Virtualization question.

OK, but the bottom line is that PowerShadow didn't protect you against this disaster. From your description the same happened to me. My both snapshot were restored, but the FDISR-icon didn't work anymore and that means that the restore wasn't successfull.
When Anti-Executable is installed and HIGH security = ON and the setting "Delete Prevention" + "Copy Prevention" are both enabled, I wonder if it still would be a disaster. It might be possible that the restoration would be complete.
Unfortunately "Delete/Copy Prevention" = enabled are a pain for copy/update.

 

I guess I caused some confusion on my part. The test I did, I only had FD-ISR installed. So, it only took me about 10 minutes to be back running again.

I just did that exact same test with PS 2.8.2 in single Shadow mode (system partition only).

It "looked" like it also deleted a gazillion files, but a simple Off/On with my power button, I was back running in less than 60 seconds. All those 34,000+ files were not really deleted.

So, both FD-ISR and PS both protected my system, except PS was about 10 times quicker!

Mike

UPDATE/FYI...

In case anyone wonders what "DEL /F /S /Q c:\*.*" does. Just go to a Command Prompt window, and type "del /?". The "/?" will display info about whatever command.

Code:

C:\TEMP>del /?
Deletes one or more files.

DEL [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names
ERASE [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names

  names         Specifies a list of one or more files or directories.
                Wildcards may be used to delete multiple files. If a
                directory is specified, all files within the directory
                will be deleted.

  /P            Prompts for confirmation before deleting each file.
[B]  /F            Force deleting of read-only files.
  /S            Delete specified files from all subdirectories.
  /Q            Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to delete on global wildcard
[/B]  /A            Selects files to delete based on attributes
  attributes    R  Read-only files            S  System files
                H  Hidden files               A  Files ready for archiving
                -  Prefix meaning not

 

1. FDISR didn't recover IMO, because you had to re-install FDISR in the first test.

2. PS did recover very well and very fast. FDISR was probably saved by PS in the second test.

 

Well, of course you are right, but, it was still a lot quicker than a 30 minute Ghost image restore. Also, it was a very simple task to just reinstall FD-ISR.

Yes and yes and yes

Mike

 

Can restore a ghost image in around a minute here.A thinned out XP pro with my maintenance, needed exes and security apps are the only things on C.

Not trying to be a smart a#*, just showing what can be done.

 

I cover any snapshot i happen to choose from my collection of (7) with the excellent protection of Power Shadow

Kinda like ErikAlbert's famous boot-to-restore method

Not had a single problem and don't expect any. I see nothing at all wrong with FD-ISR freezestorage.arx routine except it's considerably longer to carry out whereas with PS, it's reboot ONCE and everything flushed & restored like new again.

That takes only as long as it takes your PC to reboot. Ya gotta love entering Shadow-Mode on-the-fly. LoL

 

Please more details (probably in a new thread... please... please...

Is that your normal working image, or just a special emergency type image?

Mike

 

Don't think it warrants a new thread so just a quick rundown.

This 160 gig drive.Install XP pro,Perfect Disk, Norton Ghost and Partition Magic on C.

Make 3 partitions which vary depending on the size of the disc.

C drive of 5 - 8 gig.
E drive of 20 gig for ghost images and D is around 130 gig for Virtual Machines, pics, music, flics and general crap.

After the partitions are made I defrag then make a ghost image.

Then I go about tweaking and slimming down XP using Bold Fortune's guide but I usually only delete the mainly larger useless folders or their contents.

Make another ghost image and then go about installing my other needed apps such as Ccleaner, Firefox, MS Officie 2003 - Word, Excel and PPS, Sandboxie, Powershadow and few other litle apps that I find handy.

Defrag and make another ghost image.

At this stage the install of XP along my needed apps is around a gig of data and ghost images are around the 500 meg mark.

I also make an image every week or so but I always keep the first one of a fresh install of XP.

Also drop a clone of C and D on a partitioned slave drive and unhook it.

This is really just a brief summary of what I get up to, bit of work but great after it's set up.

As you can see from the pic below I have 18 ghost images on E and still have 10 gig of 20 free.

 

What is your Ghost parameters? (Mine are "-fdsz -z1")

Do you exclude a 2,145,386,496 byte pagefile.sys?

Mike

 

With a gig of ddr I run with no paging without any slowdowns or probs.

I didn't think that Norton Ghost backed up the pagefile

Ghost 2003 is used here.

 

Here is my Ghost image... pagefile.sys.

I think I will try no pagefile since I have about 1.5GB of RAM.

I will PM you if I have any more Ghost questions before a MOD does a "fdisk /mbr" on us!

Thanks, Mike

 

Yep, good idea Mike.

I have been thinking that if someone could come up with something like VM Player that could load ghost images into virtual environment and discard any changes at shutdown, now that would be something.

Way too complicated for me as I couldn't even work out Winhex to find those hidden lines.

 

Well you can use vmware converter to copy your system to a vm which you can then run with vmware player. However i've found the free version of vmware player doesn't allow you to revert changes made, only the paid version does apparently.

 

Thanks for that farmerlee.
Using MS Virtual PC 2007 here.Got myself thinking about trying to restore a ghost image to a virtual machine.

Made a ghost backup cd and it booted within the vitual machine and seemed to do a restore as per normal.

Reboots into the "Start Windows Normally, Safemode... etc screen" and just sits there after hitting enter at any selection.

Tried the fixboot, fixmbr and chkdsk /r/f commands to no avail.

Booted with a BartPE disk and it seems all the XP files are in the virtual machine so I am probably missing something simple at this stage.

Even if I can't get it to boot it's a good learning experience.

Come to think of it the virtual machine may use generic drivers so this could be the prob.

 

VMWare and Ghost

edit : VMWare Converter may become of interest also.

 

Thanks for that Meriadoc and have saved the pdf for future reference.

Playing with MS Virtual PC 2007 ATM but have heard VMware is the way to go.

Well I finally got the restored ghost image to boot but I cheated.

Done a repair install with the xp cd with all my apps staying intact but I still had to thin out xp, turn off services and redo tweaks.

 

Yep ghost and other symantec are compatable and for awhile.

cheated?

 

If money is not a problem, VMware is indeed the way to go.
http://www.vmware.com/request_proce...ACE2-ENT,ACE2-ALACARTE,ACE2-PIS,ACE2-MEDIAKIT

 

Indeed alot of money, if you scroll down abit you'll find Workstation 6 + ACE Option Pack ($189) which is what I upgraded to at home.

 

I have no experience with VMware, but I read someplace in one of the 10,000,000 posts I have read (just this) month, something about some malware can detect a VM type setup, and not unload until running back in the real system.

Mike

 

From what i remember certain malware can detect a vm and stay dormant until it gets onto a real system.

 

Yikes $189! I think i'll stick with virtual pc for now

 

Yeah i think one of the main problems with using an image in a vm is that the hardware emulated within the vm is usually different from the system that the image was taken from.