Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Re: Shutdown of AXTM

WYC999,

You can kill AX64 anytime - nothing will happen even if the program is in the process of merging or backing up. Cleaner way of course is to close its window. If you want to make the program to exit from the command line use the following command:

AXTMApp.exe /cmd=exit


Isso

 

Hi Isso,

thanks for the answer. Since you are here right now - i have for the first time a little trouble with AXTM. Here is what i did:

1. I uninstalled it
2. deleted the images on disk (that was purpose of the excercise)
3. tried to reinstall it (machine was NOT shutdown in between)

Now i get the errormessage:

How to cleanly uninstall/reinstall now?

 

I uninstalled Rx and the problem disappeared. I then reinstalled it and did a new baseline. After the baseline was created I shut the PC down and it shut down normally.

 

Thanks for reporting back bgoodman4. What I've seen is that this issue happens randomly but mostly after taking a 'snapshot'/backup.
I do have Macrium Reflect Free installed on all my pc's so I wonder if that could be the issue.

 

Understood and thank you.

Fixing the slow down of the PC is critical. Last night I merged 2 large snaps, the baseline (32 gigs) and an 18 gig snap and it took over 1.5 hours to occur. During that time I was not able to use the PC as the program I was trying to use not only was performing slowly it also crashed.

I have no doubt that the fact that I was trying to use the PC during the merge added to the merge time. After the merge I tried to shut the PC down and was not able to as reported.

I will be installing AX64 on a new, much faster machine and I expect things will be better. I will report if there are any issues. Hopefully the slow down will be less noticeable so I can use the PC when I need to. I very much look forward to this issue being resolved.

 

I don't see why M would cause a conflict of this sort but it would be interesting to see if uninstalling it eliminated the problem. At a min I think it would be helpful to let Isso know one way or another.

 

Hi WYC999,

You need to reboot after uninstalling AX64, otherwise install will display an error. BTW you don't need to uninstall the program to delete the backups - you can delete them whenever you don't need them. Just make sure to delete all backups. If you want to delete selected backups, use Delete button in the Backup Browser

Isso

 

bgoodman,

Thank you for the information. Yes, if other programs use HDD at the time when merge is running it will take even more time. So waiting for idle PC is the best approach. I'll also pause the merge operation if the user becomes active again.

For shutdown problem - I might know what the problem is (although I haven't reproduced it yet). Will let you know as soon as I have more info.

Isso

 

Hi Isso,

so what do i do now to solve this situation. Because i rebooted machine now. And i still get the errormessage.

Earlier before i got an errormessage about the drive too.

In the path C:\Program files\AXTM there are still 2 files:
AXTMApp.exe
Uninstallfile

so what would you suggest - just delete them and try again or what?

Since i got some errormessages concerning the driver - how where do i find this in the windows hardwaremanager what's it called...

 

Hmm, that's strange. If you can delete those files - just delete them, reboot and try installing again. Don't be concerned about the driver - it should have been uninstalled already, thus the error messages.

Isso

 

Isso, Whenever I try to delete backups via the Delete button in the Backup Browser, it does a merge instead. I just deleted 2 backups that merged, and did a third one that merged to 100% but ended in an error. These 3 backups were old and were done oldest to newest in turn.

 

Hi Isso,

solved it now. The issue had nothing to do with AXTM. The problem revealed itself, when i tried to delete the files manually, It came a windows message something like i have no rithts to do this.

This was very odd since my user is admin and all admin were supposed to have full access (including delete) to this file - as it stood in the security settings of the file.

I'm pretty sure that is a bug that is caused if you restore a drive with Acronis True image (as i did lately). I have seen this bug a lot over the last 3 Years, and i think somewhere i did read about it, that Acronis and its Linux environment can mess with NTFS-rights.

 

Excellent, thank you.

 

FDISR is more flexible. Also I can store my Archives anywhere. FDISR behaves almost like a partitioning program, I can have multiple installs of the same OS in completely different configurations, different anti-Virus, firewalls, everything. I can boot between them playing with the different setups, almost like having different computers.

Acadia

 

Hi Fingol,

Did you use restore via recovery media, or from normal Windows?

Isso

 

twl845,

Deleting a backup is actually a merge operation, so it's normal. For intermittent merge error - it's a known problem and will be fixed in the next update.

Isso

 

From Windows. Picked a time, right click and restore.

 

Why don't we title the button "Merge" then?

 

Probably was caused by the "dirty bit".
Your snapshots reside on the same disk (different partition), on an external usb or on a network drive? And what are the carracteristics of your system drive?

Panagiotis

 

Using external usb drive.

 

Then Isso would have to use 2 buttons "merge with previous" and "merge with next". Plus at the end that snapshot is removed/deleted from the tree...

Panagiotis

 

Then the restore time is ok.(although a bit slow instead of 2 hours it should have been around 1 and a half hour).

@Isso
when AX64 makes an offline restore (or a "dirty bit" restore) restores directly the snapshot or does it restore first the baseline, then snapshot 1, 2, 3, etc.?
Panagiotis

 

Thank you. It isn't a problem as long as it works.
Just checking because of the seconds, minutes claim

 

The claim is correct, as long as a "dirty bit" is not triggered; e.g. from a incorrect shutdown or from accessing the OS partition from external sources (different OS, WinPE,Linux live cd, etc.)

Panagiotis

 

I have a "Merge" question as I don't understand how it works. If I were to discover or suspect malware and decided to go back to an earlier snapshot and then deleted/merged the corrupted or suspected snapshot, what would happen to the malware? This "Merge" term has me concerned.