Drive Snap for Drive Snapshot

I make available a early prototype of Drive Snap. It hardly tested on Windows 7 but should work ok. This version is far superior to the official freeware version that was released. Drive Snap is free. There will be available, a better version but welcome to hear of any bugs in this version as it good test for Windows 7.


Copy to a folder both 'Drive Snap' and 'snapshot.exe' of Drive Snapshot. If using the snapshot x64 version then rename it to snapshot.exe. Also download the freeware tool burncdcc.exe which Drive Snap will use to burn a automatic restore CD.

Right click an image in the restore tab to bring up options. The USB restore and CRC32 image integrity option doesn't work in this version.

There is a nice 'Easy Backup' feature in this version. Press it and it backs up C drive to the folder 'backups' on to the drive or partition you set in the options. Default is your next drive letter.

Run Drive Snap with administrator rights.







Create Automatic System Restore CD - This is automatic image restore to an existing partition. If you system goes down but the partition is still ok.

Create Automatic System Restore CD - MBR - This is the automatic image restore to an existing partition but also restores your MBR as well in one automatic action. Needed for boot managers. Eaz-Fix, FDISR.

Create Automatic System Restore CD - New Drive - This is a automatic image restore to new drives or for Vista, 7. It will create the exact partition structure over the entire drive. If you have existing partitions of a different size then they will be gone and the image partition size will be in place. If you restore this and you still have the same sized primary and logical partitons as when you took the image, they will be still there and any other data will be ok. This option will also restore the MBR.

 

Thanks for sharing - but, what is the context of this program? I do use Drive Snapshot. What's the advantage of using this DriveSnap.exe?
I have not used or even heard of this program before, so please bear with my ignorance.

 

Drive Snapshot has alot of options in it's command line. Majority of those options are in Drive Snap. This gives Drive Snapshot lots of customization and automation with just a few clicks. You'll notice Drive Snap design is very compact, can do alot moving the mouse a little.

Drive Snap lists all your backups in the Restore tab window. It keep's track of system backups and differentials for instance.

Drive can restore, save and repair the MBR. Wipe a number of a drives first sectors 0-127) Securely wipe or format drives and partitions. Save partition boot sector

Drive Snap runs Drive Snapshot.
Select all the necessary options in Drive Snap and click Backup and Drive Snapshot starts backing up. Drive Snap will remember those same options for next time use. The options can be saved to a batch command line if wished for Drive Snapshot but not usually necessary.

There is also a DOS CD recovery option built in. The recovery boots and automatically restores the image you have set beforehand in Drive Snap in Windows. The restore is clever, it knows where your images are stored and which one you have currently set for auto restore. Due to the automation it already restoring in DOS before even WinPe boots.

System drive is for the engine(OS) not for the passengers(data). You configure your C drive to store all personal data on the data drive, this brings the system drive right down in size and then you are not backing up 100GB.

Test it on virtual windows first. The new options of Drive Snapshot will be missing but still has lots of options of DS and options that DS hasn't got.

Keep the files together on a non system drive. Do not keep on system drive for obvious reasons. There is a built in scheduler to schedule image backup.




Welcome.

 

I tested the Drive Snap scheduler in Windows 7, it works.

 

@markymoo You might want to edit the URL for help file to ~ URL Removed as per markymoo's request ~ as it leads to download of the Drive Snap executable.

 

Thank you WSFan. Link fixed but have now withdrawn it due to a major issue discovered with Windows 7 which needs to be fixed.

 

Hopefully you can fix that issue as soon as possible.

 

Due to default restricted account privileges of Windows 7. Drive Snap cannot access system privileges. So it a Windows 7 issue. Drive Snap runs fine.

 

If there is no major issue with Drive Snap,you can make the download link available for us.Does it work on Windows 8 or 8.1?

 

BTW I had a few license of Drive Snap at the time it wascommercial, but due to hardware limitation I was not able to move them from old PCs to new ones, glad to hear it has become free. And yes, does it work with Win8.1 ?

 

I sent you both but the one you have in past maybe better. It won't work currently for 8. I am not sure yet if it just User Account Control. There is higher privileges than Administrator. System Privileges.

This version of Drive Snap creates a automatic system restore CD set to restore the MBR or not. You cannot change that option once it burnt to CD unless you burn another CD with new option.

A later version is able to change on the fly anytime, the option of Standard, MBR or new automatic restoration for the restore CD from the Windows version which means only one restore CD needs to be made. You may have that better version. The restore CD works out where Drive Snap is kept on your backup drives and so knows what options are set for it, even if you move it from it's original position.

