New Drive Snapshot build released.

oh, its so sad, not very convenient

 

I recently wrong to HorizonaData support and told them about my trouble getting a working version of Rollback Rx after restoring a RAW image. Their answer surprised me to say the least. It seems that my problems are not only unusual, but are expected. Here is the response I received.

Needless to say, Rollback Rx has just been brought down a few major notches in my book. I cannot imagine this behavior. They have a limit that caps the number of time you can activate Rollback Rx, now they tell me I have no choice but to. For a company that aims to protect data, why can it not function as intended after a RAW mode restore? And, for that matter, what is the point of creating RAW images if this is the case?

** I don't mean to hijack this thread, but this is the result of a previous ongoing discussion about Drive Snapshot and Rollback Rx (see here).

 

Nate,

With Rollback I'm an interested observer. I'm surprised by the company's response. Aaron can restore a RAW DS image and have the snapshots still functional. I believe him.

Edit... Here is a method to prevent a Rollback re-install. Ignore my comments about functional snapshots after DS imaging from Windows. Repeated tests were failures.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=289829

 

I am by no means calling him a liar. It's just that I had difficulty restoring RAW images. And, as it turns out, the company doesn't expect you to be able to. Kind of odd that they'd put down their own product.

 

are you sure about that?
i searched all their forum once and what i gathered is that the only problems you should have with activation is if you change hard drive.

ah!
here's the post from Horizondatasys forum:
-http://horizondatasys-forum.com/rollback-rx/90-how-much-i-can-activate-rollback.html#post309-

 

What I don't like about Rollback is, it writes over your free space willy nilly and not in a linear fashion. Seems to save more than the data needs sometimes. No wonder system fragmented to hell. For example I made a third snapshot with 20gb space left and it took it all. Next time I come to boot Windows, it couldn't due to no space left. Chkdsk reported it fine. I had to uninstall Rollback from the console to create more space just so I could get back into Windows.

If you like to maintain a fast system then I suggest you keep Rollback off. This is abit extreme example but happened with early testing. I just prefer not to have it hogging my system and count on myself with manual backups.

 

rollback also doesn't work with encrypted systems, at least not with truecrypt or diskcryptor, so now that i've encrypted all my computers i've had to give it up. drive snapshot and most other imaging programs work fine despite the encryption, although some only work in raw mode even with mounted truecrypt partitions.

 

New Drive Snapshot version 1.40.15405 is out !

As usual, no changelog with mystery changes.

 

Nate, as in any company, some representatives shouldn't be representing the company. The person who provided that response is totally clueless!

During the 2007-08 period, kenjin and markymoo demonstrated (independently) how to properly backup a system partition with RB and all snapshots. Since then, I know of several members (other than myself) all of whom have been successfully using Mark's method, which I refer to as the 'LveOS - Raw Backup' method, including appster, jo ann, nexstar, pvsurfer, and some others here.

Aaron

 

Mark,

I have found that RB manages its snapshots quite well. Yes, there are times when a snapshot consumes more disk space than it really needs, but a subsequent snapshot-defrag cures that issue. Furthermore, I have never found RB to cause fragmentation of Windows' sectors!

I will agree that RB does have a small impact on system performance, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for the invaluable benefits it provides.

Aaron

 

Thanks for the heads-up on this update!

Aaron

 

I did experience that myself, but tech support quickly remedied it and advised me that it was no longer a problem with current builds.

That is correct, they tie the activation to the hard drive's SID.

Aaron

 

Living without Rollback or a optimised way to backup and restore.

Let me share a possible way to back up often and restore the system very fast if it breaks down fully. A added consolation is it provides a means to fast repair the system drive outside of Windows, and also useful for testing.

The setup - 5 drives all with full primary partitions. No secondary partitions to bother or worry about. This keeps it nice and simple. It better organised, due to seperated data. It also safer with better chance of recovery.

Drive 1
A system drive which holds Windows but without the large User folder. This means the system drive can be smaller and another ideal reason for a small SSD or a cost effective small SATA. Due to many GB saved, results in much faster backup. Label this drive SYSTEM in big caps.

Drive 2
Data drive 500GB or 1TB for ample storage. The personal ever expanding User folder from System C is stored here along with all your other personal data. Label this drive DATA or appropriate in caps.

Drive 3
Drive for storing all system image backups only, so it doesn't have to be huge, unless wanting to image data backups as well. Label this drive IMAGE in caps.

