FD-R: First Look

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-Rescue Forum' started by boonie, Mar 16, 2010.

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  1. tobacco

    tobacco Frequent Poster

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    On my ex's rig even with the preboot available, her c partition was completely hosed. Thank god she had a 2 week old archive on her d partition to bring her back up to speed after re-installing windows. The point i was trying to make is that this does happen and FD could rescue you in this situation before but cannot with the new version.
    It's important that this fact is stressed.
     
  2. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    That's a good point.
    I have always kept a bare metal image program (IFW/IFD) for times like those. Still use it with Windows 7 even though 7 has its own imaging feature.
     
  3. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    A few shots of the pre-boot screen:

    Boot Time-out
    001.jpg

    Choosing to boot to the Rescue Area
    002.jpg

    Booting to Rescue Area
    003.jpg
     
  4. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    A bit more re: booting to the Rescue Area.
    Looking at the bottom of the window, you see that your Active Area is the "Original", or "Original Build" as described by the manual.
    Should this become corrupted, infected, or un-bootable,
    you can boot to the Rescue Area, either from the Action menu if your logged in to Windows, or from the Pre-Boot menu should Windows become un-bootable.

    BA01.jpg

    Once booted in to the Rescue Area, you'll notice, upon opening FD-R that your Active Area is now labeled "Backup".
    You can then recover the Original Build by updating it from the Backup.
    Then you simply choose "Boot to Rescue Area" again from the Action menu, and you'll boot back to the Original Build.

    BA03.jpg

    I suppose this could be a bit confusing as "Boot to Rescue Area" is displayed in the Action menu for both the Original Build and the Backup Build. Perhaps it might be clearer if the commands were labeled according to which build you were in: "Boot to Rescue Area/Backup", Boot to Rescue Area/Original". Just a thought.
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2010
  5. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    Todd, I had a question. Is it necessary to boot back to the Original after booting to the Backup Build and updating the Original?

    What I mean is, does it matter which "Build" or state you operate in day to day, as long as you keep the other one updated for recovery?
     
  6. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    If it does not matter, then perhaps you could have two completely different configurations of your systems. And if you used System Restore, each would have its own completely different System Restore.

    Acadia
     
  7. Leapfrog Software

    Leapfrog Software Leapfrog Management

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    Q: Is it necessary to boot back to the Original after booting to the Backup Build and updating the Original?

    A: No. I do have to say that I do boot back to the Original. Why? A personal sense of security. I know the snapshot (rescue area) I'm on is working, but what if my original failure was a undetected disk platter issue, etc. I like walking away knowing I have that emergency backup ready to go. Just the way I roll, but no other reason why you need to (that I can think of)

    EDIT: Yes, you could have the day-to-day business apps build, and a gaming/photoshop/movie editing build instead of using it as a rescue area. Some of you will even figure out you can maintain two DIFFERENT OS's (Whoops, you did not hear that from me...I know nothing!
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2010
  8. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    Good point. Just curious.
     
  9. tobacco

    tobacco Frequent Poster

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    Ever the creative one :D

    I don't see why it would matter. If 2 snapshots is enough for you, go for it. It wouldn't be for me (i'd like at least 6-7 snapshots). And as the OP said, make sure you image.

    So you now would have FD rescue, Windows system restore and images. FD-ISR did it all :thumb:
     
  10. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    Interesting thought. I guess you could assuming each had its own System Restore, and you didn't mind sacrificing the disk space.
    I haven't disabled System Restore yet. I think I'll give that a try. Just out of curiosity.
     
  11. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    Data Anchoring is very easy, just like before.

    Start the wizard and choose your directories/files to anchor, which prevents them from being updated or changed.

    DA01.jpg

    DA02.jpg

    DA02a.jpg

    DA03.jpg

    Documents folder now anchored

    DA05.jpg
     
  12. Woody777

    Woody777 Registered Member

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    It looks like a well thought out rescue solution for the average user. Judgeing it as one, I would feel safer with Shadow Protect or something similar. I for one will load Comodo Time Machine into a VM & try to learn a new snapshot program. It will never be as good as FDISR was!
     
  13. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    As you can see, these directories and files will no longer be updated/changed by FD-R. Essentially there is now only one copy of these anchored files and folders, shared by both the Original Build and the Backup Build.

    DA06.jpg

    DA07.jpg

    As stated in the manual you wouldn't want to do this with any system files, because if they are excluded from updating, you won't have a copy of them in the Rescue Area to fall back on in case of corruption. This would only be for data (pictures, documents) that you don't want altered.
     
  14. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    Removing the anchor is 2 steps:

    Start the wizard as before and:


    DA08.jpg

    All things being Equal
    DA09.jpg
     
  15. ambient_88

    ambient_88 Registered Member

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    I have a question with regards to Data Anchoring. Is it possible to exclude my gaming folder (Steam) when copying/updating? That folder is quite large and changes constantly, so I think anchoring it would be a good idea.

    Thanks!
     
  16. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    Yes, you could, but that would mean that only one copy existed between the two builds (Original and Backup), so if it became corrupted for any reason, you wouldn't have a back up of it.
     
  17. ambient_88

    ambient_88 Registered Member

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    That's true; however, my laptop is limited in space, so I wouldn't want 20+ GB of the same thing to be copied. I am technical enough to know how to solve corruption problems (if ever it happens). I mainly want to use FD-R for testing purposes. Thanks for confirming the anchoring issue, though.
     
  18. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Are you kidding? That's the most important part of using a pc, I use ShadowProtect.

    Well, FD never did any imaging.

    Acadia
     
  19. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Comodo isn't a snapshot program, is it?

    Acadia
     
  20. tobacco

    tobacco Frequent Poster

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    Never needed or used imaging with ISR. Stored archives did the job.
     
  21. starfish_001

    starfish_001 Registered Member

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    Indeed I tend to use archives and not use imaging too much myself.

    Without archives and only 2 snapshots I'm not sure it is worth upgrading. By changing the MBR windows 7 works ok with the classic version - browsing/recovering the files is possible in this version indirectly anyway
     
  22. beethoven

    beethoven Registered Member

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    Still a bit confused about the new rescue area - can someone please clarify this for us oldies?

    Forgetting about the terminology, it sounds to me that the rescue area is one backup snapshot that you use to rescue your system, roll back or test.

    What is the advantage compared to a program like Rollback RX that provides for an unlimited number of snapshots?
     
  23. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    From the manual: "The Rescue Area is a complete copy of your system."
    If you look at post #4 you can see folder 0 and 1 where the snapshots, or "builds" as the manual calls them, reside.
    So in essence, you have two snapshots/builds, one labeled "Original", and one labeled "Backup".
    The "Rescue Area" is the label given to whichever build you are NOT logged in to. It's there, waiting to rescue you if need be.
    From the answer to my question in post #30, I'd say the two builds (Original and Backup) were identical. They're labeled "Original" and "Backup" in order to keep things clear.

    I've never used Rollback RX, so I can't really give a knowledgeable comparison.
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2010
  24. bitsandbobs

    bitsandbobs Registered Member

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    Hello,

    Assuming no anchored folder, are the folders (0 & 1) complete and self contained?

    That is, if 0 is the Active copy, could I choose to manually export 1 offsite for later use? Then either create a new 1, or manually import a version of 1, that had previously been created and exported in a similar way?

    Thanks.
     
  25. boonie

    boonie Registered Member

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    I believe they are, but permissions will not allow you to access, move or copy them, and I'm not to anxious to start messing with the permissions.
     
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