but you'll have to explain Smart Placement to me too. o_O

    Acadia
     
  11. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    Thank you Acadia. I like that! I really like this FD-ISR.
     
  12. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Yes, this is now my all-time-favorite software program PERIOD!! I edited my above post, I need Peter to explain Smart Placement to me too!

    Acadia
     
  13. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    It will not let me schedule a backup. When I click on finish I get a popup saying saying [Unable to establish existence of the account specified].
     
  14. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    William, unless Peter knows the answer, I'm afraid you'll have to contact tech support for that one, I never use scheduling. Raxco tech support is EXCELLENT, among the best that I have ever seen.

    Acadia
     
  15. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    Thank you Acadia.
     
  16. Don Pelotas

    Don Pelotas Registered Member

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    Acadia, i think Peter is referring to the "Smartplacement Defragment" in PerfectDisk. :)

    BTW. I like FirstDefence a lot too, it makes it so easy to roll back, if i've had one of my "moments". ;) :D
     
  17. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    Finally got it figured out. When my wife originally set up the Admin Account she put in a password and forgot it. I just had to figure out the password. So I now have it working.
     
  18. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Wheeew, thank you Don, for a moment there I thought I had missed an entire section of the FD manual or something!

    Acadia
     
  19. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Guys

    Yep, Smart Placement is in Perfect Disk. What I was refering to is when Perfect Disk runs, it doesn't isolate files by the FD-ISR snapshot, but when you use SmartPlacement in PerfectDisk it combines the snapshots.

    Hopefully this is making sense.

    Pete

    I know Acadia will keep me honest on FD-ISR stuff :D

    PS. I never use scheduling either.
     
  20. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    Why don't you guys use the scheduling?
     
  21. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    I just prefer to do things manually. I have even turned off all the automatic updating on my AV and AT, I simply enjoy doing it myself and watching those things update (yeah, I know, "Acadia, you’ve got to get yourself a life" :D )

    Acadia
     
  22. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    Do you run your AV ,AT scans manually? I run NOD by schedule . TDS3 is run manual. Takes a long time. NOD update auto but I allways ck to make sure.
     
  23. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    I run EVERYTHING manually, but that's just me, one man's poison is another man's meat. ;)

    Acadia
     
  24. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I also run everything manually. Reason I do it is S**T happens. And when it does it can be very helpful to see what it was. I will start something running, grab a book and just keep an eye on the puter.

    I have a friend who sets up everything in scheduler and lets it all run at night.
    Fine if there are no problems, but if there is..... ugh.

    Of course this is one of the beauties of First Defense.

    I guess with computers I am a dog who won't change his ways. Works for me.
     
  25. Stro

    Stro Registered Member

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    I’m seriously considering purchasing Raxco’s First Defense-ISR based on the praise I’ve read especially from William P, Peter2150, Acadia and bluekey23. I’m hoping some of those folks read this and can offer advice and the two topics below. I cannot find answers in the Raxco FAQs and the website’s knowledge base search also yielded nothing.

    BTW, I’m responsible for maintaining three family PCs all of which run either Windows XP Pro or Home, and all run Norton SystemWorks 2004 (containing GoBack Personal Edition and the Speed Disk defragmentation program). All PCs have plenty of memory, speed and hard drive capacity.

    My first question concerns the relationship between FD-ISR and defrag program.
    Does anyone know if the SpeedDisk defragger in my SystemWorks 2004 is compatible with FD-ISR snapshots? Speed Disk has an option into which you can enter the names of files you want to be “unmovable.” Click this option and Speed Disk brings up a Windows Explorer style window in which you can browse and find the file(s) you want Speed Disk to treat as unmovable. But can you find FD-ISR’s $SR.BIN snapshot file, or is it hidden? I cannot find GoBack’s GOBACKIO.BIN back-up file in this browser screen. In fact, I cannot locate GOBACKIO.BIN on the PC using the Windows search function with all hidden/system files revealed. So if I cannot find $SR.BIN either, then I cannot prevent Speed Disk from defragging the file. (BTW, one of Symantec’s online Knowledge Base articles states, “ By default, Norton Speed Disk 2002 and later will not attempt to defragment Gobackio.bin. You do not have to do anything.” Interestingly, the SystemWorks manual accompanying the CD makes absolutely no reference to the relationship between the defrag program and the Gobackio.bin file.)

    In an earlier post Acadia stated that the internal Windows XP defrag program was safe to use with FD-ISR snapshots. Does this mean the Windows defrag program will NOT defrag FD-ISR’s $SR.BIN file?

    My second question concerns how FD-ISR works on a partitioned hard drive. I’m considering partitioning my hard drive (everything is in C: right now) with the operating system in C:, programs in D:, etc, in order to make disk imaging backups more efficient (when I get around to implementing them). So the question here is….does FD-ISR backup the entire hard drive regardless of how its partitioned, or does FD-ISR make snapshots of one partition at a time? Anything to be forewarned about here?

    I’ll look forward to, and appreciate, your input.

    Best regards,
    Stro
     
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