Please, fellows, refresh my memory

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by Acadia, Jan 26, 2007.

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  1. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    I've been out of it for a while, too busy. I know that some of you were experimenting using FD for the "instant" recovery and experimentation, but using other "imaging" programs in case of hard drive failure. Some of you, I remember, were experimenting with Acronis and some of you with Terabyte. I don't remember if any of you were experimenting with Ghost or any other true imaging programs.

    What is the "overall consensus" of this group? What works best with FD in case of complete hard drive failure?

    Thanks very much, guys,
    Acadia
     
    Acadia, Jan 26, 2007
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  2. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Acadia

    I am not sure it matters that much. I am assuming you have a current archive on another drive.

    If you have an old image that restores with FD installed and other snapshots, thats fine.

    If you have an image that restores, but doesn't restore the mbr, even though FDISR is installed you just have to enable the preboot.

    If you restore an image, or reinstall windows, then you have to install FDISR, and create a 2nd snapshot.

    Then in all cases you update from the archive to the snapshot.

    As programs:

    Shadowprotect gives you the option to either restore mbr,restore a fresh windows mbr or nothing. It also has option to restore track 0

    ATI, if memory serves me right gives choice to restore image mbr or not. I don't remember about track 0

    IFD/IFW Normally don't touch mbr or track 0 but can be induced to restore a new mbr

    Ghost I haven't a clue. I think 2003 was like IFD, but could with switches handle the mbr. Don't know about later versions.

    Acadia what I most like about Shadow Protect is I can torture the poor disk, and then when down do a restore with Shadow Protect and then it's like new. The reason it works so well is first thing I do when I restore is delete the volume. I then have to repartition the drive which SP will do from the data in the image.

    Hope this helps.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Jan 26, 2007
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  3. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    Acadia,

    ATI restores the partition and the MBR separately or together.
    I always restore both and ATI never failed on me since march 2006.
    You can also restore one or more single files, if necessary.

    I don't really have a preference. As long ATI likes my total system and does a good job, I will keep on using it, because I paid for it.
    I'm certainly not a fan of ATI, because it still can be improved.
    Instead of correcting these things, Acronis keeps on adding new features, which is IMO not a good policy.

    If I was you I would trial ShadowProtect first, like Peter suggested.

    One thing is important : you have to test the RESTORATION, otherwise you will never learn to trust your image backup software. :)
     
    ErikAlbert, Jan 27, 2007
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  4. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Peter and Erik, thanks, I had never even heard of ShadowProtect, must be a fairly new product, or I've been out of the loop longer than I thought. So, have you guys used SP with FD both on your system at the same time? If so, they play nicely together? (No fighting over the MBR?) Thank you!

    Acadia
     
    Acadia, Jan 27, 2007
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  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi again Acadia

    They do play very well together. SP is mainly in the enterprise market, made by Storagecraft(Shadowuser folks) A rep does monitor and respond on the forum(grnxnm). No MBR issues, but there is one issue right now if you install the desktop version of SP. I ran into a bug with FDISR set to use VSS(which I didn't like), and when SP was installed(it does use VSS) FDISR did some peculiar things. Not good things. However when I reset FDISR back to RSS, all was well. No conflicts.

    ShadowProtect has been rock solid, and I've done some torture testing with my disks and it has come thru fine. For example I shrank the partition size in half and inadvertandly left the partition at the end of the disk, with the unallocated space at the front. This was with FDISR installed. System wouldn't boot. Gee, what a surprise. Did a restore with SP and all was well and working, including FDISR. I've done other stuff equally bad.

    Key with SP is deleting the complete volume prior to restore, and letting it repartition from the image.

    Hope this helps.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Jan 27, 2007
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  6. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    wilbertnl, Jan 27, 2007
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  7. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    wilbertnl, have you used Paragon with FD at the same time? Thanks for the link.

