New Drive Snapshot build released.

Pajenn

I believe it does NOT use that 100MB partition because I can see a hidden "boot" folder in the main root directory of my WinXP C drive. I premade the .vhd using Scott Hanselman's tutorial here.

If I do see the "boot" folder do you agree there is no 100MB hidden boot partition? My file manager shows me all folders, hidden or not so I'm not 100% sure.

I think the boot partition must be there because it boots into WinXP just fine. It's the Win7 portion that is wrong somehow.

Maybe I'm not supposed to "restore disk signature" but I thought I had to do that to fool it into thinking it was the same original hard drive? Maybe Win7 is reading the registry, and can somehow determine that my new HD is different than the original and gives it a new GUID which prevents booting?

I ran across a blurb in the documentation for "disk2vhd" application. Maybe it will help --

Note: Do not attach to VHDs on the same system on which you created them if you plan on booting from them. If you do so, Windows will assign the VHD a new disk signature to avoid a collision with the signature of the VHD's source disk. Windows references disks in the boot configuration database (BCD) by disk signature, so when that happens Windows booted in a VM will fail to locate the boot disk

What do you think? Could this somehow relate to what's happening with me?

 

Dunno. I was thinking of something else before, but after looking at some of the Scott Hanselman links I'm wondering if you could boot to your Win7PE and run the bcdedit commands that he gives here (Setting up your Windows Boot Menu to boot to an Existing VHD) to "run bcdedit /delete {guid} /cleanup" on the new hard drive and then redo the guid procedure for the Win7 VHD...

 

I could try that, but then the question becomes do all existing imaging apps do the same thing in this case? I'm going to try Macrium Reflect and Image For Windows and see.

 

Hello Brian, no problem for Drive Snap.

Yes Drive Snap could and can automatically restore a Drive Snapshot image to a new, empty drive or partition from within Windows or DOS. This was a later feature improvement added.

It accomplishes this from DOS in 1 swoop by automatically restoring the MBR first from the image on bootup, then immediately proceeds to automatically restore the image straight after. As the MBR is layed down first, it has no problem restoring the image to a empty drive or partition. It is unnecessary to reboot after restoring the MBR first. This is a very safe way of restoring the MBR, even with the added menu manually(see below). As you can imagine, this is alot faster than doing it manually yourself with commands, which also creates added risk.

As the auto DOS restore is fully automatic on a new drive, you had to have told Drive Snap to auto restore the chosen image and it's MBR beforehand. As you know Drive Snapshot cannot restore the MBR and image in 1 swoop, which is probably by design. It common for users to have extra data drive(s). Drive Snap and Drive Snapshot are located safe on another data drive to the empty boot drive you are restoring to. Amazingly the automatic DOS restore auto seeks and immediately finds on the other drive(s) - the auto restore settings and image of Drive Snap you have set to restore - wherever that is! This is a big improvement than having to create a automatic restore CD, but you can do that as well. The auto restore CD will also cleverly seek out and discover Drive Snap settings and the image it needs on any blind data drive for the auto restore to proceed. If you have no data drive then you can still rely on the Drive Snap boot CD or USB stick containing Drive Snap and Drive Snapshot and change the restore settings there.

You could if you wanted bypass the automatic restore for any reason, by holding down a key on bootup and accessing a hidden menu, this gives you extra options, such as choosing another image or MBR to restore from. You can manually restore a different MBR and image of your choosing one after the other. Restored the wrong image? No problem, after a restore it returns to the menu so you can restore another. It covers all the restore options you need.

To give you an idea of the possibilities, here are a few of the extra boot menu options besides the automatic restore, available from hard drive (Windows boot menu), CD or USB.

Restore image
Restore image + MBR - for empty drive - stretches image partition size to same size of drive
Restore image + MBR + Partition structure - for empty drive - recreates image partition size
Restore MBR of image only
Restore partition structure only
Restore different image - loads a menu to select another image
Restore MBR of different image - same menu
Delete, format, create, partitions
Show drives and partitions info
Continue the Restore
Reboot


Regards and Happy New Year

 

Hey Mark,

It's great to hear from you again. Thanks for that information and the opportunity to discuss automated imaging and restores.

 

No. As good as it is. It would still not be possible to restore with a broken windows with that feature. The restore feature relies on a bootable working Windows. You would still have to rely on a another boot medium to restore the image such as a CD if the Windows is unbootable, faulty. Granted with the reliability of Windows Seven, it's a welcome addition.

Thanks to Panagiotis, n8chavez and Aaron for your support and Hello.

 

Hello back 'atcha' Mark - nice to have one of the most knowledgeable Drive Snapshot users back here participating!

Btw, I believe as you do that DS does not automatically restore the MBR by design. Any imaging program that does that automatically would bring about a real mess if, for example, the user decided to change partition sizes, etc., between the time the image was created and restored.

Aaron

 

Drive Snapshot 1.40.15359 (dated Jan 21 2011) is available for download. As usual, no release notes accompany this build.

 

Wow, yet another update comes on this heels of the one released just last week!

Drive Snapshot 1.40.15368 (dated Jan 24 2011) is now available for download (again, no release notes with this build)!

Aaron

 

Aaron,

I haven't looked at what DS means by "MBR" but in general when an imaging app restores the MBR it doesn't restore the partition table component of LBA-0. As you point out, it could be a disaster. I know the Ghosts, Acronis TI and the TeraByte apps definitely don't restore the partition table when you select Restore MBR. I'll bet DS would be similar. Mark will know.

 

Right - I've got to be more careful with my terminology. It's all too easy to speak loosely about the MBR and the Partition Table. DS provides separate (deliberate) actions for restoring each one upon restoring an image (all of the necessary data is available in every DS image file).

