Alternative to True Image (nervous nellie)

What is PHYLock?

 

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html

 

thanks.

 

I had the same problem, even tho the product license explicitly lists their forum for support, I had to overcome my natural timidity, to cajole them via email into responding in the forums.

If you look at the forum, you will see that it is little used, and you will see that I found at least one significant problem. They've not been too swift to respond.

One thing I do like is they give straightforward, to the point answers, more than I can say for many support groups.

I do have other positive, and negative, comments, but I'm not following up on those until I can see a version that can backup all my drives, It messes up with 2 of the 10 drives. I posted this in their forum.

I would skip this release, perhaps, the next will be better.

 

LOL. It's not my intention to test all existing image backup softwares. Those tests take too much time and require alot of wait-time to see the results.

Terabyte was my very first one and I ditched it, because it isn't userfriendly and inconvenient.
Being not userfriendly, doesn't mean it's not easy-to-use.
The most not-userfriendly and complicated software is easy-to-use, when you know how it works.
I never confuse userfriendliness with easy-to-use, they are not the same.

Acronis was my second choice and I was able to backup and restore after installation without needing support or asking questions.
I only had troubles with the MBR, because "I" was wrong and one question in the Acronis Forums solved this problem. I would have had the same problem with any other image backup software.
Acronis doesn't fail, why would I look for another image backup software and pay for it again ?
I do regularly a restoration, sometimes even for fun, because backups are so boring.
I take each opportunity to do a restoration, because I still want to break ATI, unfortunately it doesn't break.
The support of Acronis solves only the big problems, they don't pay attention to minor problems.

I use FDISR as a second backup. Archiving snapshots and refreshing them afterwards works much faster than any backup/restore with ATI.
Only harddisk failures aren't covered by FDISR and those are very rare.
So I don't need a second image backup software to cover ATI.
FDISR is a very userfriendly software, considering its versatility and difficult jobs.
FDISR turned several difficult jobs into easy jobs, not many softwares do this.
Simplicity is always brilliant and that's what FDISR is.

I tried Terabyte again to compare it with Acronis and to answer the questions of member "Aigle", concerning backup speed and compression. I was also interested in these answers and there was no significant
difference between Terabyte and Acronis.
This time I was able to make a backup with Terabyte, but the restoration with IFD was a flop.
Terabyte just doesn't speak for itself and is only reliable.
Acronis speaks for itself and is also reliable. So I don't see any reason to switch.

I'm not a fan of Acronis either, but I can live with its disadvantages.
I would classify ATI as a half-userfriendly image backup software with several minor problems, which are never solved in the next build.
Each new build of ATI claims to have improvements in the GUI, I always wonder what those improvements are, because I don't see them.

ShadowStor doesn't know how to treat its customers and didn't answer any of my emails, which I consider as an insult.
I ditched ShadowUser for that reason without even trying it and because of that, I'm not interested in ShadowProtect either.
That doesn't mean that ShadowUser and ShadowProtect are bad softwares, I just don't like the company "ShadowStor". I have the same problem with "Symantec".

 

Same with Symantec for me -- they treated me with incompetence, so I don't have time to waste on them anymore. Thanks for the heads up on ShadowStor -- I'll just set my curiosity about ShadowProtect on lurk mode.

 

Well, I have read posts at Wilders, where members got a reply from ShadowStor. Some are lucky others not.
At work it's our policy to reply every mail.

 

If you are referring to my posts, I had to be very aggressive in sending emaiol to even get StorageCraft to respond in their forums. This actually violates their license as they have one of the few licenses that I've seen that EXPLICITLY lists the forum as a support mechanism.

StorageCraft actually licenses their snapshot technology to Symantec and the technology is used in GHost.

However. ShadowProtect does have some added capabilities over GHost, but it does have some negatives. For example, NO verify after a backup. I was told this will be fixed in the next release.

If u check the postings I have at the StorageCraft forum, you can an idea of how long they have taken to respond.

ShadowProtectfailed to backup 2 of my drives, and their support has not yet responded. The other 8 drives were backed up correctly.

I have other pro/con comments, but i'll not make them at this time. If they do fot fix te backup failure, the product cannot be use by me.

Note tat the distinguishing characteristics of the two drives that could not be backed up are:

1. The C drive, which also has a pagefile.
2. THe F drive, which has the OS and a page file.

Note that StorageCraft allowed me to use an Evaluation, instead of a, Trial version. You'd think that they would be more responsive to someone using te Evaluation versio,

As I've said elsewhere, a large positive is the forthright responses. THey do understand their product. Alas, I cannot say the same of support from certain oter image-based backup product support.

