OO Disk Image 5 Professional Released

O&O DiskImage has released version 5 of their software today. The change log is below. The addition of M.I.R. is very intriguing. Recently I had a harddisk failure. Using ShadowProtect I was able to restore the data, at least to the point where it was bootable, but I was unable to use their Hardware Independent Restore because ShadowProtect was not installed on the new drive. Isn't this always going to be the case with new drive. If that's the case than ShadowProtect and their HIR take a major usability hit,

Main Features:
- Visual display of hard disk usage
- Handles Microsoft Virtual Disks (VHD)
- Tray Icon to inform you of service and task status
- Additional compression type (BZIP)
- Differential images (also automatic)
- Advanced burning functions to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD
- Job assistant for automatic and regular images
- Creates system images during operation
- Start CD for easy restoration of entire Windows operating systems
- Incremental and direct forensical images possible
- 1:1 copies of drives (cloning)

Change Log (from version 4):
NEW: Restoration onto different hardware (M.I.R.)
NEW: E-mail notification
NEW: User guidance with Information Bar
ENHANCED: Performance
OPTIMIZED: Memory usage

 

Looks nice! But because the demo doesn't supply the boot CD I can't test the HIR function. Any feedback from registered users would be good!

Its cheap too!

 

I bought it because it was on sale, but I didn't really like it. The boot CD, while nice, is quite slow to load. Maybe because there are quite a bit of extras that aren't really necessary.

 

What are you thoughts on the actual product? What didn't you like about it? I haven't been able to test the cd yet because, despite my purchasing the product, I get a message that says I cannot use the cd because no license was found.

 

did you get a download link for the boot cd after purchase or was it mailed to you

WOW IS IT SLOW took almost 20+ minutes to create a image of a 80gb drive with only 20gb used.. macrium was about 6 minutes shadow protect was just over 5 minutes... on the same machine!!!!

even took forever to make a incremental backup almost as long as the full one? i have to be doing something wrong

 

No ZFactor you didn't do anything wrong . This software is sloooooow. I also got fed up with scheduled backups that didn't run and the inability to set the One-Click defaults (It wants to image my C drive plus my Second drive -Total of 470Mb used space) to my USB drive (120Mb).
Setting up options is a hassle. I found the software both slow and unreliable.
I noticed that a scheduled run at 7:30 (when it did run) ran 4 minutes late.
I uninstalled it

 

My experience with previous versions is that it is very slow if you use the "new" BZIP2 compression. Also, initially I found the interface very confusing, because there are no wizards to guide the operations. ShadowProtect´s interface is the best I have found in this type of programs.

 

the compression type makes not a whole lot of difference at all for me. they are both CRAZY SLOW. agreed on the sp gui i think it is def the best overall laid out and by far the easiest to use of these type of programs. though macrium also has a very nice interface once you get used to it.

with o&o they have a setting when you schedule your backups to allow for a certain amount of time past the time specified for the task you can set this to whatever you want to allow it for, but i have seen that say you set it for only a 5 minute allowance if for some reason the program doesnt run on time or within the 5 min allowed it will skip the task altogether until the next scheduled one. for me that was the last straw and i uninstalled it. a backup program that misses scheduled tasks is not at all a good setup imo

 

I also found the new version very slow. It was so slow I decided to un-install it.
The only imaging product I have found personally reliable and good to use is Acronis True Image.

It would be nice if O&O could sort their product out. They did not seem interested in Windows 7 until a month or so after release, and only as it was getting good press did it seem they decided to jump on the bandwagon and start making their products compatible. Shame on them really. Until they sort their speed issues I am personally going to stay clear of their products.

 

lol the program can not even update itself. it directs me to the web site to download the newest version and i have a paid lic. is that normal? then you have to install the update manually. pretty crappy for todays standards imo

where on the web site can i find changelogs?

 

So far, you can't. I have been complaining to them about that since ages, to no effect.

 

Anyone else had any success with this product?

I'm no expert in imaging, as I seem to just back-up all my important files to an external drive and prepare to start all over.

But if I were to install a new hard drive, would this be the most suitable program to get up-and-running with the exact copy of the previous drive?

 

it works well for its purpose and does a good backup and restore but its incrementals suck plain and simple and it would not be my first choice. honestly if you are only looking for a exact copy use macrium to image then restore it to the new drive. you do not even get the boot disk with o&o unless you buy it also just fyi

 

same complain in here , and add to it a very VERY slow backup compare to shadow protect and drive snap shot...i uninstall this bad software , never gona mess with this crap again

 

Yes, the recovery CD is excellent and let you use several tools beside the main O&O DI App.

 

MerleOne, did you purchase the recovery cd or was it part of the download - as an iso file?

 

When you purchase DiskImage, it comes with an ISO for the recovery CD.

 

I purchased the V4 version online a while back, and I was able to download the installer and the ISO from which I made the bootable CD (a reduced version of O&O BlueCon(sole)). Alas, when V4 is udpated, I cannot get the updated iso, it's then only available by physical distribution for around 9€.

Overall, I like O&O DI GUI a lot, but as stated here, it's painfully slow in differential mode. The image burning tool (to CD/DVD) is a joke : it's a basic burning engine, and the burned CD are not even bootable.

I might upgrade to V5, but only if I get a very high discount.

My main imaging tools are Drive Snapshot, which is fine but lacks a few features in GUI mode (no exclusions for instance), and Image for Windows, which is rock solid but also a bit slow in diff. mode. IFW is very strong for handling mixed backup (main on DVD, diff on HDD for instance), and the Linux restoration CD is very powerful, when you accept to to into the command line mode.

I also tried ShadowProtect but find it confusing, especially in the image file naming area. I'd like to have a go at Macrium which is very fast in full mode, and extremely fast in diff mode (it relies on CRC, not on bit per bit comparison to identify the sectors to be saved).