Any Farstone DriveClone Pro users?

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by rendez2k, Aug 18, 2008.

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  1. rendez2k

    rendez2k Registered Member

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    Has anyone tested Farstone DriveClone Pro? Just installed in on a VM and it looks like a cross between a standard imaging app and Rbx as it can take very quick snapshot images. I just wondered if it was based on the same technology as Rbx or if it actually worked well?
     
  2. sukarof

    sukarof Registered Member

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    I tested it last winter but it failed me somehow (cant remember now why, I think it was when restoring a image).
    I had another setup of hardware then, and since it supports 64bit Vista I think I´ll test it again coz I really loved the idea of having a (fast) ISR along with the imaging.
    I use Farstone Virtual Hard drive (Ramdisk) and it works flawlessly and Farstone has decent support, so I am pleased with the company itself.
     
  3. rendez2k

    rendez2k Registered Member

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    Let us know how you get on with it. I'd be more interested if I was sure it wasn't using Rbx technology but to be honest it looks very similar...
     
  4. sukarof

    sukarof Registered Member

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    I am quite confident that it does not use RBx technology.
    When making the first snapshot it creates the snapshot files on my D partition.
     

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  5. rendez2k

    rendez2k Registered Member

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    Well it works well in my VM but as expected doesn't appear to play nice with FD-ISR. DriveClone detects that something has altered the file system and resets all the snapshots!
     
  6. sukarof

    sukarof Registered Member

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    I had no problems with FDISR.

    I had some other instead :)

    Creating a snapshot takes about 15 seconds.
    Creating a image takes 17 minutes (36GB) medium compression makes it 19GB imagefile.
    You can restore image without a CD.
    Restoring a snapshot adds about 3 minutes to the boot but works fine.
    Restoring a image takes about 28 minutes.

    BEWARE!
    While in DC preboot environment, when you choose restore.
    Driveclone rearranges the drive letters. And that is really dangerous if you have several drives like I do and if you dont check thoroughly what drive you´re restoring to!!

    I did the mistake relying on what Driveclone told me. It said that my 300GB drive (that I use to store films and other) files was C: o_O
    I did not check that it was the real boot drive. The original drive was given the drive letter E:

    So I started the restore process and it went on for 3 minutes and then it gave me this warning:
    That was all the information it gave.
    Being used to that most imaging software doesnt work properly when I test them and thinking that I was restoring to my real C drive I clicked continue to see what other error messages it would give. But it just shut down and rebooted.
    I did the restore again but now I noticed the mixed up drive letters and chose to restore to the real boot drive (E: according to DC)
    Restoring went fine.
    When I rebooted it started to load windows but then BSOD´d after a while: " Unmountable boot drive" it obviously thought that the 300GB drive (that now was f***d up) was the boot drive. DC did not remember the proper restore I did right after.
    I rebooted again - same BSOD.

    That was enough for me so I restored image with good old Shadowprotect.
    When I booted into windows after restoring a good image, I still get the BSOD. I wonder where DC writes the information where the boot drive is? (I did chose to restore boot sector from backup with Shadowprotect)
    Luckily I have FDISR with Vista 32 as a second snapshot and managed to boot into that. Checkdisk warned about inconsistency on my 300GB
    I let it do it stuff. 45minutes later I could boot normally but my 300GB is gone :(
    I can see it in a filemanager but when I try to access it it tells me it isnt there....

    Now starts the task to recover the files :)
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2008
  7. mantra

    mantra Registered Member

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    i would like to test too
    but the installer make a partition?
    i mean i try to install under a virtual machine
    and i'm not sure but the installer seems to make a partition
    is true?
     
  8. raakii

    raakii Registered Member

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    Its the clone of horrifying RestoreIT no way comparable to RollbackRx .Dump any idea of using it.:thumbd:
     
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