Partial imaging

Hi,
I am considering performing a partial image of my C: partition that hosts 3 snapshots (including the currently booted one). I have Drive snapshot that can image C: while excluding some folders. I consider excluding \$ISR\1 and \$ISR\2.
In case of a major problem, if I restore every file but those from these folders, will my system still work ? Other snapshots will be lost but it's not a problem.

I guess I will have to disable pre-boot also for the time where the imaging takes place.

Thanks for your advice.

 

Yes, system will work after restore and can be booted back to the saved snapshots.

Be careful which $ISR subfolders you exclude/delete: as I recall Todd or Peter posted previously that the 'numbering' conventions in FDISR for the snapshot folders was ..ahh..somewhat fluid... and not always corresponding to the 'order' of snapshots created or booted or listed.

Ie: you could exclude or delete something you did not mean to.
Sorry, I cant find the specific post
Can't even recall how to check which is which in the $ISR directory.

Pete's suggestion may be a good one

Pete..?

 

Thanks, I see what you mean, I am so used to imaging and quite a "rookie" FD-ISR user that I tend to complicate things.

One point though : If I have only one snapshot, and it gets corrupted, I cannot restore my system with the archives (that are on another partition for the moment). ?

 

Yes, $ISR\n numbering changes depending on which snapshot you're booted to, so be very careful with this. To explore these snapshots unfettered:

1) Open a "cmd" shell and
2) navigate to the directory c:\$ISR\$APP\setup
3) enter the command "isrservice -stop"
4) the whole $ISR\n structure is now revealed for browsing with explorer
[BY NO MEANS MESS WITH THESE FOLDERS UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU DO AND HAVE THE WHOLE THING IMAGED]
5) when done, restore ISR function\protection from the same directory with the command "isrservice -start"

 

No, you probably will have no FD-ISR functionality at all. That's why I keep an image offline, in addition to on the system partition, which is snapshot of a bare bones Windows installation (as Peter suggested) with only FD-ISR added to it.

If your whole drive is trashed, just wipe the system partition and restore that one simple image. Once you boot into that, you have leveraged yourself to where you can now pick up archives from offline or another drive and restore and use whichever you like. The smaller and simpler that stripped down snapshot is, the quicker you'll have a fully functional FD-ISR system to rebuild from.

My "bootstrap" image, as I call it, is about 4 GB but I'm sure you could get that down in size significantly by cutting out some unessential Windows components (I can't give specifics of that off top of my head, but there are whole websites devoted to that art).

 

Merleone , You can effectively use either fd-isr or imaging, Using both them makes things clumsy.Fd-isr will make always make imaging redundant(practically).I prefer imaging for ordinary purposes and use fd-isr for multiple confg.You can make either choice.Anyway having image is more important.I am also looking for imaging with Ds with Fd-isr on.

 

with the fast cpu's and disks nowadays and DS or SP to do the imaging,it make FDISR almost redundant,and what Eric Albert always used to say in that instant recovery solutions are a luxury but imaging is a necessity.
Its your last resort if everything fail.

 

I more simply open the "FirstDefense-ISR Control" and input "LIST".

Then with that listing I can open a dedicately apted file manager, like the old free YXplorer, to go and browse there to my heart content, even copying & moving files and folders always without any negative impact on FD-ISR's snapshots integrity, never. But, it's only me.

 

Although I'm no stranger to the DOS prompt -> cmd shell, I never spent much time using the control interface, other than reading about it in the help file a few years back. So, I was unaware of the usefulness of "list".

As for Yxplorer, never heard of that either.

Working at deeper levels than the $ISR\n folders is less riskier I guess if you have a tool that gives you access and I can keep it in mind.

My main concern, though, had to do with the risks of not properly identifying snapshot numbers and making bulk manipulations of FD-ISR's own structure.

I can see, however, that "list" is quite a convenient and direct means of identifying the snapshot numbers.

 

Thanks to you and all those who also answered. I finally decided to make one full without excluding anything because of the risks mentioned. I understand that imaging is a reliable solution, better in case of one config vs multi-config with FD-ISR. However, even if I will mostly use a single config mode, I like the instant recovery, so I'll probably keep using it, and perform full image every 6 months or so.