ShadowProtect Desktop 3 is out...

Ok, Ok, Thanks

 

Having waited for months, I was delighted to learn the Vista-compatible version of ShadowProtect was finally released. I just downloaded and installed the trial version of SP v3. Several seconds after commencing a backup image of my C drive, my new Vista PC experienced its first BSOD. There were some ominous warning messages, the system shutdown then restarted, and my normally-silent PC issued a terrible noise unlike anything I'd ever heard.

Apparently, there's a conflict between ShadowProtect and some other software on my PC, possibly Seagate DiscWizard (a stripped down version of Acronis True Image v10). I rebooted into a different FirstDefense-ISR snapshot to erase any trace of SP. Having read so many glowing reports about ShadowProtect, I was looking forward to seeing how it worked for myself. Since I hope to never hear that godawful sound from my PC again, I think I'll pass on any further experimentation. I've experienced plenty of software conflicts but never one as extreme, and loud, as this one.

 

Does anyone have ATI & SP on the same box / partition?

...screamer

 

Did some restores tonight...

Hard drive based went totally as expected. (Setup listed in post #37.) Time? 5 minutes and 15 seconds. A bit faster than version 2 was. Very cool!

DVD was a bit different. While it did appear to restore drive C, it apparently would not restore the MBR. I tried 4 times from 2 different images. 3 times under the recommended (Vista) environment and 1 under the legacy version (which BTW, took MUCH longer to run than the Vista version.) The error message I received each time was "Failed to restore MBR! Continue the volume restoration?" (To be clear, the restoration did continue (and finish) all 4 times.)

With this all said, it makes me wonder if the DVD imaging/burning routine really does support MBR restoration, even though the option is listed in the restore environment? I very briefly looked through the version 3 SP Desktop User Guide and didn't find anything.

grnxnm, any thoughts? (I have not went to Storage Craft support yet.)

 

While working on a new system and its software installation, an attempt that I'd made at merging some software from a previous system did not produce the desired results. Because I'd installed SP Desktop 3 immediately after the initial XP install... and because I'd made a couple of full backups at various point... I decided that it was time to see how easily a restore operation would go.

Now I must admit that my first inclination was to restore to another hard drive, test it and to then image that to the NVIDIA Raid-0 array... but seriously... if I won't trust the software, then I really shouldn't be using it to begin with. So I initialized the array and began the recovery process. I clicked to start the process and turned to find my cup of coffee. Returning to the system, I continued wait... and wait... and WAIT. At some point, I actually began to read the information on the display before me and saw the word "COMPLETED". In the short couple of minutes that I'd used to chase down some coffee, it had already completed. 9.5GB in 2M/11s. Not just nice... but VERY NICE!!

I've owned my own computer store for 20 years. I've seen so many things over so long a period of time that I can't even remember when the last time some new piece of software was worth much more than the raise of an eyebrow. All I can say is that I'm glad it was after midnight so no one was around to see me hooting and hollering and dancing around the shop! This is some very good stuff!!

Jim

 

Yes I had ATI & SP in the same box under winXPproSP2 and they don't like eachother.
My computer suddenly rebooted while I was doing a backup with SP and it happened regularly, not just one time and without any error message, no BSOD, nothing, just a reboot.
First I thought it was SP, but after uninstalling ATI completely, everything was back to normal.
At least one member at Wilders had the same experience, but I don't remember his name.

 

Hi Jim, Welcome on board ! A question,did you restore the system part. with the recovery disk,or you restored just a data partition from within windows ?
I admit restore time is amasing compared with vers. 2,but from other members their experiences i read,recovery times are just a LITTLE faster.It would be nice if you already had vers. 2,so you could compare,But as you said its a new rig so its not possible

 

Thanks for the Welcome! Been lurking and learning... some very talented folks have been willing to discuss, challenge and be challenged with their ideas. I have learned much!

I did a Volume Restore from the CD. I did note one interesting item, however. Before electing to move directly to the main Raid-0 array (138GB), I did ask the software to look at an 80GB drive. This would have more than enough size for the 9.5GBs of the image. SP insisted, however, that the image was 138GB and disallowed access to the smaller drive for not having enough available storage.

This raises an issue of concern - If my primary had been a 750GB drive(s) and the entire data population of the drive was only 100GBs. I'd have hoped (and expected) that I could use a smaller drive (say a 120GB) as a restore destination. This would allow me a quick return to operation while I pursued a larger replacement. I'm now wondering if there was another option available to me that I didn't notice.

I have both SP 2.5 and 3.0 but had only used the 2.5 in trial mode for backups. If time allows later in the week, I might try them both and note difference in image sizes and backup/restore times...

Jim

 

Hey Jim,at time of backup,did you cover free space included in the backup,if so SP always calculate the destination space against backup space,if they don't match,SP fire up the message.Its mostly useless to backup freespace,you get an image with lots of air so to speak.But its my guess,maybe the Gurus can jump in.

 

As I recall, the default was to NOT save free space. The complete image was only 4 GBs.

Jim

 

Thanks Erik, I'll uninstall ATI if I get the eval. of SP ver.3

...screamer

 

You might keep your ATI-backup-files and use the Acronis Rescue CD to recover your system, just in case you are in trouble with SP.
But you have to uninstall ATI under Windows.

 

@HAN & Pete

Thanks guys for brining this issue to my attention. We're working on it. When the fix is available for this you'll need to download a new ISO for the recovery enviornment. This issue will only affect those users who experience it and who have custom MBR code (such as FD-ISR users). For the rest of you with the default MBR code already in place on the MBR you won't experience any issue (you may see the error to restore MBR, but your system will still boot after restore because the MBR code is already there). For those of you who experience this issue and have a blank code-section in your MBR prior to restore, you can use mbrfix.exe in the Windows installer recovery mode to patch a blank MBR code section. I anticipate we'll have a fix for this within a few days. Sorry about that. It's an unfortunate truth that no software is perfect. We try to mitigate that fact by responding quickly to such issues. Thanks again!

 

I am one of those that uses FD-ISR. Will you please let us know when the new update is availalbe? I just purchased 1 license 2 days ago and am considering more after some additional testing with HIR...which did not work yesterday on a test. I could have very well done some things in the wrong order, or it could be some king of a bug. I was restoring from a newer Dell laptop to an older one with different video and network cards. I will keep experimenting as time permits.

Silver

 

Yup, I'll keep you posted.

 

Peter, does it mean that if I image my C partition/ drive( 10 Gb with 4 GB of data) and later on want to restore the image to a smaller C partition/ drive( say 6GB), SP will not let me do this?

Thanks

 

This MBR issue thingie for FD-ISR users, is it a non-issue for those of us still using the old version of SP? Thanks.

Acadia

 

I wonder why SP has no such feature, I feel far less impressed now. ATI has this feature since long.

 

Agree!