Concerns re using TI and RollBack Rx together

I have been using TI for probably 5 years now and find it to be excellent however I am looking for a program that will enable me to take snapshots of the PC automatically so that I can rollback the PC to an earlier state (I have been using the version of GoBack released in 2004 to do this and feel its time to get a more current program). I have had no problem using GoBack and TI and thought that I had decided on a new combination of TI an RB but I just came across the following comment on another Wilder forum

Has anyone had any experience with using the two programs together, or any thoughts at all about the advisability of doing so?

 

A bit more info regarding the problem and a few additionbal questions.


bgoodman4

Jo Ann

I have a few questions regarding this issue ---

1: If I do as Jo Ann suggests would I then be able to use my most recent version of my TI images to restore the PC or would I be limited to using the pre-RollBack version?

2: Why would this problem be a problem in the first place? If TI backs up everything including the MBR why would a restore not have boot capability? I would think everything on the PC would be returned to the state it was at when the backup was done. Or is this an issue with backing up from within Windows (the method I have always used) and would it be eliminated if I created a sector by sector image using TI?

 

Does nobody have any thoughts on this issue, especially in regards to my questions at the end of the previous post? If its likely to cause a problem I will not use the programs in combination but I would like to be able to use a rollback program. Any suggestions for a rollback program that does work without problems in combination with TI (version 11 currently installed)?

 

Hello bgoodman4,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis True Image

Code:

If I do as Jo Ann suggests would I then be able to use my most recent version of my TI images to restore the PC or would I be limited to using the pre-RollBack version?

Yes, you are able to use Acronis True image Home 2009.

Code:

Why would this problem be a problem in the first place? If TI backs up everything including the MBR why would a restore not have boot capability? I would think everything on the PC would be returned to the state it was at when the backup was done. Or is this an issue with backing up from within Windows (the method I have always used) and would it be eliminated if I created a sector by sector image using TI?

I am not well-familiar with Rollback. If I understood you correctly, RB modifies MBR. If you have a Pre-RB backup and a post-RB archives, you should select the appropriate backup and recover the appropriate MBR (Acronis True Image allows you to do it).

Thank you.

--

Oleg Lee

 

Thank you for your reply Oleg, for some reason the folks at RollBack want you to uninstall RollBack before you try to restore with TI. Thus the need to fix the boot record. I don't fully understand why this would be the case but that what they say.

From the publishers website

 

"This is true for all archiving program, including the Rollback's own archiver. Archiving is done on a file by file basis, to permit a disk images to be mapped back onto an unlike disk (in case of hard disk failure). Rollback works at a sector level; its snapshots cannot be mapped under these circumstances."

That is the reason.

Rollback has no interest in files.
It is purely focussed upon sectors, i.e. bytes in particular geometric locations on the hard drive.
Both Rollback and Acronis (in incremental mode) may be affected by defragmentation, even though all files remain the same.
BUT Acronis will delete and then recreate a partition and then restore all the files in a perfect defragmented condition into sectors where they never used to be.
Therefore a 100 GB partition that probably uses daily Rollback snapshots of less than 100 MByte, will suddenly have something 1000 times as large for Rollback to deal with.
Rollback may be able to eat a whole elephant one bite/byte at a time,
but suffers indigestion if it has to do it all in one sitting.

They also said "You can use Acronis or NGhost or whatever to image a "Rollbacked" disk drive to an archive. However, none of these programs understand Rollback snapshots;"
I have to ask, whose fault is their "lack of understanding" ?
Do Rollback have a list of drive imagers that do "understand" them ?

To me it sounds like the new recruit shouting
"Look sergeant major, I am the only one marching in step" ! !

Regards
Alan

 

Hi Alan, thanks for your comments. I am pretty sure that it is possible to recover individual files from a RollBack snapshot but I could be wrong about this as I have looked a a number of different programs over the past 2 or 3 weeks and the details have begun to get jumbled up in my mind. As to the fragmentation issue I do know that RollBack has its own defrag utility which is supposed to keep things in an orderly state. As to other programs not understanding RollBacks snapshots thats a shame as for me an ideal situation would be RollBack backed up by TI. I plan to use both programs as I expect most problems will be dealt with by simply rolling the PC back to a clean/stable state. The only area that might give pause is with a hard drive failure. Until RollBacks imaging module proves itself I would not be comfortable leaving this function to it. I have been using TI since 2004 and have a lot of confidence in it, it would be very nice if the two programs played nice together. Maybe one day that will be the case.

 

This from the publishers website regarding individual file recovery

from http://support.horizondatasys.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4443

Just to be clear I am not pushing RollBack Rx, and I am in no way associated with Horizon or any of its related entities. I am just a consumer looking for as foolproof protection as I can get. I started searching for a Norton GoBack replacement 3 or 4 weeks ago. I have been using TI and GoBack for years with what to me was great success, I want to be able to at least maintain the level of protection I had with these 2 products but felt that is was time to put GoBack out to pasture. At this point I feel pretty confident that a combination of ATI and RollBack Rx will provide this for me. It may at some point be necessary to repair the MBR if I need to use a TI image but as far as I can see at this point this is the only downside I am looking at. Hopefully I don't find out the hard way that this impression is incorrect.

 

this has a lot of info - (eaz-fix and rollback are the same program)

http://www.eazsolution.com/kb/article.php?id=174