Rollback/Snapshot Question

Do all rollback programs (such as Rollback RX, Farstone RestoreIt, Keriver 1-Click Restore, etc.) depend on the use of VSS? Also, can the "backup" be stored on an external HDD instead of a system drive partition?

I'm very interested in one of these programs but have a couple of limitations on my Windows XP SP3 system. My volume shadow copy no longer works properly and my hard drive is quite small(80GB), but I have a 1TB and a 2TB usb HDD.

 

I wouldn't use an external drive for such softwares. It only takes one incident where the drive isn't available (disconnected, power is off, etc) to screw the whole thing up.

As for your VSS problem, did you use Microsoft's Fix-It tool? It solved my VSS issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/

 

Have you figured out why VSC doesn't work on your system? Is the VSC service running?

Regarding the external disks you could always remove one of them from its enclosure and install it in your chassis instead, replacing your existing disk. You could use a bootable backup app to clone your existing system partition to it and then use a bootable partition manager to extend your system partition on the new disk to a desired size. The size would depend on how much stuff you anticipate to install in the future.

Remember that using RX on a huge partition might slow things down in the future. Personally I have assigned 91GB for my system partitions on my two systems that have HDDs, and dedicated the rest of their space to logical partitions. I install most large stuff (like games or large software suites) to my other disks and I don't keep any movies or music on C, so 91GB is enough for my needs.

 

Hi Tom,

1. K1CR is not a rollback program in the same sense as the others mentioned. K1CR is a disk-imaging program.

2. I believe most, if not all of the rollback (ISR) programs use proprietary drivers and not VSS.

3. Speaking only for RollBack Rx and its clones, snapshots are kept on the system partition. No other location is possible.

4. This may be of help in repairing your malfunctioning VSS if MS' Fix-It Tool doesn't do it.

5. Based on my experience, I strongly suggest a dependable disk-imaging program over a potentially problematic rollback program!

TS

 

I would suggest both together. The snapshot program for quick and easy recovery and the imaging program for those times when the snapshot program fails (all programs fail sometimes and that includes imaging programs, so having a two, or more, pronged defence strategy is the best way to go.)

 

+1. I always take full sector-by-sector backups of all my RX protected partitions, which were taken with bootable Acronis outside Windows (so no need for VSC).

 

First try to fix your VSS. If the above methods fail a Repair Install will do the job.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978788/en-us

For your disk I would first try the combination of 1 Click restore a must if you don't have an imaging program and Sysrestore.
Panagiotis

 

I'm curious about your evaluation of SysRestore since this software seems to be relatively new.

I've done my evaluation of RestoreIT which went great, but I'm not too sure about their lack of support, lack of a forum, controlled Facebook presence, etc. FarStone seems to fear to display direct customer interaction. So I'm interested in evaluating SysRestore.

Has it been a positive experience for you so far?

 

Barry,

I see that comment from time to time. I've restored many thousands of images and I've never seen a failed restore. I just expect my restores to work.

 

I used to use Acronis True Image and I had many failed restores. Fortunately I took many images and I would just keep going further back until I found one that worked. It was a scary time I can tell you. Thats when I went to a roll-back program (Roxio Go-Back) as a way to avoid needing to trust only on an image. Not sure about what I am using now (DRive Cloner and Paragon) since I have not had to do a single restore since I began using Rx.

 

I had enough failures with ATI 2012 to not trust it as much as I trust politicians. Previous versions worked great, but 2012 is rotten beyond the core.

 

I have seen the same issue mostly with clients who had made the mistake of backing up directly to DVDs. They thought that they had a valid backup which was verified OK at the time of creation; but when they tried to restore a couple of years later some of their discs had gone bad, and the whole set was useless.

The only times I've seen Acronis failing to verify a backup created on a hard disk, was when high or maximum compression had been used. Often those backups had also been moved around from disk to disk.

I currently have three copies of each of my backups stored on two different disks plus on Verbatim BD-RW media (not burned directly, I just copied the existing HDD backups to the discs with ImgBurn, then verified it). I verify all of my backus for errors once every few months, just in case.

But it is also true about the usefulness of rollback apps. Since I have been using CTM and RX I haven't had the need to restore a full backup for ages.

 

In my case I was imaging to an external hard drive. I have never stored an image on DVDs. Admittedly this was a fair number of years ago so hopefully things have improved but I did learn not to trust one solution alone. It was a good lesson to learn.

 

On xp that I tested it for a few hours worked fine (it uses a similar technology with RestoreIt).
On a windows 7 64bit it gave me some BSODs and wouldn't recommend it, (at least until they release a more stable 64 driver.

Panagiotis