Restore Partition Structure: DS will restore the exact partitioning of the original disk that was imaged (for this to work properly, DS requires the target disk be at least as large as the original disk's partition).

Restore Master Boot Sector (MBR): DS will restore the first disk sector, which is useful when you need to recover the boot-loader.

As indicated above, neither of these actions are enabled by default during a DS restore.

Aaron

 

There is two parameters in Drive Snapshot for the restore, one restore's the whole MBR and the other repairs the MBR, keeping the partition tables.

 

Well, that was fun while it lasted. I've decided to discontinue use of Rollback Rx. I was never able to properly restore an image that restored a functioning Rollback Rx. I tried two tests, one that created a RAW image using Drive Snapshot and the command line (using the -A switch), and another creating a RAW image with Drive Snapshot outside of Windows in a PE. Neither restored an accurate image with Rollback Rx functioning correctly. If it is a choice between Drive Snapshot and Rollback Rx, DS wins.

markymoo - I can't wait to test the new front end.

 

Nate, I don't understand why you were unable to restore your RB environment using this technique. I've been doing just that ever since Mark first outlined the procedure a few years ago. During that time I have successfully restored my system partition with RB and all snapshots dozens of times!

Aaron

 

I know, I can't explain in either. I wish I knew why.

 

When running DS Backup from your PE boot disk are you absolutely sure you checked 'Maintenance Mode' (in Advanced Options) and then clicked Ok?

 

Yep, I am. The resulting image was 24 gb. And that fits with the compression ratio; my SSD is 32 gb. Without RAW enabled the images would have been about 7gb. But there was a slight difference in size between the size of the images between the one create in Windows and the one created in PE.

 

Welcome back Mark.

True, but since it can also be launched from the recovery enviroment of 7 (through the command prompt), unless the mbr or the system reserved partition gets corrupted too external medium is not needed.

Panagiotis

 

This is indeed strange, but then again I don't have any experience using SSDs. I wonder if this issue could be due to the SSD's driver and/or firmware?

Perhaps Mark will jump in and hopefully provide an explanation as to why you were unable to image your C-partition with RB and its snapshots when running DS in maint.mode from WinPE.

Aaron

 

I tried Rollback v7v8 for awhile in the past. I not used any recent version of Rollback since. With Rollback, everybody was concerned in taking a full backup of all snapshots, ideally within Windows. Because if Windows broke down ever, you lose all your entire precious snapshots anyway. To backup all, you had to backup and restore the MBR seperate as well. This turned out too much of a hassle. The alternative way is backing up all images of Rollback outside of Windows, with an all sector backup using imaging software. Yes Rollback came with it's own backup but didn't backup all snapshots lol. As Windows is pretty reliable and has it's own better restore features, users are more interested in taking a seperate backup, stored off the system drive for safety, which can still be restored back quickly. Rollback RX is always running in background, there was a argument to how much it slowed your Windows process down, this would probably be negligible with todays hardware. The technology of Rollback is good, especially if you want to save tons of changes and restore very often to exact point.

Why not just use imaging?

In the end, i and a consensus of others here thought agreed, that having quality imaging software with a good backup plan was king. Some users found they didn't need Rollback. The advancement of reliable imaging software with good features, is able to do a full back up within Windows, and also just the changes and restore any of the backups in a quick quality fashion, and without needing a seperate procedure to backup and restore the MBR. If your restoring often or not then the MBR is usually still there. Alot of users just want to make 1 permanent backup.

HIR software is needed less. Windows 7 and Vista are able to move to different hardware easier, they did away with the drive controller drivers on bootup. Still, it's a good idea to uninstall all drivers before you image and move the OS.

 

Dear Markymoo,

Is there any special discount regarding Drive Snapshot for Wilders' Members?

Best regards,

KOR!

 

I think a good restore feature to include, would be the correct alignment offset(1MB-2048 sectors) for SSD and long term future use. At the very least 64 sectors. Something IFW has already.

KOR, that is a good question to send to the Drive Snapshot author. If you mistakenly meant Drive Snap which is something else, then maybe i should rename it. Drive Snap is cheap! but rich in features. It will be much much cheaper still, this time around.

 

I better inform on marvellous newest version of Drive Snapshot and it's restore MBR features.


Drive Snapshot Windows Restore

Right clicking a drive and selecting 'Restore PartitionStructure'. This will wipe out any existing partition table(s) on the entire drive and replace with one in the image. Not only that but will actually restore the entire MBR as well. It is MBR+Partitionstructure combined.




Drive Snapshot DOS Restore

/MBR will replace MBR, keeping the partition table(s) intact.
/MBRALL will restore the entire MBR

After recent testing, filling the system HD MBR with zero's in Windows. Right clicking a drive and selecting 'Restore Master Boot Record' , restores the entire MBR overwriting the partition tables as well (bytes 1BE-1FD). This wipes out and restores the image partitions just the same as using 'restore partitionstructure' .

 

markymoo,

That means DS cannot directly(without modifying the patition size) restore an image(backup from a 50GB partition, atually used 10GB space only) to a smaller partition(e.g. 30GB), right?

 

Correct. Don't restore the image MBR or partition structure. Have to allocate the partition and make it bootable beforehand. I assuming, you need 50GB system partition for future Windows space. If you Windows goes down totally then you need a 3rd party tool to prepare partition. That is why Drive Snap in DOS is handy, it can do that and restore image soon after in 1 boot. I need to update it for Windows 7.

Drive Snap recovery on USB or CD will have both choices, either to recover from DOS or from WinPE environment.

For Windows 7, need to keep install DVD to hand. You can make system drive bootable using bootsect.exe. bootsect /nt60 SYS /mbr