Drive 4
Second system drive preferably identical spec and size to system drive. If your system drive a SSD then buy a SATA. Label this drive SYSTEM2 in caps.

Drive 5
External backup large enough to backup data D drive and a few images. Preferably SATA to backup faster than USB. Label this BACKUP in caps.

Now you take a full system image backup of the system drive and save it to the IMAGE drive. The next day you start taking your first differential to the IMAGE drive and every day following, or whenever you need. As it a differential backup of a small system drive it very quick, kind of like a snapshot. You can take these frequently, preferably using the scheduler. It also good to take another full backup every week.

Restoring the system before the system has failed.

Soon as you have a differential backup, restore one to the SYSTEM2 drive. Restore will be quick also. Restore frequently using the scheduler to keep SYSTEM2 drive upto date with the system. You then have 2 system drives. So if the system drive fails anytime, SYSTEM2 is ready to go and take it's place. You can boot up the recently restored SYSTEM2 drive.

Now you in the Windows of SYSTEM2, you can now go ahead and restore the SYSTEM drive with a differential image as there is no personal data to recover, it all on D. Then boot off the SYSTEM drive again so you back to normal.

Switch between the drives by the boot device priority in the BIOS. There is a way to easily boot SYSTEM2 and SYSTEM drive by a boot manager stored on both drives MBR. The MBR survives 98% of the time.

 

markymoo
This is what I have been trying to do with drive snapshot and all my above posts around xmas time. I still can't do it, although today I found nearly the ultimate url for booting info. I'm sure you know it - www.multibooters.co.uk. Many people here want to create images, then boot from recovery disk/ufd when failure occurs. I say why? Always having another system drive instantly available is the way to go I think. But there is a big BUT, you can't have two HDs with the same disk signature at boot time or win7 will change one of them so they are different. So...how do you use drive snapshot to accomplish what you described above, assuming Win7, please tell so I can try it.

My problem seems to be explained on the multibooters site on the Vista cloning page. It says to "generalize" the BCD by editing it with the following

bcdedit /set {current} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {current} device boot
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot

The keywords are "current" and "boot". "Boot" means the HD which is now booting, and "current" means the GUID of the currently booting HD will be used instead of the GUID of the source HD during the imaging of the source. This change must be done before the imaging or cloning occurs, then the image/clone should boot instantly without any need of recovery disk fixes! I am going to try it. These changes will not affect the booting of the source HD either.

 

I'm in the image/restore camp. I've restored many images over the last 10 years but only a few were for HD failure. And I always had warning before the HD failed so I could be prepared to restore the image to another HD. If I had a prepared HD just waiting for the rare HD failure it would have been a "wasted" HD. Keeping a spare HD up to date is a lot more time consuming than creating images and people who do this invariably end up with an out of date backup. In addition, a spare HD is only one backup. With images you can have a multitude of backup generations.

 

And, desktop are obsolete by now for the home users. Even laptops will be obsolete within a decade or so and Net PC will take over. How many laptops have more than one drive!

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Hey guys, isn't this the "New Drive Snapshot build released" thread?

 

hahaha!

it looks like we got somewhat carried away!

 

First of all I haven't tested it but can get it to work. The basic idea is not new. I had in mind to do it before but several SATA drives would of been very expensive then.

Sorry due to typing out the lengthy post on my phone, I quickly ended with 'use a bootmanager' without more info on the matter. I surprised nobody spoke out that no drive will boot as the 2nd drive is a clone of the first. You have to make each one active, one at a time and hide other.

The guide was certainly not the solution for Windows 7 yet. I try and come up with a fix to the BCD.

Of course it not just for Windows that are broken fully but abit broken as well.

@tyee

Thank you for your post. Funnily enough the disk signature problem that I would have with the back and restore principle is the same problem you are having mentioned a few posts back. It might be possible to fix using the 7 tool bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd ran from Windows. It says it will scan all disks for Win7/Vista and fix. Repair disk definately works but is long winded like you say, you have to repair twice booting it twice. Doing it your way may best to boot the drive up on it's own to update the registry with the new signature.

edit:Yes it should work. Has to be done before imaging as you say. It creates a generic boot. I have another that works.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /set {current} device boot
bcdedit /set {current} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot

 

markymoo
Yes, people say it works but in my case I'm using a .vhd for Win7 so whether the word "boot" in the command line is enough for the boot manager to find the path to the .vhd is unlikely. Haven't had a chance to try it yet. Maybe I can just leave the path to the .vhd in the command line and hope that I can just use "{current}" or "{default}" portion to get it to work. Bootmanager should just replace "current" or "default" with the GUID of the HD that is trying to boot.