    Acadia
     
    Acadia, Jan 27, 2007
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  8. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Ok, guys, here's your dumb question of the day. If your hard drive went kaput, and you had to reinstall a new hard drive, and reinstall Windows and FirstDefense, I suppose that there is no way that you could get FD to read an old Archived Snapshot, is there? I have never heard of such a thing, but boy, if it somehow could be made to do so, that would solve everything. All that you would need to do is install Windows SP1, then FD, then restore your old system from the Snapshot which would have SP2 and the rest of your system! :doubt:

    Acadia
     
    Acadia, Jan 27, 2007
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  9. tobacco

    tobacco Frequent Poster

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    As long as it's only a hard drive replacement, yes it will work.
     
    tobacco, Jan 27, 2007
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  10. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    But how would you get the newly installed FirstDefense to see an old Archived Snapshot that the new install would not have created?

    Acadia
     
    Acadia, Jan 27, 2007
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  11. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    Not yet, but I will test this combination and get back to you on this.
    Yes, that is exactly how you would restore existing FD-ISR archives in a newly installed hard drive.
     
    wilbertnl, Jan 27, 2007
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  12. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Does the newly installed FirstDefense on the newly installed harddrive see those old archived Snapshots? If that is the case, I am not even going to bother looking for an imaging program, why would you even need one? Are you guys sure about this? How would you get the fresh install of FD to see those things?

    Thanks for all the help, guys.

    Acadia
     
    Acadia, Jan 27, 2007
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  13. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    Assuming that you stored the archives on an second or external hard drive. Or on DVD.
    If your archives were stored on the default drive, which became defect, then you are not able to restore them.
     
    wilbertnl, Jan 27, 2007
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  14. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Acadia

    You would just go into the options>Archives and they would be there. I have archives on a 2nd internal drive and on an external USB drive. FDISR only see's one set at a time based on where that setting says the archive is.

    I have restored an image taken back when I first had FDISR on it. No snapshots, no archives. Just FDISR installed. I just point it at the archive location. I have a full archive, and just a very basic one. I use the basic one and create a 2nd snapshot, then boot to that snapshot, and refresh the primary from the full archive. Boot back and that as they say is that. Works like a champ.

    Why image?? Because I can restore an image in 5 minutes. The other procedure takes a bit longer.

    Layers baby, it's all about layers.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Jan 27, 2007
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  15. wilbertnl

    wilbertnl Registered Member

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    Well, I just finished this test with Paragon Drive Backup Personal Edition 8.0:

    Code:
    1. Installed FD-ISR 1.20 build 201 (beta).
2. Created 4 snapshots.
3. Installed Paragon Drive Backup 8.0.
4. Took image of system partition and MBR + first track.
5. Restored to an older OEM image.
6. Installed PDB-8.0 again.
7. Restored the image that I took in step 4.
8. Verified that all snapshots boot errorfree.
    With the upcoming 1.20 release MBR concerns are history. ATI does install it's own MBR, Paragon Drive Backup does NOT.
    Unfortunately, there are issues with the latest update of PDB 8.5 that are not related to FD-ISR. I need to contact tech support for that.

    It's the debate between convenience and requirement. Would you not agree? :)
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2007
    wilbertnl, Jan 27, 2007
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  16. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Acadia

    I am now at liberty to give you a bit more info, that in a way does tie into ShadowProtect and First Defense. I got involved with testing of Shadowprotect because of the Nvidia Raid 0 drive problem. What I've been testing is the HIR(hardware independent Restore) function. In essence I've been imaging one desktop and restoring the image on the other. While simliar they still are quite different. I even took an image of my Pentium 4 laptop with it's promise raid, and restored it on the nvidia based duocore. The objective of this is to just really get the system's to boot, so you can then get the appropriate graphic's, audio drivers installed. Even booting with the laptop image, I was able to get a working machine. Rough mind you, but working.

    During all this First Defense was active on machine when imaged, and still active when restored on a different machine. Booting between snapshots was bumpy because off all the new hardware found messages, but it did work.

    If FDISR could survive this, then regular imaging and restores are a piece of cake, which indeed they have been.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Jan 28, 2007
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