Rollback91 and Hot Imaging

Aaron,

As an aside you can run lots of exe files from the Win7 DVD. Both IFW and DS run in this environment.

 

That doesn't do me any good Brian - both my desktop and laptop are still running WinXP Pro (and quite well I might add).

Thanks anyway,
Aaron

 

Aaron,

Same here. WinXP is my most used OS.

But a Win7 DVD (has to be 32 bit) can be used as a WinPE disk. It works whether you have Win98, WinXP or either of the Win7 OS. So you could run DS from a Win7 DVD (if you had one) and image/restore your WinXP system.

 

Don't have one, nor do I see getting one over the near future. As you must know, DS does me just fine from my WinPE flash-drive outside of Windows. I'll just wait for Mark to complete his testing and development to see if he is able to pull-off RB hot-imaging using DS (that would be the the very best solution afaic)!

Aaron

 

You can run IFW fine from PEXP. I just copied my Terabyte folder from the system partition to another drive, before i wiped it and accessed it from WinPE. There is a XPPE plugin for IFW in the Terabyte folder, which can auto start IFW on boot.

With a very basic PEXP used for recovery, you have to ensure, all the hard drives you will be using are available. If not, then you need to include the right drivers.

I have switched to VirtualBox by Oracle for testing. This software is the best. Much better than VMware, Windows 7 virtualpc.

 

Thats good to hear Mark, but I'm really looking forward to your DS hot-image test results!

Aaron

 

Originally Posted by Aaron Here
From Tom Ehlert (re Drive Snapshot v1.4):

Panagiotis,

I sent-off another email to Tom Ehlert asking for confirmation of what was told to me in their first email (above) and here is the reply (verbatim):

Panagiotis, did you use a recent version of DS in your tests?

Aaron

 

Hi Aaron,

Yes, for the tests I downloaded DS from the Drive Snapshot site, just before performing them.
First I took an image with DS. Then filled the sectors LBA1-LBA62 with ones, and after that I restored the mbr and the partition structure. The sectors LBA0-LBA31 were restored in both cases, but LBA32-LBA62 remained untouched (I could still the 01s).
The test was performed with win7 64bit.

Panagiotis

 

About the "hot" Imaging of RBRx (should work with every imaging that allows raw).

-Download BootIce.
When you backup:
-Use BootIce to backup your real track0 (63 sectors) from a bartPE, WinPE, etc.(process mbr -> backup mbr -> 63 sectors) to a file, e.g. "RBRx mbr.bin".*
-From inside the OS enviroment with RBRx running do the same but give it a different name it as "Original mbr.bin".*
*those steps are needed only once. If you modify your partitions with RollbackRX installed you should repeat them.
-Create a raw hot image with the imaging program of your preference.

When you restore from a bartpe,winpe,etc. enviroment:
-Use BootIce to restore the Sector0 from the file "Original mbr.bin".
-Restore the Image.
-Now restore again the Sector0 from the file "RBRx mbr.bin".
-Reboot your machine.

ps.before trying it for the first time, take a raw from ouside windows just in case...

Panagiotis

 

Panagiotis, would you please contact them (DS) re your test results and ask for an explanation (in that it contradicts their replies to me)!

I would appreciate your doing that and it would help to resolve this matter.

Aaron

 

Aaron,

I did a slightly different test from Panagiotis but confirmed his result.

I marked LBA-60 and then created a DS image. Next, Track 0 was zeroed with MBRWork. The DS image was restored and at different times I tried both MBR restore options. LBA-60 was no longer marked.

 

Honestly, isn't the method described above more of an effort than simply doing a raw backup of the RB partition from outside of Windows?

Aaron

 

I don't think so. You don't have to shut down the computer each time you want to create an image and boot into BartPE etc and run through the image menu. In Windows the image can be created automatically and you can continue to use your computer.

Others have suggested you only need one backup of the offline Track 0.

 

I done same test with DS and RBRX with success. I write program to automate it, that only needs to be run once.

I revised,updated Drive Snap for today. Now covers more options to replace MBR and track which don't rely on DS. Which means, not have to rely on DS restore MBR features if not want. They are very few recovery imaging, programs that have these features togehter,in fact i don't know any. They are:

restore whole MBR which replaces the first 512bytes(1 sector).

restore bootstap of MBR. The first 446 bytes. This is a repair, which also boots a Windows 7.

restore bootstrap,signature of MBR but not the partition table.

restore first 63 sectors, 0-62.

restore first 63 sectors, minus the partition table only.

restore sector 1 to 62. minus sector 0

restore sector of your choice by input box.
restore range of sectors by input box.

restore partition table only.

restore disk signature.

Copy sector to another sector location.

O

So if you just wanted to restore certain parts without damaging other parts, now you can.



The first track is now automatically saved to a file before taking a DS image. So all the restore options above are available. All tracks avre kept in a seperate folder and DSnap knows which track belongs to which drive, partition and so any track can be restored with any image. vove

 

Mark,

Those choices are awesome!

