virtual disk=>full FILE-based restore,problem

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by A-C, May 19, 2005.

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  1. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hello A-C,

    I guess when you copy files from the mounted image to the "sector" restored partition, the starting address of the copied files will be the same as those files already on the HD. Now please foregive me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that Windows expects certain files (just don't ask me which ones!!) to be located at certain start addresses. These files are designated as "Unmoveable" and can only be relocated to another address during a clean Windows install. Hence if you copy files from the mounted image to a completely empty partition those "certain files" will not be where the existing Windows installation expects to find them.

    I'm willing to admit that I might have got my understanding horribly wrong. In which case I will stand corrected.

    Regards
     
  2. beenthereb4

    beenthereb4 Registered Member

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    I believe that it would be worthwhile to try the copy process using a dos prompt and xxcopy with the /clone switch as implied by TonioRoffo. It's free and can make a clone of XP as long as you manually handle the MBR. Let's see if it works, if not then there is an unknown factor at work differentiating the mounted image from a physical copy.
     
  3. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Does the /clone switch imply that the files are copied back to the same sectors that they were imaged from? If so, and it all works, then that would also tend to support my understanding voiced in #26 above.

    Regards
     
  4. MiniMax

    MiniMax Registered Member

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    Iff this is true, then it is time to hunt the Big White Elephant:
    1. Restore partition #4 from the image.
      .
    2. Delete everything from partition #4, except Recycler, System Volume Info, \WINDOWS and \Program Files and the files in the root of partition #4.
      .
    3. Manual copy-restore the files that has just been deleted from the mounted partition #4-image.
      .
    4. Reboot into partition #4.

      By all logic, partition #4 should be 100% okay after this, since we did not touch any "system" files.
      .
    5. If Windows Explorer does not work, we know that the problem (the Big White Elephant) is hiding somewhere in the files that we deleted & restored. So restore partition #4 using True Image, and repeat from step 2 but delete a smaller set of files & directories this time.
      .
    6. If Windows Explorer works, then "unmovable" file(s) must belong to either Recycler, System Volume Info, \WINDOWS and \Program Files or the files in the root of partition #4.
      .
    7. Choose one of these groups (e.g. Program Files) and delete the files.
      .
    8. Goto step 3.
     
  5. beenthereb4

    beenthereb4 Registered Member

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    Perhaps you are thinking of the way dos boot files work or perhaps you are confusing unmovable files when Windows is running with unmovable (under any circumstances) files?
     
  6. TonioRoffo

    TonioRoffo Registered Member

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    it doesn't imply anything sector based, but it's the most complete backup out there - it copies everything, included file creation date, security settings, ...

    Some people use it to clone actual windows installations (of course, off-line, that is) and it works perfectly.

    Watch out with /clone switch, as it *DELETES* anything on the destination that is not found on the source, including dirs.
     
  7. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi beenthereb4,

    I'm not sure. I guess I could be still thinking about my old DOS days (been at this "game" now since 1972!!) but I do notice that, no matter how much I defrag my main system drive, certain parts appear to be left untouched.

    Regards
     
  8. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi Tonio,

    Thanks for the clarification.

    Regards
     
  9. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi there MiniMax,

    1. Although I'm not in the same boat as A-C, I think I might well give this a go just to satisfy my own curiosity.
    Regards
     
  10. beenthereb4

    beenthereb4 Registered Member

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    Try an offline defrag with Perfect Disk, everything will get moved if needed, nothing is locked in place. (If you set the "Offline Defrag Settings" properly)
     
  11. A-C

    A-C Guest

    Last week I sent this problem to Acronis support, and referred
    them to this forum thread.
    Here is their "non-denial denial"...

    On 5/24/05, Acronis Support Department <support@acronis.com> wrote:
    > Hello,
    > We cannot guarantee that Windows will boot fine if you
    > restored it file-by-file. We can only guarantee that Windows
    > will boot fine if you restore the whole image.
    > Thank you.

    And my reply:
    =============
    What kind of unsupportive, unresponsive, wash-my-hands-of-it,
    b-s answer is that?!!!

    Why is no one LISTENING to what I'm saying?

    1. The problem is NOT booting, the problem is running
    improperly after login.

    2. As I said on the forum, I have PROOF that SOMETHING in
    the "selective restore" facility, which is ADVERTISED AND
    DOCUMENTED by Acronis, is not working properly:
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=465903&postcount=25

    As you can see if you'll just READ the forum thread, I HAVE
    restored the whole bloody image, and it STILL fails if you later
    need to use selective-restore to recover individual files.

    IS SELECTIVE RESTORE SUPPORTED OR NOT?
    IF NOT, THEN WHY DO YOU ADVERTISE IT?

    For TWO YEARS I've been a happy customer and enthusiastic
    supporter --I've even posted on Slashdot about this great
    product -- but Acronis' dismissal of my problem is REALLY
    starting to turn me in the other direction.
    =============
     
  12. beenthereb4

    beenthereb4 Registered Member

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    Never fear! Now that we got Menorcaman hooked on the case, we'll get to the bottom of it. He is very capable and persistent (and polite). :D
     
  13. MiniMax

    MiniMax Registered Member

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    Heard of PageDefrag??

    http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml

    I use it once in a Blue Moon...
     
