Image for Dos/Windows 2.00 Final Release

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by markymoo, Dec 21, 2007.

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  1. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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  2. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    markymoo: Thanks for the info. :)

    A little follow up... I ran backup to an external USB hard drive with IFD 2 and then compared the "experience" with ShadowProtect (I run it exclusively from the recovery CD.) (This is on my trusty HP zx5180 laptop.) SP was MUCH faster, 12 minutes versus 21. Plus something I can't say I remember from IFD 1.99. The CPU, in the DOS environment, appears to be ran flat out. The PC's vent fan ran the whole time and the exhausted air was quite warm. The SP comparison was ran immediately after the IFD image and this time, no higher exhaust fan action, no warmer than normal air.

    I may have had the same situation with IFD before and just don't remember. But now that I know its happening, along with the knowledge that the image creation time is radically shorter using SP, I have to be honest and say that I probably won't be running IFD very often. Maybe to run a bootable DVD backup once in a while...
     
  3. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    HAN,

    Thanks for that info. If you get a chance could you do your backup test with IFL ver 2? See if your results are the same or different from mine. To be fair you will need to omit IFL validation as SP doesn't validate at the time of image creation.
     
  4. huntnyc

    huntnyc Registered Member

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    @Ham,

    I am with you on this one. SP is superior in this regard - spped. Again, if I use IFW for restore, then I will put that along with Disk Director on a VistPE CD and might throw them to a flashh drive for good measure but I won't be using either IFD or IFL (with the same slow results) in their present forms.

    Gary
     
  5. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    I will try to run IFL when I get the chance. (I haven't bothered to download it yet.) I know with IFD/IFL 1.99, speed (for me) with IFD was just as good as IFL and maybe even a little better.

    My speed comparison did not include any verification by IFD.

    ** I should point out that I believe my CPU warming in DOS mode is NOT IFD's fault. It would appear that is just the way the my HP runs in that mode. I do not feel there is anything IFD could do to help this. (I suppose I could look for a setting in the BIOS but I'm lazy and probably won't... ;) )
     
  6. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Gary,

    I forgot to mention you can run IFW from the SP CD. It's a VistaPE CD. Using the File browse program (can't remember its name) just browse to imagew.exe as outlined above. I'd be interested to hear your IFW and SP times from that CD.
     
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Other than curiousity why do that. If you have the SP CD, you have SP.
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Gary asked about running IFW from VistaPE. This is just a convenient way of doing that. He can make his own VistaPE at a later time.
     
  9. markymoo

    markymoo Registered Member

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    You know thats not a fair comparison. Naturally SP will be faster than IFD because the SP recovery cd is WinPE environment and Dos can't compete with that. 16bit drivers to 32bit drivers. To do an equal test you need to use IFW in BartPe, VistaPe or LiveXP recovery cd then lets see what result you get...DS 1st IFW 2nd and SP 3rd. SP recovery was designed to run with WinPE. IFW can run from any recovery environment cd you desire because its self contained. Nobody wants to use IFD when they can forsake 2 mins more boot time to run IFW off a Windows recovery cd and get faster backup/restore times. The time to use IFD is when theres no rush of time to get the image back on or you backup restore small partitions 20gig or less, you cant use a recovery cd or you just like using dos. Anyways it looks like IFL is bringing up favourable results. The reason will be because it fully utilises the Sata drivers.

    Heres some useful info. This worked for IFW 1.70. I haven't tested it for IFW 2.00 yet but should be easy to get it to work. It might be all you need to do is use .ini instead of .key at no.5

    Plugin http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/thirdparty/ifw_plugin.zip

     
    Last edited: Dec 24, 2007
  10. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

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    it seems to me that the new version is way lagging behind in every aspect as to compared with Shadow Protect. Sorry you're waisting your time on this thingy.

    Why if you have the choice between Ferrari and Volkswagon,it seems to me stupid to go for the Volkswagon,but afterall its your choice and i will not comment any further.
     
  11. huntnyc

    huntnyc Registered Member

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    I use SP but I will look at other programs to see if I like the interface better or some other features that SP currently does not have.

    For example, both TI and IFW/IFD/IFL I believe can restore images of hard drives containing several partitions and if the Hard drive is larger, they can exapand those image partitions proportionally or leave them in original size if desired. I don't believe SP can do this at this time. Also I don't believe SP can restore partition to a smaller sized partion but these other programs I think can. Also, TI has a cloning feature which some prefer. Anyway, I can see reasons for people choosing other programs besides SP.

    Gary
     
  12. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

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    In daily use its just simple : protect my system partition with SP,personal data on other drive protected with a simple back uputility [ replicator],reasons : backup/restore times with SP are much shorter if you split.

    from recovery env. you can create or delete partitions or format it,include free space into it (rightclick) but thats a convenience you need once in a while,for daily use simply split ,and important test restore your image !
     