 

That method covers all the versions of RollbackRX from 7 to the lastest 9.1.
And it has to do more with:
a) the command/setting of Rollback that hides all the partitions of the hard disk when accessed outside the Rollback Enviroment.
b) your test of zeroing the entire drive (with RBRX 9.1 you'll have to restore only the "RBRx mbr.bin" and then proceed with restoring the image).
c) if you have installed rollbackRX and selected to protect a disk with multiple partitions and not only the C: .

If you use the latest RollbackRX with the default settings (I mean the advanced settings in the preboot enviroment), you only have to take a hot raw image from inside the OS, and then restore the image from the recovery disk. There is absolutly no need to update/restore neither the mbr nor the track0. After restoring, RollbackRX will warn you that the system was not shutdown properly, perform it's check and after that will continue booting in windows without any problem (all the snapshots even the current one remain intact).

ps. I tested it with "Image For Windows", "Drive Sansphot" and "DriveImage XML".

Panagiotis

 

Few of those options are in there already. Maybe overkill with new options but i can see some extra are needed as discussed.

i am making it cross compatible with IFW images so will be more awesome. Double the backup and restore protection.

You don't have to use backup and restore track features with DS but can be used for and with anything.

 

Brian,

Please take a moment to email DS to relate your findings. Something is wrong here.

Aaron

 

Brian, I think it is more of a hassle if I have to do 2-restores (MBR and the partition). Admittedly, I have to shutdown (actually, a restart) to do my PE-Raw backup, but I restore by simply intiating it with DS inside Windows and let DS do its auto-restart.

Panagiotis, I use two RB versions, v7.2.1 on my laptop and v9.1 on my desktop, the reason being that I've had a v7.2.1 license for years and as I still use WinXP (on both PCs) I see no reason to upgrade it to v9.1 (v7.2.1 has been working great). Several months ago I bought another RB license for my desktop and got v9.1 as it was the current version, but fwiw I like v7.2.1 better (on WinXP of course)!


Aaron

 

@Panagiotis

Excellent testing all throughout. are you now advocating hot imaging for RB?

Are you also advocating taking a image with a unlocked drive for the masses or just notice from testing and observations? I am thinking from a simple joe bloggs laymans perspective, a concise way of making it easier. eg. If mentioned backing up MBR 3 years ago, the army of Acronis users would of been turned off completlyy.

I neever concerned myself too much withn drive lock as the image software always got a lock using VSS. rthank you for explanations. if i used certain av they complain in past long ago but imaging software improved so much in last 5 years.

There is good help on Terabyte site on lock and particularly Phylock. www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=050

 

There is a option in Rollback, that you should turn off as the number of snapshots created gets out of control. It is ,make a snapshot on restart when rollback to another',. Can be found in settings. untick it. Also turn off schedule snapshot as well. y

A couple of reboots and i had another 4 snapshots appear since last time checking!.

If you manually take a snapshot, you don't need it.

 

@Aaron,

I can't contact them directly. My version was a gift from my brother in law, so I'm not a registered user. But, I'll ask him to send them a report.

Thanks for the kind words.

Actually, after finishing the tests, I'm not (only exception is IFW and Phylock). If one wants to image RollbackRX from inside windows is better to do it raw on an unlocked drive with the VSS or other hot imaging technologies disabled (and better disable the exclusion of pagefile, hibernation, etc.).

The reasoning behind this, is on how the programs use hot imaging and raw.
If during the restore, the program restores as the main file system (visible from outside) the system that was taken from inside of the current snapshot, instead of the baseline snapshot, even if it correctly restores all the sectors, the restore will become corrupted*.

*One example is with DriveImage XML.
When I used it with vss hot imaging, it created an image of 9 gb. And the restore was a corrupted RBRx enviroment.
When I disabled vss, and took another raw on the unlocked drive, it created an image of 2.1gb and then succesfully restored it.

I agree, especially in the last year almost all the imaging programs that I tested performed extremly well. Nowadays is hard to find one that is not up to the job.

ps. when can we see some screenshots from the new snap?
Panagiotis

 

@Panagiotis,
Sure you can. They won't check to see whether or not you are registered. Besides, they even entertain comments/questions from trial users!


@Mark,
Me thinks you should consider changing the name of your app from 'Drive Snap' to 'Image Snap' as that's more brand-generic and your slogan can be "making image backup a snap". That will cost you a free copy!

Aaron

 

Then I'll contact them tomorrow.

By the way, do you know how to disable hot imaging (and the exclusion of the pagefile and hibernation) on DS? They are features that you'll need if you want to make a 100% safe raw from the OS RBRx enviroment.

Panagiotis

 

Hi Panagiotis,

I believe those files are auto-excluded, but to make sure why not ask that as well when you contact them.

It's bed-time in my part of the world...

Aaron