If for example you had 5 system images, you set the system image you wanted to auto restore with Drive Snap in Windows and the CD restore knows. You can change which system image you want to restore on the fly.

You could be wondering why set any recovery MBR option at all, why not create a recovery CD with a menu to let user decide. It wouldn't be fully automatic. This way you have a recovery plan before you recover. In fact, i did make a version for the recovery CD that popups a menu for MBR functions and to control the restore. A keyboard hook detected(better than a countdown timer) a key being pressed in the final few secs activating the menu before the auto restore kicked in. That way the auto restore lost no time to restore, unless you stopped it. From that same menu you could decide to restore another image entirely.

 

Hello Markymoo and thanks for this nice addition to Drive Snapshot !!
It seems to be absent from your site - is there a web page or site for your tool ??

Also I wonder - does it work at all with VMs and/or XP the same as Drive Snapshot does ??

Thanks.

 

I don't quite understand,since i downloaded only one version which is v0.99

 

No, There was a website - it got trashed. There was a forum on the site. Drive Snap protection was overkill. Thanks to those who supported it.

 

A bit too overkill if I may say so... Very efficient. But that's just a user point of view I guess.

 

Yes

 

There was no issue. Run Drive Snap with Administrator rights, otherwise the drives and partitions are not recognized in the Volume tab.

 

Send me your codes and i will send serials back for all.

I sent to MerleOne and yourself (both).


Despite no issue with Windows 7. It needs new improvements for Windows 7. It is too early a beta to be relied on for backup. I withdrawn the link. Delete it and get the next version.

 

It is very easy to note which image is set to automatically restore from Drive Snap at all times. A CD is marked alongside the designated system image. Simply double clicking and confirming a system image will designate it. If a image is already set for automatic restore then you are alerted before confirmation change.



You can then tell the ASR(automatic system restore) whether you want to restore the MBR or MBR+partition table(for new drives) or just the MBR from that image.

Note: The screenshot shows ∅ for two of the image sizes. This is because the images were created for demo purposes only. Normally when Drive Snapshot encounters a error and doesn't finish it's backup, Drive Snap detects DS error and deletes the unfinished image preventing the image listing in Drive Snap.

Also available separately is the Drive Snap WinPE plugin. Once the plugin and Drive Snapshot is added to a WinPE CD, Drive Snapshot will automatically restore the selected system image in Drive Snap to the system partition on booting WinPE. This takes into account the system reserved partition.

 

Could you please check your Personal/Private Messenger Inbox?

 

Drive Snapshot does not restore the MBR when restoring the image. You need to specifically use the seperate MBR restore option beforehand in Drive Snapshot.

Drive Snap does automatically restore the image MBR before restoring the image. Default setting for data safety is Drive Snap does not restore the MBR unless enabled. Also a seperate option to restore MBR only.

So even having to restore the MBR, does not prevent Drive Snap automatically restoring an image. It means you have more power to flatten a drive and get your image restored. In a further version, it doesn't restore the MBR at all unless you turn that option on for automatic restores.

As all images are listed together in Drive Snap Restore, you can oversee all images and choose the image and restore the necessary MBR. If restoring a system image, it is not necessary to restore the MBR beforehand. The restore will do that before the image on boot.


Advanced Users
As DS does not touch the MBR on restore, you can restore in Drive Snap easily, the MBR+partition from another image to the one you are going to restore. eg. You have two Windows 7 system images but different size partition sizes in each.

 

Improvements for Windows 7 and GPT disk.

Drive Snap repairs Windows XP, 7 MBR. This is the same as those MBR repair utilities. They repair the first 446 bytes of a MBR but keep your partition structure intact, keeping the data intact.

Save and restore first 446 bytes of MBR
Save and restore GPT partition tables
Restore disk signature
Restore first 63 sectors, 0-62.
Restore sector 1 to 62

Repair images
Save and restore disk signature
Error image checking
Align offset 1024 for SSD
Automatically restore an image located on a DVD.
Password protect automatic restore.

 

@markymoo Where can i get the new/latest version of Drive Snap 1.1?Please check your inbox(Private/Personal messenger) on Wilders Security Forums.

 

Where can i get the new /latest version of Drive Snap 1.1

 

I'd like to try the latest version also. I did have a license in the early days but discarded it when I couldn't migrate it to new pc.