 

My respect Your Majesty ,
But if you contacted them, it must have been ages ago, LOL!
The company name is no more ShadowStor but StorageCraft.
Yes it is an insult if at the medieval times when you tried to get in touch with them, they did not reply to YOU!...*KIDDING*
As for me, i always got a reply; yet i am just a bad vile subject LMAO.
Your servant (even though i do not live in your kingdom of ((so beautiful)) Antwerp),
Hervé

 

To compare Symantec support to Storagecraft support is to say the least outrageous. It's always the same crowd denigrating the same product, and for what? Failing to answer presale queries (as if a trial period isn't enough).

I had NIS for a year and NEVER got a single reply for my problems. I've had ShadowUser for a year, I sent several e-mails to "support" and NOT their forum, which implies stating your product registration number, and got a reply within 48 hours with the precise fix to the problem.

I recently bought ATI instead of ShadowProtect for the price (35$ / 69$).

ATI support is good but they couldn't fix my problem, I posted in their forum and I got a vague reply, I asked e-mail support as a REGISTERED user, we have exchanged e-mails sometimes within hours (about 12 so far).

If a company doesn't reply to pre-sale questions it might be counterproductive in terms of marketing (their problem). To dismiss them as unreliable or having bad support to its customers on these grounds it's unfair.

I have only one regret, I didn't buy ShadowProtect in the first place, and if ATI doesn't fix the problem soon enough, ShadowProtect will be my next purchase.

 

SYMC is a greedy company whose ONLY interest is to make $. Kiss your "customer support" GOODBYE once you've paid for the software. Of course there are those who will never learn their lessons.

It will be a very cold day in HELL before I spend a penny on any Symantec product.


P.S. My bad, SYMC will be glad to talk to you for $30 per incident. Hmmm...should have purchased NOD32 or Avast Home (free).

 

Yes when a company changes its name, everything changes.

 

LOLLL... Just imagine a few seconds your names were changed into JuliusCaesar or NapoleonBonaparte instead of ErikAlbert! WOW!
Cheers,
Hervé

 

Hi Pete ,
My posts about ShadowProtect are not intended to promote this software whose GUI is a clone of ATI with different (more IMHO!) features...or denigrate Acronis. I just think it is a good, reliable and fast alternative for those, who, like me, encountered many problems with ATI and even disk damages...
I repeat again : ATI is an excellent software and if it works for most users, it is not worth changing it.
Cheers my friend ,
Hervé

 

bellgamin, congrats on your Terabyte purchase. I've been using IFW/IFD for over a year now without any problems. You might want to burn IFD to a CD-RW; it will boot much faster than a floppy. The RW will also allow for the frequent IFD updates without having to use a new CD-R every time---just erase the disk and burn the new version of IFD. But keep that floppy for a backup!

 

You can look at the StorageCraft forums and see their lack of response to non-Pre-Sales questions.

And lack of response to reported bugs in an Evaluation version is a very bad sign.

 

Howard,

You are probably one of the few posters here who is entitled to criticise Storagecraft for their lack of responsiveness in their forums.

For instance your knowledge of computers far exceeds even the most knowledgeable users, and when you criticise you do it with issues that were tested on your machine. One doesn't feel any sort of animosity in your posts, as you seem to test softwares for what they are without any bias whatsoever.

You should also realize that the Storagecraft forums are by and large (like most forums for that matter) populated by gossipy crowds, people interested in small talk rather than real issues.

Acronis has a policy of answering any post in their forum, which is laudable considering the marketing risks involved (see dog's post) but that in itself doesn't make TI 9 a better alternative to ShadowProtect.

Storagecrafft might have a different approach in dealing with its problems: We'll take care of you once you buy one of our products. I don't know much about ShadowProtect but I can tell you that ShadowUser (a terminology that seems to create some emotional reactions with some posters) has had very few real issues since its creation compared to other software.

I have Ghost 2003, Ghost 9, now ATI 9 and none of them works flawlessly. By the time I get ShadowProtect (hopefully not, I wish Acronis can solve my problem, they said to wait for the next build...) I'll have spent 170$ in recovery software: an expensive collection for someone who isn't intersted in testing software.

 

Hi all ,
A new version 2.0.1.27 of ShadowProtect Desktop was released yesterday. I have just written to StorageCraft support to get the link to download the update...
I think they have improved the following features in this release:
· Better view backup files for quick file and folder recovery
· Save backup files faster to any attached storage device or network location
· Quicker and more simple bare metal system recovery.
Cheers,
Hervé

 

Hoot mon, you should try just one more -- namely, Image for DOS -- as in uno, DOS, tres, cuatro etc etc etc

 

I just restored my C drive on a test laptop successfully by IFW and IFD( trial version) without reading any help or tutorial videos except for the threads read here at Wilders. It was fast and successful.

I want to ask one question. When I tried the option Restore from a Partition, it said it needs DOS for that. That means I have to install DOS OS for that? Don,t know how to do that. Also I am failed to understand what is the meaning of this option "restore from partition"?

Thanks.