Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

BIG PROBLEM!!
I restored a Microsoft Visual Basic (Express Visual Studio 2012) project folder. It appeared to restore fine; however, when I tried to open it with Visual Studio, I got an error. The migration report said there was one error. On such and such a line it expected ENCODING but found utf-8. I tried it on another project and got the same error message when trying to open the project (but different line number). The error is always in the "projectname".vbprog file.

I did note that the "projectname".vbproj files between the good, current project and the restored project where not the same size. The project file that worked was 6K while the restored one was 8K. And in both cases, I know for a fact that these projects worked at the time of AX64 backing them up. One project folder, I hadn't touch in probably a year or more. I just restored it to see if it would restore correctly (and it didn't).

My restore method was to find the correct dated item in AX64 backups and copy it to the Visual Basic projects folder. I did not copy over existing projects. I always renamed the existing one.

I later tried restoring a simple Word docx and it was perfect.

To say the least, this is worrisome to me. Any thoughts?

 

Open your vbproj file in Notepad and see what's wrong with it. I have several VS projects that are doing fine (C# and VB.Net).

 

Marc
Good suggestion but I had to modify almost every file before it would work. All files with a vbproj, vb, and resx extension where corrupted. They had nonsensical characters at the end of the files. Like 1K to 2K worth of garbage characters.

Then I thought maybe it was because I updated from 2010 Visual Studio to 2012. So I tried a restore on a project I been working on. I restore a version only a few hours old and got the exact same problem.

Thanks for your suggestion. I see what the problem is but I'm not sure what is causing the AX64 restored files to have many corrupted characters at the file's end.

BTW, I then restore the original project which I had backup with Acronis. That worked perfectly.

Still looking for the answer.

 

hey

i got this "issue" (or not) , i have 5 snaps , just made a quick temp one coz i want to test new software , after testing i rollback to the temp snap before i install the software and ax64 says it CANT del it , ax64 said "del is forbidden"

is that normal

 

Yup, you can't delete the latest snap. To delete it you will have to wait until the next one is taken...manually or automatically.

 

oww , 10x mate , that BAD since i just made this "temp" to quick check a software ...bad bad ax64 , i dont see the logic to keep last in chain snaps protected for deletion

 

Not sure why that is but I recall that RB Rx has the same limitation. Perhaps Isso will enlighten us...but either way I am sure that as it is the case then there must be a good reason for it.

And I am not in agreement that it is a bad thing that you cannot delete it...why do you think that?

 

Did you use the AX Browser to restore the files?
I just checked and it does corrupt the files when it copies them to the disk.
Seems to restore not the real size/bytes of the file but the size/bytes that the file occupies on the disk.

Panagiotis

 

The file that tracks the changes is related to the last snapshot state. It uses the last snapshot as a reference/base to track the modifications on the disk and this is why it cannot be deleted.

Panagiotis

 

Thanks, Mr P.

 

10X pet for replying.

this is exac what i did ...i took snap5 (like in your example) with out preparing for REAL system backup (always after restart , all software are closed) , and i dont want to keep it after that... ow well .. i already see i stock with my snap5 till i made snap6 and del snap5

i was thinking ax64 is unlike rbx which hold snap on c:\ and u cant really del it ....

 

You are welcome, Mr B.

For being more correct AX64 does not really care much about the last snapshot itself, it cares more for the AXtrack file that resides inside the last snapshot; that is what guarantees the chain between the snapshot tree and the live system. If either one, the live AXtrack or the AXtrack of the last/current snapshot, gets deleted or modified from the outside AX64 will perform a full restore instead of a quick one.

Panagiotis

 

If my evaluation ends, can I still use the recovery media to revert to a past image? I ask as I have 1 day left and am waiting for Isso to send a new updated version. I have not seen him here in a while, so I assume he is busy working on a new update!

 

NO no no, you have rolled back to before you tested so the system state as of the roll back is what you want it to be,,,,before the test,,,,. Now, if you want to delete the pre test snap, and return to the regular hourly snap chain, then just wait until the next snap is taken and then delete the temp snap. It will be as if the test snap and the tested program were never on the PC.

This is exactly what you want to happen.

 

Thank you for the information/clarification as to why.

 

Because I have an issue that I discovered. He said that I was correct and he had it fixed and would send me an updated program. Anyway, he is probably working on a lot of things for the next release.

 

Yes, I used the AX64 browser to copy to Windows Explorer. Is there another way to copy a single folder or file?

 

Copied directly. I didn't try using mount but I will.

 

This file corruption problem people are experiencing sounds really worrying...
I experienced it myself too,when i did a hot restore (restoring while windows is running),but when i did a cold restore (restoring outside windows with recovery media) on the same snapshot everything was fine.
Sounds like a bug in the ax64 app itself. :O

 

Mounting works. The restore is clean with no corrupted characters.

Peter thanks for suggestion. However, there is certainly an issue. I will write a ticket. Also, the online manual needs updating until this problem is solved.

The manual states in Step 6: Recovering separate files or folders
To recover any file or folder you can drag it to the desired location in Windows Explorer. Alternatively you can right-click and select "Copy" then "Paste" it to the target folder. To view a file just double-click it.

That may work in some or most situations but not all.

 

Anyone using AX64 on an encrypted system?

I have it installed on both my actual win 7 64-bit system and virtual win 7 32-bit system I use for testing. i'm able to restore snapshots from inside a DiskCryptor encrypted windows, but of course the AX_recovery.iso doesn't work since DiskCryptor is not part of it. Now I did edit the boot.wim file inside the iso to add diskcryptor program folder, driver and registry entries to it, and that allowed me to boot the wim-file from inside the encrypted system, but for some reason the DiskCryptor additions or other changes I made to the wim don't show up after the wim loads - probably my fault. On the 64-bit system I'm also having problems getting external programs to run in the AX64 recovery environment. The changes I make to the wim do show up, but DiskCryptor doesn't run correctly - again maybe my fault. However, even when I try to run TrueCrypt portable or other external progams, I get the error "The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present." On the 32-bit recovery wim I don't get that error, so it clearly depends on the system used to create the recovery image.

This is not a complaint about AX64 since I don't expect backup/recovery programs to support encryption programs, but I'm just trying to figure out how to make them play nice together, so if anyone here has had success with this or made their their own AX64 win7pe script, please let me know.