Here is what I entered initially to get my dual boot --

BCDEDIT /SET {default} DEVICE VHD=[C:]\VHD\Win7.VHD
BCDEDIT /SET {default} OSDEVICE VHD=[C:]\VHD\Win7.VHD
BCDEDIT /SET {default} DETECTHAL ON

Set up the legacy boot:

BCDEDIT /CREATE {ntldr} /d "Windows XP"
BCDEDIT /SET {ntldr} DEVICE PARTITION=C:
BCDEDIT /SET {ntldr} PATH \ntldr
BCDEDIT /DISPLAYORDER {ntldr} -ADDLAST

From the above it looks like "{default}" will not work because that's the way it is now I believe. I'll have to try {current} and see if that works.

 

V1.40.0.15405 was released

no changelog again

 

@tyee

I think installing a MBR boot manager, would ensure a higher chance of restore further. Not fullproof but with a MBR boot manager installed on both hard drives, a dual boot can still boot either drive if one MBR fails. A MBR boot manager has the opportunity to boot to USB quickly or other device if the BCD boot goes down. The BCD fails, it's reaching for the repair disk. Not using vhd, but can see benefits of fast creating disk images in Windows, stored off the internals with external restore possibilities. The virtualization is still a file to load and restore, but can't see it bring a better advantage over what i proposed for practical optimised backup.

The way i described is a serious contender now, because the hardware has overtaken the software more. Cheap, big, fast drives are available to better cope with the OS, resulting in faster backup and restore, not to mention SSD. The way i described entails, taking images often enough with Drive Snapshot. Restoring the secondary HD at frequent intervals, which is not a bind thanks to the scheduler. There is no excuse not keeping upto date. Even if secondary HD not kept upto date, either through lack of attention or no failed system for awhile. It can still be relied upon to restore the upto date image differentials, which would be faster than WinPE or any other way i can see. As system2 is already restored with recent differential, this would be quicker than DS's feature of restoring C from Windows.

 

markymoo
Yes, you make good points. What boot manager would you suggest?

Just some more info on my testing. I DID manage to get my drive snapshot image working, finally so I could boot into WinXP and Win7 vhd just like my source (main HD).

What I did was disconnect all bootable HDs except my imaged one, booted off the Win7 DVD, shift F10 to get command prompt, deleted then rewrote this part --

BCDEDIT /SET {default} DEVICE VHD=[C:]\VHD\Win7.VHD
BCDEDIT /SET {default} OSDEVICE VHD=[C:]\VHD\Win7.VHD
BCDEDIT /SET {default} DETECTHAL ON

Then I rebooted off the image and everything worked. When I rewrote the above I believe bcdedit grabbed the new GUID of the imaged HD.

BTW, I tried to enter {current} into the above instead of {default} but bcdedit would not allow it because I believe when booted off the Win7 dvd it does not consider {current} to actually exist. I think current has to be an already booted Win7 install on a real HD, so...my next test tonight is to boot into Win7 .vhd from my main HD and change {default} to {current}, reimage with DS, reboot into the imaged HD and have it work without any Win7 DVD editing. I will let you know.

 

New Drive Snapshot version 1.40.0.15419 is out !

As usual, no changelog with mystery changes.

 

After some testing, I have got 2 Win 7 drive clones, booting alongside one another. I cloned a SSD to a SATA.

I used the commands below, before imaging with Drive Snapshot all from Windows.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /set {current} device boot
bcdedit /set {current} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot

Another tool i tried was bcdboot.

I then restored the partition structure first, then restored the image. I recreated the alignment which wasn't needed for the SATA anyway. Drive Snapshot came up with cycling partition error 63, check boot. I assume this is the misalignment error, telling me partition not start at sector 63. Do i want to fix it? I click no. I do check boot' and it says unbootable. I ignore these errors.

I reboot and from a boot menu able to boot each drive up, both running together. Which is after having installed and configured the boot manager Plop, installed in the MBR of the first drive. The drives are both active and unhidden. I can access both in each Windows, due to seperate drive letters.