  14. A-C

    A-C Guest

    to multiple other responders...

    To Menorcaman ("Windows expects certain files (just don't ask me
    which ones!!) to be located at certain start addresses")...
    As someone else said, I don't buy this hypothesis. Remember,
    we're talking about *files*, as seen by explorer and the API,
    *not* about metadata such as attributes, directories, etc.
    But I could be wrong, and IF you're correct, then Acronis
    should be able to identify and document which are the "special"
    files.

    beenthereb4 ("try the copy process using a dos prompt and xxcopy
    with the /clone switch")...
    1. btw, I'm running w2kPro, not XP
    2. Each one of these tests takes a LOT of time, copying several
    gig of files numbering over 100k. I can't justify trying your
    xxcopy suggestion without understanding why it might be
    significantly different then what I've already done (see post
    #25).
    3. "Try an offline defrag with Perfect Disk"... yes, that's
    what I've been using, but only when I have a basically empty
    partition and want to optimize the MFT. I already tried using
    PD to defrag, but it still does an incomplete job, and (as I
    told Tonio) no tool, including PD, lets me specify the layout /
    ordering of files on the disk -- which is how this whole megilla
    got started.
    But thanks for caring, and I'm open to hearing more.

    MiniMax ("hunt the Big White Elephant")...
    Yes, you and I continue to think similarly, perhaps differing
    only in the details of which suspects should be the first to be
    tortured. But a binary search ("divide & conquer") seems to be
    the most logical next step. My only reluctance is that running
    these tests is sooooooooo painful...

    TonioRoffo ("xxcopy ... most complete backup ... copies
    everything ... security settings")
    Yes, I've been wondering about this ever since you first
    mentioned security, although I *still* don't understand why
    security settings would be an issue in my environment.
    BUTTTT... after the response from Acronis support (post #36),
    I feel that I'll NEVER get them to acknowledge a problem until
    I can demonstrate that the failure occurs even when the ONLY
    tools used are their own.

    I think the best alternative is the binary search; then, when
    I've identified which specific files are problematice, perhaps
    security issues will become clearer.

    I just hope to God that this doesn't turn out to be one of those
    problems which is timing- or environment- dependent, i.e. a
    moving target -- e.g., if the issue isn't any specific files but
    rather some meta-structural issue such as the win equivalent of
    unix inodes.
     
  15. A-C

    A-C Guest

    and one more thing...
    some people reading this thread might be thinking,
    "WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? Isn't this just some geek becoming
    obsessed with an unrealistic academic exercise?"

    my answer is:

    1. My original goal of a layout-specific restore has genuine
    performance benefits.

    2. My tests seem to be showing that

    THERE ARE UNIDENTIFIED PROBLEMS LURKING WITHIN THE ACRONIS TI
    SELECTIVE-RESTORE PARADIGM.

    Now, you might think, "OK, so just wait until some
    customer runs into this problem in a more realistic everyday
    scenario." But what if

    SOME CUSTOMERS ARE ALREADY EXPERIENCING THIS PROBLEM
    AND JUST DON'T KNOW IT YET?

    Maybe one of you is using, e.g., a client database for your
    business, and you once used TI selective restore to recover that
    data after a corruption occurred from a programming or DBMS
    error.
    You might be using TI-corrupted data for billing your
    clients, or for safety-critical engineering calculations,
    COMPLETELY UNAWARE THAT YOU'RE USING CORRUPTED DATA.

    Perhaps that idea will change your perception of the importance
    of this problem...
     
  16. collisba

    collisba Registered Member

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    HI AC,

    I've been watching this thread with interest, and have been using TI in an enterprise enviornment for a couple of months now. We've done lots of bare metal restores to database servers without any issues, but have yet to do any restores of individual databases on existing servers. I'll be testing this with our Exchange message stores soon to make sure that we have the ability to restore without problems. Keep us updated on your progress.

    Thanks,

    Brian
     
  17. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    25,885
    Hello A-C,

    Please note that Acronis True Image doesn't change the files in the image. When you restore individual data files from the image you will get the exact copy of the file that was imaged.

    However, the restoration of Windows is not a simple file copying. There are some files that are linked to particular sectors and if you move them Windows may not work properly. The process you described is not the correct way for the restoration of operating system. Windows System Restore is not just copying files as well. There are some more actions performed. The main point of the "Explore Image" wizard is to restore individual files rather than whole partitions/disks. We cannot guarantee the proper performance after the inappropriate way of the restore, which is quite natural, I suppose.

    Again, you may compare the files restored from the image with the one you imaged (providing you didn't change it) and make sure the file remained the same.

    Thank you.
    --
    Ilya Toytman
     
  18. MiniMax

    MiniMax Registered Member

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    Okay, let's lick this! I wanna see the colour of the white elephant ;)

    I will image my laptop tonight, reformat, and do a file-by-file restore.
     
