Learning ShadowProtect Questions

I am reading the PDF ShadowProtect users manual in preparation for installing the trial copy later on. I am not familiar with certain terminology so I would appreciate help as I progress. Can someone tell me what Mount and Dismount mean in relation to images, and what does cold metal recovery mean? Thanks

 

Image files are archive type files. They contain compressed versions of the files that have been placed inside them.

When you mount an image, you are creating a "virtual" drive that allows you to look at, copy from, etc. the files inside, the same as you would a normal drive. Mounted images make use of RAM memory, and may make temporary use of the hard drive (I believe that most do not do this.)

When you are finished using the virtual drive (the mounted image), it's always best to unmount it. This puts things back to normal, both for RAM memory and temporary hard drive usage. And the image you had been making use of is put back into it's normal state.

Cold metal recovery... Think in terms of having an existing PC that you previously used ShadowProtect on and have a good image stored away somewhere. Then one day, you go to boot up and learn that the hard drive is dead/locked up/unusable. By using the ShadowProtect boot CD and your previously created image, you can completely restore your original setup onto a new hard drive. IOW, you can go from a dead (cold) PC, to a normal, same as it was before it died PC, in just a few minutes.

**EDIT** Sorry Peter. I'm running sloooowwww...

 

Thanks guys! Pete I know you've been using SP for a few months at least, so How do you like it? Better than Acronis? Is it working well with FD-ISR?
Would it be confusing to an intermediate user? I'm on page 36 of the manual, and am just getting in to the interesting stuff.

 

I like it alot! My previous imaging program of choice was Image for DOS. And while it was nice and I never had any problems with it, SP runs a good deal faster and is much simpler to use.

Version 2 of SP only supports hard drive storage for images but the soon to arrive version 3 will apparently bring DVD/CD burning support. So pretty much everyone will have a way to image with SP.

I haven't tried TI since version 8 but IMO, SP is easier to get the hang of. One nice thing about SP is that I never needed to install it (and still haven't.) I run it all from the boot CD you create from the download.

I don't use FD-ISR so I can't help with that...

 

The term "cold metal recovery" is probably a typo (or perhaps you didn't quote it accurately). The term that is actually used is "bare metal recovery/restore". Bare metal recovery is the capability to restore a system to operational state when that system has no software (including no operating system) installed on it. All it has is blank/bare hardware (bare metal).

The word "cold" is sometimes used to refer to disks/volumes which are not in active use. For this reason, if you boot a special CD operating system and perform your backup from the booted CD environment, the disks and volumes on your system are not in use (not in use by an operating system or by any applications) and hence you are backing them up in a "cold" state. The opposite, "hot," refers to the state of a disk or volume that is actively in use. Therefore, if you read something that claims it is capable of hot backup then this means it can backup your data while that data is in active use.

 

Han, Thanks for the heads up. I never learned DOS so I try to avoid it. You mention ver.3 coming out soon. Any idea how soon? The SP forum won't say. Now I see why Erik over on the FD forum is waiting for ver.3 before he gets it.

 

Peter2150, Great. I'm glad to see they're compatible. I'd like to be ready to install when version 3 is ready. I can't get an estimated upgrade date other than soon. Are there enough people using SP to have its own forum? That would be nice. Thanks for the info.

 

And, we're lucky to have you here. You are so patient with questions regarding ShadowProtect. Always helpful.

 

Pete,

I just tuned in...

Are you saying that SP is now compatible w/ FD-ISR (in VSS mode) & nVidia Raid 0??

Ifso, I'd like to give it another shot. This time I'll trial it on my NAS box rather than one of my main machines.

...screamer

 

Screamer - Yes it is compatable with VSS. I can't speak for nvidia raid though. An e-mail to FD's great support will get you an answer promptly. I'm not experiencing any problems.