  13. markymoo

    markymoo Registered Member

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    Hunt & Huupi lol

    I just defragged partitions and just done first test backing up data only of a 5gig system partition with this IFW 2.00 final and yes it was slower by 40 seconds behind SP and both images were similar size. I don't see this as lagging way behind. The comparison more like Ferrari and Lamborghini and the only thing you could compare it to Volkswagon is the price. :) If you doing image with verify anyway and backing up while you use windows where's the loss? Hunt you could also mentioned SP doesn't have no auto validation either(time lost) whereas IFW does. SP cannot do everything automated which is time lost. IFW has more features at half the price. Whichever you pick you still got solid reliable backup. For me i like to click 1 button and it's done, in a word automation. btw DS beat SP by 9 seconds :p
     
    Last edited: Dec 24, 2007
  14. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

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    Oke yu have your point they seem to be more similar,take what you like most, we live in a free world. One point where SP excel is restore,most trustworthy in many user opinions,so finishing touch is doing a restore,hope that it works also.
     
  15. markymoo

    markymoo Registered Member

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    Brian, it quite possible IFD is only using USB 1.1 on your pc and not 2 as the time difference is huge compared to IFL. Do you get same time difference with IFD 1.70 to IFD 2.00?
     
    Last edited: Dec 25, 2007
  16. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    Performed a quick test of IFL. It was like molasses in January. The countdown timer showed it was going to take over an hour, so I stopped it about a minute into the process... :(
     
  17. huntnyc

    huntnyc Registered Member

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    Similar results here. Looks like to me that Terabyts as well as Acronis really need to rethink their recovery environments somewhat. Probably would add some cost to their products but I hate that the user has to dable with BartPE or VistaPE or anything else to get a decent recovery CD. I will have to do this if I use Disk Director as partitioning software but really should not be necessary.

    Gary
     
  18. markymoo

    markymoo Registered Member

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    The restore is good because its been verified so good and i done more successful restores testing in a month than probably over a whole year of actual real situation restore. We not talking Acronis where it verified good and failed to restore we talking hardcore reliability. I saying all this as i have such faith in IFW 1.70. SP has a bigger userbase. IFW is like the underdog of imaging. IFW don't promote there products big they sell themselves to aware users. I see putting in a bit of initial effort to make a BartPe or other recovery no big deal for something as important as backups. Once its done you dont have to do it again. IFW can also be run from any hard drive. Incidentally i found the WinPE SP recovery cd very slow booting up. As i already said you need to run IFW from a recovery cd to give it any fair comparison use. If you not prepared to do that then you never get the best out of it and you options will always be limited. Running it from windows recovery gives me the option to run DS as well and a few other tools. I see you or was it huntnyc returning to Acronis. If you so into reliable backups why go backwards. I lost count of the number of blue screens i used to have with Acronis driver installed and i wasn't even running TI. The reliability with Acronis is all so hit and miss from one version to the next. Oh and one last important thing is having a well defragged hard drive makes a big difference on the image time including the drive you saving the image to. Yep your choice, i not trying to convince you of nothing, its just one opinion, judgement and experiences.

    @huntnyc
    I agree with you but until that time comes...heres a easy guide building a BartpE.
    http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1112
     
    Last edited: Dec 25, 2007
  19. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    markymoo

    Thanks for the tips. DS is been working like a charm thru Bart's CD for me but i really been reluctant to add IFW to it. With your experiences and comments on the 1.70 version which is what's been collecting dust here awhile. I prefer this approach much more than working thru DOS myself.

    Thanks for the info. I keep plenty of resources for ISO to CD/DVD custom building and only rarely get to put them to use anymore.

    As a total green to IFW and satisfied completely from the results DS is provided, if IFW can equal or surpass what i enjoy with DS then it's worth the extra time to finally get acquainted with it since i really doubt if i will ever need a SP. I simply don't have the need to make 15 to whatever every minute/hour increment backups even if they are combinable at the end of the day. The other differences are quite obvious to me too. All that matters on this end like most is that after an image is made it restores to perfection and relatively Quick at that. Also nice to BROWSE and manipulate images, that's my next best feature resource with these imaging apps.

    Nice to know.
     
  20. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

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    In regard to returning to ATI ,its sure not me,i had my bunch of quircks with it.
    In regard to loading time of recovery env. of SP, yes its longer as compared with ATI,has something to do with its legacy from the Ghost architecture, but boy its winpe and now also vispe so its rocksolid,and i like the blissfully fast backup/restore actions,so for now no need to dig into the others.
     
  21. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Mark,

    I'll try that.

    In the IFD forum, TeraByte is trying to resolve the issue and I'll post here when I know more.

    For me it's not really a problem as I don't use external HDs to restore images and if I did I'd use BartPE or IFL. So I'l try and get an answer for those using an external HD.

    I do like IFD for restoring images from my second internal HD as it's fast and can be automated. In the example I provided above, my image would have been completely restored (automatically) before most recovery environments had booted. IFD boots in 5 seconds from a CD.
     
  22. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    While not got around to it just yet i assume IFW works very similiar to DS in imaging/restoring across partitions/drives in "active" Windows. When i need to restore at any time i keep emergency images to a separate drive then just work across the lineage of IDE from the active/bootable system over to the drive receiving the image. Time is no constraint for me or issue, just is a Logical approach i find useful and yet to fail.
     
  23. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I'd like to report that the BartPE and ReatogoXPE plugins for IFW can be modified to allow an automatic restore.

    Does anyone know of other imaging software than can perform an automatic restore? Just interested.
     
  24. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Curious what is automatic restore?
     
  25. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Pete, it's just my rough way of saying "no user intervention".

    Say you are in Windows and you would like to restore an image. You put the recovery CD (or USB stick) in the drive, click Restart and go away. When you return the restore has completed and you remove the CD and restart the computer.
     
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