  19. TonioRoffo

    TonioRoffo Registered Member

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    Heh, this is becoming quite the thread! :D

    A-C, you mentioned in the beginning you are doing this exercise for optimizing windows environments. I'm not sure if you're still working on that, or that you just want Acronis to tidy up their file restore, but did you try any of the following to speed up Windows? Just from the top of my head, a few ideas:

    * Make a partition, best on another disk, for swapping virtual memory. Turn off swap on the system drive - tried this, helps for heavy loads. The Swap (pagefile.sys) is an example of "unmovable sectors" when defragging.

    * Use the technique of mouting volumes on empty folders. With this you could move "documents and settings" to another partition or disk without having a cluttered drive letter-hell :) Other maps I'm thinking of is the registry hives, and program files (although this can be done with regular installing on other drive letters) - didn't try this, but could be succesful. Moving documents and settings out is essentially moving all user data out of your drive C.
     
  20. A-C

    A-C Guest

    Tonio, re "try any of the following to speed up Windows", yes, I already use those techniques, thanks. I describe it as
    "spreading the I/O activity across independent spindles" (and
    sometimes even across independent channels or HBAs/controllers).
     
  21. A-C

    A-C Guest

    Tonio,
    on your other point, no, I'm not getting het up just to bust
    Acronis' nut -- as I mentioned before, I've let a lot of
    important things slide while pursuing this, so I have things
    to do which are more important than tweaking Acronis' tail.
    I'm genuinely concerned about the usability of selective
    restore: if it's not trustworthy, it means that I must
    immediately start using another product to perform backups
    which *will* reliably do s-r -- because I don't want to someday
    be in a situation where a single file is lost or corrupted,
    and my only choice is to do a full-volume restore which would
    roll-back many other things.
     
  22. A-C

    A-C Guest

    All...

    Mind you, I don't expect Acronis' to perform miracles which
    they never claimed to perform. What's pissing me off is that
    I've demonstrated that there's *something* going on which
    isn't documented, and they're not taking it seriously.
    IT MIGHT eventually prove to be my error, but they still need to
    take it seriously, because the alternative explanation is
    pretty scarey.

    I've worked for software comapnies as a product developer, and
    I know all too well the kinds of things that go on; e.g.,
    a weekly meeting where a product manager reviews the stats on
    the number of problems open for 30/60/90 days, and makes
    prioritizing decisions based on whatever will make his/her
    numbers look best, because it affects the year-end bonus.
    There's a lot of pressure to close each problem as soon as
    possible, even if it's a phony closure -- hell, if the problem
    comes back later, that's even better, because it increases the
    number of problems reported as opened-and-resolved.

    So, these companies have an incentive and a tendency to grasp at
    straws for ways to close problems quickly, rather than spend
    the time of testers/developers to investigate the problem.
    It's much easier to just say, "We don't support full-system
    file-by-file restore" -- and gloss over the fact that you're
    really saying, "Sometimes file-based restore silently screws up,
    and we can't tell you when or why."
     
  23. A-C

    A-C Guest

    Ilya,

    at this point I no longer have the inclination or the mental
    reserves to attempt the pretense of saying things diplomatically.

    "The process you described is not the correct way for the restoration of operating system."
    YOU'RE IGNORING THE EVIDENCE. IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY FILES
    I'M TRYING RESTORE. WHAT MATTERS IS THAT SOME OF THEM AREN'T
    WORKING, AND ACRONIS CAN'T (OR WON'T) SAY WHICH ONES OR WHY.

    "There are some files that are linked to particular sectors and
    if you move them Windows may not work properly."

    bullshit. There, I've said it. And I'll say it every time you
    make this claim, until you IDENTIFY EXACTLY WHICH FILES
    SHOULDN'T BE SELECTIVELY RESTORED.
     
  24. beenthereb4

    beenthereb4 Registered Member

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    Save yourself some time, the elephant is white because it's a goose of the wild variety. I mounted an image in Windows and used explorer to copy all the files from the mounted image to a directory on a second hard drive. Then I booted from WinPE and formatted the C drive and used ExplorerPE to copy all the files back from the second drive to the formatted C drive. It boots and runs everything just fine including Explorer. I am satisfied - this will be my last post on this subject.
     
  25. A-C

    A-C Guest

    beenthereb4,
    "It boots and runs everything just fine including Explorer"

    I'm glad to hear it.
    Now, re-read my initial post of this thread.
    I didn't start out saying TI is broken (in fact, my latest post
    explicitly acknowledges that this may eventually prove to have
    nothing to do with TI).
    I started out saying, in effect, "Can someone help me determine
    why this isn't working?"
    Other people/posters have (mostly) agreed with me that it
    should work -- except for Acronis, who keep saying that it
    shouldn't work because of "special" files. In fact, a lot of
    my tests that I never bothered to post, have been to try to
    narrow down and identify Ilya's "special" files.

    (btw, just for the sake of logical completeness, bear in mind
    that your test doesn't prove that *my* problem isn't caused by
    TI.)

    and finally -- what is "WinPE"?
     
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