Drive Snapshot bootable media!

Brian, I'm sure that writing scripts in Linux must be more difficult than in DOS. I even find the IFL boot-disk more complicated to use than the IFD boot-disk.

TS

 

TS, I had to create the scripts in Ubuntu. Fairly impractical, but at one stage I was interested in doing restores over a wireless network with WPA2 security. I don't know of an app, other than IFL, that can do that.

 

Guys,

Drive Snapshot restores are actually pretty simple using any off the shelf (32bit!) Windows 7 Install CD. I have the procedures written out, as we are using Drive Snapshot as a backup solution for our clients. Especially 1.41 with full VSS writer support will be revolutionary. Currently I'm working on a script to do "forever differential" backups to a remote location.

I'll add an extract of my restore guide in a link - do note however, currently it's in dutch/flemish - but still it might be of some use (lots of screenshots). There is also extensive information on restoring domain controllers in a multi DC environment.

In the field, DS has proven to be the most reliable backup solution ever. Saved my bacon quite a few times.

-https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16040179/SMARTSYS%20Drive%20Snapshot%20Restore%20Procedure.pdf-

 

Cruise,

My weekend has commenced. Yours will shortly. Can you boot from the DS CD and tell me how many drive letters are assigned in DOS?
Is it clear which drive letter refers to the partition containing the image?
Where is your image stored? Internal or external HD?
In Windows, what is the path to the image? And the image file-name?

Edit.... Anyone who wants to join in, please post your answers.

 

Brian,

It's Friday eve in my part of the world - I just got home from another job interview.

I'm drained from all of the 'grilling', so I'll get back to you tomorrow (about 16 hours from now).

Cruise

 

I saw over 20 downloads of the dutch restore document.

If anyone is truly interested I'll translate it.

 

Please Tony. You are a kind man!

Best regards,

 

Most definitely, please count me in on that and thank you! ...Wendi

 

Good morning Brian (although it's probably 3:00 AM there and hopefully you're sleeping).

To start with, I'm using a new HP laptop running Win 7 Home Prem x64. As soon as I bootup the DS DOS CD it asks me to select 0 (don't search for USB devices) or 1 (search for USB devices). I selected 1, but it does not find my USB hard drive (although Windows sees it)! .....as my USB ext. hard drive is the target for backup images that's a big problem!

I next select NTFS and it reports 5 partitions on my 750GB hard drive, D (my system C-partition in Windows) through H. So other than the drive letters, that seems to be correct.

Any idea as to why the DS Boot CD doesn't see my external hard drive?

Cruise

Edit: I rebooted the DS DOS CD and this time did not select 1 (search for USB devices). I did nothing, allowing it to use the default 0 selection, and it found my USB hard drive (with the letter D)!!! Now my system partition is assigned the letter E.

 

Dear Cruise,

Why not a WinPE Boot USB, and you can put Snapshot.exe in this WinPE Boot USB.

See your PM.

Best regards,

 

aladdin,

We are doing a DOS exercise.

 

LOL! True Brian!

Why I first bought my two true IBM PC in 1982 and paid for them both arms and both legs, they came without hard drives. And, there was no Windows on them, only DOS.

Those were good old days!

With hardly any grey cells left these days, I don't remember much. Maybe, should relearn all those beautiful commands.

Best regards my dear friend,

Mohamed

 

Cruise,

The drive letters assigned in DOS will be quite different from drive letters assigned in Windows. So forget all your Windows drive letters when you are in DOS. What you are looking for is the HD number. 0x80 is typically your internal HD and 0x81 should be your external HD (in a two HD system).

To check what's on a partition, do this...

change to the drive letter of the partition by typing the drive letter. eg.

D:

the prompt now becomes D:
look at what is in the partition by typing

dir

you should see a list of folders and files in the root directory

So try this with the 0 and also the 1 choices and let me know.

In Disk Management of Win7, can you let me know the names of each of your partitions? Are they all primary partitions? Are they all NTFS partitions?

Edit... Sometimes 0x80 and 0x81 will be reversed.

 

Brian, I should be back with the answers in about 15 minutes...

 

Please find the translated version here:

Drive Snapshot restore with Win7 Install DVD/USB stick

Any comments welcome

 

I didn't include the advanced restores to VHD and VMDK but I guess that's less important Also Active Directory restores are not included.

 

Brian, it took me a little longer than I anticipated, but I think that I have the info you requested.

