O&O DiskImage 6 released today

Could you tell me how to test it ? That is how to be sure VSS is activated while imaging. I am running the trial version right now but don't know where to look. Thanx

 

Sure...what do you mean by tell you how to test it? Outside of your question about not installing the O&O driver, are you having an overall issue getting an image job setup?

 

The backup works fine, but I want to be sure that there is no inconsistency in the image file, and this is quite difficult to detect.

 

Did you run the validate image option? You can do it after the fact as well. Ultimately, doing a test restore on a machine you can afford to do this on is the best way. When I test a restore I always image it with another imager as a backup of the backup...for me, it's either DS, SP, or IFL as all have been reliable.

 

No I didn't, but I am not sure it would prove anything, just that the structure of the image is correct. Even a restore is no proof, only a bit per bit comparison of source/image could show it's ok, and since the source changed since the backup, I don't know if this can be done afterwards.

 

You might be correct...that's partially why I like offline images, as verification right after backup would be more accurate (actually, TB's products - in my opinion - do a true validation).

 

I agree. A validation only checks that the image has not changed since it was created.

I usually create offline or "cold" images, but I thing hot images are generally reliable. Otherwise, the problems would be known and the procedure would not be used anymore. The MS program built-in in Windows 7 only creates hot images (using VSS, I suppose), and it seems to be very reliable (although is slow and it creates very large images).

And I have never encountered "inconsistency" problems in Windows after having successfully restored an image.

 

Well said Robin A. Have you tried the DiskImage 6 release? I think you looked at the Beta, right?

 

for some reason i can not get jobs to start running in this versioni set them for a specific time each day for testing and the job never runs?? anyone have this issue?? works fine if i run the job manually.

also does anyone know if there is a way to only save x amount of images with this. meaning like sets of them like what shadow protect and macrium do save say 3 weeks of jobs...

i have a customer that bought version 6 and is asking me to set it up and i own version 5 and i can not seem to get this one to work for incremental jobs... thanks

edit i got the full backups working but not the incrementals yet for some reason. is there any link to get the buildpe or the full iso as a trial user.. why do they let you test image software and you have no way to restore the backups lol... i want to add this to my image testing and i have no way to test a restore against the others?? lol... this customer of mine owns it but i can not use there copy as im sure thats against the terms ...

 

Hi,
I found something else : when I select the option "prefer external USB drives" as destination or something like that, O&O DI6 crashes as soon as I click on the green button (bottom right) to select a destination. When I remove the setting, I get the normal destination requester.

 

I would let support know about the USB crash issue...might be a bug given that the software is new. I can test this out myself later tonight.

 

As far as I know, there is no way to get the WinPE without actually buying it. If you run it by them (your particular case) they might help you out. They are pretty flexible sometimes. Let me know how it goes!

 

yeah i got the winpe disc now. my concern is this program takes FOREVER to make a incremental backup. anyone figured out how to speed that up?? otherwise i like it.

 

I think someone posted something a few days ago where the manual calls this out...it was this ("image of the changes" cited below is their term for an incremental):

"Note: O&O DiskImage compares each sector of the existing image with the corresponding sector of the imaged (source) disk while creating an image of the changes. This might take up some more time than a complete image. However, the image of the changes takes up much less space than a complete image."

NOTE: It was Robin A. who first posted this in this thread...#12.

 

yeah but this is RIDICULOUSLY slow for a incremental. i have never used a program as slow making one. it took under 8min for a full backup on this machine for testing and the incremental took almost 16min!!!?? thats crazy. but yeah i got a test lic from them for the winpe disc

 

I know a few people on here have mentioned the slow incremental times. I only do fulls, so I haven't seen it myself (and by the sound of it, I am glad I haven't!). Too bad though. Liking it otherwise? I like the additional tools on the WinPE.

 

imo the active@ boot disk is the best out.. but this is much better than most others like macrium etc.. overall its a decent program with a lot of feature but some important ones lacking. if the incrementals were faster id recc it alot more. they def made a improvement over v5 and the new interface is much better though quirky at times. it uses less ram than v5 and also actually releases ram upon exit unlike the last version. overall not bad

 

Incrementals are often slower than a full backup. It's my only real complaint with this software but a big one. Why can Acronis do it in a fraction of the time? It takes an hour and a half to back up my drive. Incremental takes up to 2 hours. Acronis can do an incremental in less than 5 minutes. I wish O&O would learn how to do that. Or Acronis would make a more stable product (problems with them are not related to incrementals).

 

Well said. I have support for mine...I'll mention it and see what they say.

 

I made a test. My results are not so extreme:

Base image created on 19-08-2011 with v.6 beta, on an external USB 2.0 disk, Size: 11.3 GB. Time: 7:15 min.

Differential created on 22-09-2011 with v. 6, on the same disk, after making many changes to the partition and defragmenting it. Size: 9.9 GB. Time: 16:13 min.

Both images were created from the WinPE disk.

 

Sure, but everytime I report something to them, it's never their fault, it's either my PC, my OS, etc. They are very quick to reject the blame, so now I don't report anything to them right away, save for forums like here, which help see if I am alone to experience it.

 

Hi, I think I have an anwser for the VSS activation. Before launching an imaging job, when I type "vssadmin list shadows" from a cmd command line, I get the info that no shadow copy exists. When the image is being created, the same command line says there is one shadow copy active. So I guess this is the answer, O&O does use VSS when its proprietary snapshot component is not installed.

I would be close to perfection if :
- incrementals were faster
- filenaming was handled less manually
- the interface for creating an incremental was less confusing (there are 2 locations where you specify the base image, in the main GUI window and in the settings, and you can select different files. In that case, which one is really the base image...
etc.

 

Nice...good call on the VSS. Yes it's not perfect, but for me (and my testing) it works great. I can tell you right now if I was doing incrementals I would likely use something else...HAHA.

 

zfactor,

I have a similar problem with running a job on a specific time each day (manual jobs work ok).

Did you find a solution to this problem?

(win 7 64-bit)

 

Does this program properly align partitions on a SSD during restore?