EAZ-fix/Rollback RX and disk imaging

Interesting - but not very useful.

Decided to try EAZ-fix on my work computer. Didn't however want to uninstall FD-ISR. So I didn't. Interestingly, you get the EAZ-fix boot screen, and then the FD-ISR one after!! (both function perfectly). Was an issue initially booting into my secondary snapshot of FD-ISR (BSOD) but this was resolved by copying primary FD-ISR snap shot to secondary after reinstallation of EAZ-fix (this would be necessary for FD-ISR snapshots and archives). Now they both have the EAZ-fix files, both work fine as does EAZ-fix. Eaz-fix snapshots and snapshot deletions show up in both primary and secondary FD-ISR snapshots, regardless of where you make them.

If I make changes to my secondary FD-ISR snapshot, then boot into the primary, then rollback using EAZ-fix, changes in secondary have been rolled back when you boot into it. I have found it no slower than using say Rollback RX by itself.

Not sure why you would want to use both concurrently but I thought it was interesting nevertheless.

Edit: When EAZ-fix defragged its snapshots the FD-ISR boot screen was turned off? Anyway, re-enabling it within windows had the same effect as before - sequential boot screens.

 

Wow, my head spins. Very interresting.
I usually see a picture inside my head how programs work, but now my brain gets a never ending loop trying to imagine how to utilize this kind of setup

 

Interesting, indeed.
Would you call that a double layer snapshot implementation?

 

Isn't that hunky dory. Maybe others do not. For a person that monopolizes this board and pushes this defective software, you should quiet down a bit. Please...

 

I'm sorry that you take my motivation to be helpful this way. You are right, maybe I should just leave and move on.
Thank you very much for pointing this out.

At least I didn't whine about defects, I DID something to accomplish improvement.

 

Yes I did image this setup (ATI). The result was a restoration to the baseline image and the corresponding FD-ISR snapshots I had at the time of Baseline image. Luckily I had archived my primary FD-ISR snapshot externally and it was happily copied back to the state before restoration of ATI image.

I also tested Restore-it pro with this setup (uninstalled FD-ISR). All worked fine, again with sequential boot screens. Incremental rollbacks worked fine (but again EAZ-Fix snapshots are unaffected). However, when I tried to enter the pre-boot environment of Restoreit (to create a full image), it failed - being unable to access a certain element it needed and rebooted. Reboot was normal.

It was an interesting experience that on my second attempt and failure at entering Restore-it's pre-boot environment via its pre-boot screen, to simply select a different EAZ-fix snapshot and have FD-ISR boot screen appear.

 

Interesting testing but too complicated set up.
I will not use such a pC, this PC will just eat my Brain, just to understand which snapshot of the snapshot of .... I am using!!

 

Agreed. I'm on holiday and just playing round with stuff. When I return to work I shall re-image my machine to my pre-holiday set-up that had just FD-ISR on it. In a real world situation, these set-ups would be impossible to keep track of.

 

My results with IFW/IFL

Test 1:

Ran IFW in a partition not monitored by EAZ-Fix and did a full disk image (both partitions) using RAW mode. No other options were specified, so compression was used I assume (9 gb image on 40gb hd with 12gb in total use). Restored using IFL with no extra options.

Result: All deleted EAZ-fix snapshots restored and functioning.


Test 2:

Ran IFW in raw mode within EAZ-fix monitored partition. Same options as above. Again restored with IFL.

Result: To my surprise and delight, an identical result as the first test - all deleted EAZ-fix snapshots restored and functioning!

 

That is exciting news, thank you for taking the time for these tests.
I assume that RAW mode runs slower?

 

Yes, 50mins vs 15mins for a 12gb used 40gb drive.

 

RAW option wa discussed in prior RollbackRx threads:
This is the Terabyte version of sector by sector copying and is probably the only way (with Terabyte at least) to keep snapshot architecture.

Slower and bigger images.
But still the gold standard in imaging

Good luck you guys.
Seems like somethings have improved.
LOL i still have a paid -discount coupon from early on-for but eventually never used RBRx installation siiting in my back-ups.

If I install can I get updated to where you are now?

Ps there are command line options in both IFW and IFD for RAW copying.

 

Yes, this latest build seems much more stable - no more waiting with baited breath for chkdsk to stuffup your machine or booting into snapshots only to find then corrupted. Speed is now the only real issue for me.

 

No, but restore took about 85mins for raw image whereas normal restore for me is usually under 20mins

 

Agreed, The timings of raw images with IFW/IFD are discouraging when you need daily images, but the good news it that at least you are able to create/restore reliably when you are a eazFix/Rollback RX customer.

 

Thanks for testing. That is good news. I see you restored with Image for Linux (IFL) is IFL more reliable than IFD or does it do something that IFD doesn't?

 

No, I just couldn't get IFD to recognise my external HDD whereas IFL did?

Okay, another surprise. I was playing round with Acronis OS selector and managed, of course, to remove EAZ-fix MBR. No boot screen and it presented as being uninstalled in windows. Re-imaged using raw image, but this did not restore EAZ-fix boot screen. Quick search through IFW manual did not reveal how to back-up MBR, only how to restore with a standard MBR.

Perhaps you need to use HDhacker in conjunction with IFW to backup the EAZ-fix boot in the MBR?

 

Cheers Pete. The following link makes it fairly clear how to use imageall (its a little unclear how to use it if you just download the program and open the readme file).

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=235

 

Since you don't have a eazFix enabled MBR at this point, I wonder what would happen when you:
1. uninstall eazFix
2. reinstall eazFix (MBR recreated)
3. restore from raw image.

Of course you want to prevend this the next time with a working MBR backup, but for now, I wonder...

I just finished the suggestion myself.
I had a raw image by DriveSnapshot 1.3, somehow the MBR got lost. I reinstalled eazFix, passed the chkdsk without errors and now eazFix is running and showing the snapshots that I expected to get restored. I still need to verify that all snapshots boot successfully, but it looks promising.

By the way DriveSnapshot took less than 15 minutes for imaging a 15 GB partition.

 

Same result as you, once installed and re-imaged all is fine again with eaz-fix snapshots present and functioning.

I'm still a little confused about imageall. I'm not sure how to enforce raw imaging using the imageall batch files provided. Can anyone help? Using "backall 1 e:\mainba~1\backup" at the commandline only produces a standard backup and I doubt the command line options for IFW will help as backall.bat is not setup, from what I can see, to handle any other parameters than drive number and path name. Perhaps someone more au fait with batch files would know how to modify backall.bat to default to raw imaging.