Windows Disk Management reports the following:

Drive 0
Windows & Apps [(C:] NTFS - Primary
PS Scratch & Pg [D:] NTFS - Logical
PS Photo Files[E:] NTFS - Logical
MS_Office Files [F:] NTFS - Logical
Temp Backups [G:] NTFS - Logical
HP_Tools FAT32 - Primary

Drive 1
Ext USB Backup [I:] NTFS - Primary

--------

The DS DOS Boot CD reports the following (with the default 0 booting option):

Ext USB Backup (0x80:1) as D
Windows & Apps (0x81:1) as E
PS Scratch & Pg (0x81:3) as F
PS Photo Files (0x81:4) as G
MS_Office Files (0x81:5) as H
Temp Backups (0x81:6) as I

Does that provide everything you need?

Cruise

 

Cruise,

Sorry, I had to go out,

Excellent. Your HDs are reversed. One of my computers does that. It's a "BIOS thing" and is of no consequence.

You are correct. D: is your external HD partition. Strange how you can see it with the 0 option but no matter. What is your Windows path to your backup image on the external HD? ie which folder?

You will note that HP_Tools doesn't get a drive letter from NTFSDOS as it isn't NTFS. As it's FAT32 it will be C: drive in DOS.

We're almost there.

 

I found that very strange indeed, especially as I do not see the USB drive when selecting the 1 option!

USB Backup\DS Backup-HP\


Btw, in the course of automating the DS Boot (Restore) CD is it possible to make it default to the NTFS option? (I would never use the other options).

Cruise

PS. Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea why the glaring omission of 0x81:2

 

Sure. You won't have to manually choose NTFS.

DOS only sees the first 8 letters of a folder or file name so can you change the names to say (or your preference) USBback and DSback. What is the name of your image?

OK. Let's assume your image is cruise.sna and you are using the above names (edit the following to suit your system).

Change to the external HD partition by

D:

Change to the folder holding cruise.sna by (you can use capitals or lowercase as DOS doesn't care)

CD usbback\dsback

Now you are ready to go. Let's do a Test (verify) of the image as this makes no changes to your system. Type this...

snapshot test cruise.sna

Let me know what happens.

Edit... Do you have a second partition on the external HD? Is it NTFS? If it is FAT32 it might be J:

 

Brian,

I change the names of my sna files as I usually keep father-grandfather versions. I also add an identifier to denote if it's a full image or diff. image.

e.g.,
My older full image might be named: C-full.sna
The first diff image would be named: C-d1.sna
The 2nd diff image would be named: C-d2.sna

My current full image might be named: C_full.sna
And the first diff image would be named C_d1.sna
And the 2nd diff image would be named C_d2.sna

Does that screw-up what you've accomplished so far?

No, just one NTFS partition with several backup folders to accomodate DS & IFW (as I'm trialling both of them). I also have two PC's, an older Dell and my new HP, so each of those folders has a -Dell and -HP suffix version.

Brian, sorry but now I've got to quit as we have company coming over in 2 1/2 hours for dinner and I still need to help my wife clean up the house, then shower, shave and dress. I'll check back tomorrow (my Sun., about 10 AM PDT) and if that's your night (as I suspect), maybe we can hook-up later on in the day.

Thanks,
Cruise

 

Not at all. But with an auto CD the image to restore (presumably the latest) must always have the same name. Or you can have several CDs to restore specifically named images.

I got confused with the HDs. I mistakenly thought 0x81 was the external HD. OK, the absence of 0x81:2 is easy to explain. The numbers refer to partition slots. Your MBR is using slots 1,3 and 4. Slot 2 is empty. Nothing wrong with that. You only have three primary partitions. Win7, the Extended partition and the FAT32 partition. Slot 2 is still available for a primary partition.

See you tomorrow.

Edit,,, Logicals present confusion. 0x81:3 to 0x81:6 are all in MBR partition slot 3. NTFSDOS presents the numbers like that.

 

The auto restore CD can take two or more forms.

1. Where the CD knows the names of the images. No input is needed. Boot from the CD and walk away.

2. Boot from the CD and you will be asked for the filename of the full backup image. Type

C_full.sna

You will be asked for the filename of the diff backup image. Type

C_d1.sna

Now you can walk away.

 

Cruise,

Does the 0 choice find your USB external HD with both of your computers?