Symantec System Recovery 2013 SP2 Released!

Symantec System Recovery 2013 Service Pack 2 Released

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH214768


Symantec System Recovery 2013 Readme:

http://kbdownload.symantec.com/reso..._=1393026075_15196c7fd6adacf7f63d5b9b2c8df40c

Highlights:
Native 64-bit support
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 support
Backup support for UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface)-based computers

 

Such a slow release for Windows8.1 and complete UEFI support. Big firms are always too slow to respond to new computer hardware features.
The product itself is solid imo.

 

spoke too soon.

Installed x64 version of SSR and tried to create a customized Boot ISO. The process completed - appeared to be successful. However, it left 2.4GB of temp files that could not be deleted even after the SSR program was uninstalled and rebooted. The name of the folder is SymSrdTemp.

Right click the Windows folder in Wimcontent folder, apparently SSR added a user group "AllApplicationPackages". When tried to delete these temp files, it still asked for my user name's permission even though I've already take owership of the whole folder in the security tab in Windows properties.

In other words, no way to delete these gabbage files. WTF??

Despite this incident, I decided to fire up the boot USB to try a OS partition backup. The backup went really slow - would take 60min when use high-compression and 30min when use "recommended compression". Acronis only needed ~15min to finish the same backup job with high-compression.

I don't like the lousy programming skills of the developers of this version of SSR, so I won't be using it anymore.

It's a shame they transformed a once great software into such a POS.

 

Just looked up the price for the desktop version of SSR. $85!! No thanks!

 

Hi oliverjia,

I just checked my system and apparently I have nothing in my Temp folders related to Symantec.

I did not try backup using recovery disk, but I did a backup from within Windows and in my case it was actually a little bit faster than the last version.

Thank you

 

Dear savalnc,

I think the reason you don't have this Temp folder (yet) is because you have not gone through the steps to create a custom recover disk yet. Once you do, you'll have this folder that will never go away - it's not a fatal problem for one's computer, it's just that I have my OS on a SSD so every GB counts. I just don't want a program just take away 2GB of my SSD for nothing.

Also backup from within Windows might be different from if you backup from recovery disk, in terms of speed and compression? I only use imaging apps from recovery media (i.e., cold backup and restore).

I remember the good old Symantec Ghost 8.3. A single exe of a few MB can do all imaging jobs. The created boot ISO for SSR is ~560MB, way too big for a single imaging app recovery disk. Regular WinPE boot ISO for imaging apps are about 250MB in size, such as Macrium Reflect, O&O disk image, Paragon HM etc. So I'd say SSR recovery CD is also very bloated now.

 

oliverjia,

I can confirm your findings. I made a custom ISO and 1.5 GB of Symantec files were added to the Temp folder. A custom UFD was then created and another 1.5 GB of files were added to the Temp folder. These folders can't be deleted in Windows. I deleted them using TeraByte Explorer, which you have.

Yes. Also, the IFD exe is less than 1 MB and will run from a DOS or TBOS boot disk.

 

Dear Brian,

Thanks so much for your confirmation.

Regarding these temp files that Symantec dumped into the temp folder, I've just used IFL to restore an image that I've made recently for my OS partition. I just wanted to get rid of every trace of Symantec from my computer - judging from SSR dev's programming skills, I would rather have a clean system to avoid any potential Symantec problems

Thanks for the tip of using Terabyte Explorer.. Yes IFL saved my butt again this time.. all is well now..

Regards,
oliverjia

 

Just a few words on deleting these folders with TeraByte Explorer.

Run TeraByte Explorer from a TBOS boot disk or BIBM.
Mount/Unmount a drive path identifier
Select the OS partition
Ctrl-O for options
Space bar to select View hidden files and View system files
Browse to the folder and select it
Press the Delete key on your keyboard
Choose Yes and wait a short while
Done

 

When doing restore on a UEFI system should I recover the efi and recovery partition alongside the c partition?

Also, the product supports UEFI. Does it mean it will support secure boot?

Thanks

 

Thank you Brian, your help is much appreciated.

oliverjia

 

No normally you don't have to restore the EFI and recovery partition, C partition alone is enough.
Yes SSR supports secure boot.

 

Thanks.

So I tried to recover my c drive and in the settings I selected the option "mark active" clicked next and it said its not supported so i restored successfully without selecting that option. Booted up the pc and the drive was not recognized!

 

Strange...
If you are using UEFI/GPT and secure boot, then C drive is not the active drive, the EFI partition is. so don't select "mark active" when restore C drive.
Anyway, thanks for your test of the restore process.
At this point, SSR does appear to be turned into a POS. What a pity.

 

Check your BIOS for the correct boot drive.

 

Make sure you restored to the correct destination partition, and use a partitioning program to check if your C:\ is set to active.. It should not be active if you have UEFI and secure boot.

 

Symantec System Recovery 2013 R2 Released.

Tested this new built with a customized SRD boot USB. It does not require a separate SRD ISO to create a PE based boot ISO.

It appears SSR2013R2 is vastly improved as compared to the SP2 version.

Tested with Bakcup/restore on a Windows 8.1 x64 computer with NTFS file system. Working well. The speed is about 40% better than that of Terabyte IFL when using medium compression, and the final image sizes are about the same.

Tested the Backup/restore on a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS computer with EXT4 file system. Appears working well after restore.

So it looks like SSR2013R2 does support EXT4 file system.



High speed, small backup size, and supports both Windows NTFS and Linux EXT4 file systems. The SSR2013R2 SRD boot USB also supports UEFI Secure boot.

Great program!

 

If only they add a format disk command instead of using CMD.

 

http://www.symantec.com/system-recovery-desktop-edition
Hope that helps.

 

http://esdownload.symantec.com/akdl..._2013R2_11.1.0.53728_Multilingual_Product.zip

click the below link first to set up a cookie, then you can download from the above link.

https://www4.symantec.com/Vrt/offer?a_id=91523

 

It wouldn't install in two Win8.1 systems. The install closed about 5 seconds after starting. It installed in another Win8.1 system and a Win7 system. Then you have to download the relevant Windows ADK so you can create recovery media. I've lost interest already.

 

Sorry to hear that you did not have good experience with SSR. Not sure about why it wouldn't install, but for recovery media creation, it is not required to have Win ADK installed - you can still create a PE based recovery media, with only some non-essential features missing as compared to if you have Win ADK installed.