what backup program would you use if you didnt care about the money

Could I trouble someone to explain the difference between the rescue medias mentioned (bart etc) and why one would choose one over the other? I have in the past just used whatever was supplied by the imaging program. Having only used Acronis TI prior to looking elsewhere (recently) I found Macriums directions to creating the media confusing and so just moved on to something else. I settled on SP and am very happy with it. I also have recently recommended and installed Paragon to a friends 4 PCs and found it very easy to use and set-up as well. I would have recommended SP but its too expensive for her and there was a giveaway for Paragon so the price was right as was the software.

 

The main reason to use rescue media is to backup or restore outside of the installed operating system. Some of us feel that is more reliable, especially if it has a database or open files.

The reason some of us don't like or use the rescue media created by the application is simply a matter of necessity. Take Acronis for instance. If you can boot their pre-made rescue CD and it sees your hard drives and NIC, then fine. But if it doesn't (like SATA/AHCI/RAID), what do you do? The answer is a BartPE disc which boots a subset of Windows with all necessary drivers for YOUR exact PC. Or if you're particular, include the drivers for any number of PC's.

Acronis not supporting the latest drivers for storage or NICs is what drove me away from them. Plus they were so darn expensive for their Server grade products.

 

If money wasn't a factor, I would use a web based backup storage like Mozy.

SourMilk out

 

In my experience dos (read floppy) and linux based rescue disks are often smaller in size and may load faster, but generally offer fewer features and slower performance than WinPE based rescue disks (including BartPE, Reatogo, VistaPE,...). For example, the Macrium linux-based rescue iso is 7.5 MB in size, but only allows you to do recoveries i.e. no backups. In contrast their WinPE rescue iso is 120+ MB but let's you run additional utilities and can do backups (full version only).

Furthermore, I've had Windows crashes (boot defrags gone bad) when Windows Recovery Console and linux based Acronis rescue medias failed to load (from CD, USB and startup recovery module), but the BartPE CD/USB still worked (and all it took in those cases was chkdsk C: /f to fix the problem, which I could run from BartPE). Maybe the reverse could also happen i.e. WinPE would fail but dos or linux would work?? IMO, best to have all different rescue medias available.

Finally, BartPE plugins are easy to add to custom rescue disks that include additional drivers and programs. I use a different backup program on each of my computers so I like the BartPE option so that I don't need separate rescue CD/USB for every computer.

 

Well, I wouldn't really view ISOTool.exe as an outside program because I wrote it (as well as several other parts of ShadowProtect), and it's installed by the ShadowProtect installer within the ShadowProtect directory. But maybe you mean outside in the sense that it isn't currently included in the download of the ISO file itself. That would be a good and valid point, and I'll make sure this changes.

 

Well, the ShadowProtect ISO itself actually includes two full flavors of WinPE. One (called the "Legacy Recovery Environment") is based on Server 2003 WinPE. The other (called the "Recommended Recovery Environment") is based on Vista WinPE.

There are some advantages to keeping the legacy environment around. The options to boot either of these environments are presented on a menu when you first boot the CD, and this same menu lists the various advantages of each environment.

There is a 3.5.0 ISO as well as a 3.5.1 ISO, and both operate identically. The only difference between these ISOs is that the 3.5.1 ISO includes the installer files for ShadowProtect 3.5.1. If you have already downloaded the 3.5.0 ISO then there is absolutely no need for you to download the 3.5.1 ISO. I would, however, suggest that if you have *installed* 3.5.0, that you download the upgraded 3.5.1 installer and apply it (it can be installed on top of your existing 3.5.0 install and your activation will be preserved).

The 3.5.1 ShadowProtect Desktop Edition installer is here.

The 3.5.1 ShadowProtect Server Edition installer is here.

The 3.5.1 ShadowProtect SBS Edition is here.

I hope that helps.

 

For business use, an online backup repository is usually not an effective solution for disaster recovery. For individual file recovery yes, but not for the speedy recovery of entire servers. Keep in mind that business servers often store terabytes of data.

 

great thank you for the info!! i do have it installed and was using the 3.5.0 version so ill stay with that one

 

I have everything backed up to an external rive, and everything backup up on Humyo. From my point of view, you can never be too careful.

 

Thank you for answering,,,,,,now whats involved in creating a BartPE disk? Sounds like I would have to tell it what drivers etc I want but in truth I have no idea which drivers I would require let alone how to get them into the rescue disk. I thought the whole point of the rescue media created by a particular imaging program was to grab the necessary components from the existing system (the one the image is of). I can see where more might be required if you were trying to restore to a different PC though.

Could I trouble someone for a link to a good tutorial on this subject?

 

Very interesting, I will make a point of learning about this sort of recovery media. It sounds very versatile. Thanks for the comments

 

To me the simplest thing is to have a menu option or function in the main program interface that guides the user through the rescue media creation procedure. Having to go to some other location to launch the rescue media creator seems awkward to me and may be unnecessarily intimidating or confusing to some. IMO simpler is always better than more complex. Its simpler to access the rescue media creation facility from within the imaging programs interface than to have to go to the programs directory in order to find and launch it. In SP the directions were clear enough that the process was pretty painless but still......

And of course not all programs are as straight forward as they might be.

A good example is the process required with Macrium. I had downloaded and installed Macrium and then went looking for the way to create the rescue disk. I found the required info in the help files but the process as explained there left me scratching my head. I am sure I could have worked through the process but felt that if such a basic requirement was not straightforward that the program itself was likely to be a challenge to use as well, so I simply uninstalled Macrium and tried something else.

I should mention that the only imaging program I had used prior to trying Macrium was Acronis TI so creating a BartPE or whatever was not something I was familiar with and it was not something I was especially interested in having to figure out how to do.

 

For me, it is none.

I have been reading so many threads about imaging/cloning since joining Wilders that I have not committed to any one software. It is talk about rescue media, BartPe, VistaPE, restore from within windows, ISOs, HIR etc.

I remain as perplexed 3 years later. Basically, I put my trust in FD-ISR snapshots and keeping data separate on an alternate unpartioned harddrive which is anchored in FD_ISR, i.e. data is available to whatever snapshot I happen to be in at the time.

Also, I have a third drive that has been spinning along completely unused, with which I wanted to try a multiboot.

One day I will take the plunge...but, probably not until my next custom build system.

I have never had to reformat the hard drive and do a reinstall of the OS,...touch wood!

 

I made a step-by-step guide just for you. Of course you need (1) Macrium Reflect installed, (2) a writable CD, (3) computer with CD-RW drive.

Step 1: Put the CD into the CD-RW drive and start Macrium Reflect.

Step 2: Choose "Create Rescue CD" from menu:
http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r47/End_game__/macrium1.jpg

Step 3: Click Next when the Rescue CD Wizard appears (the linux version is preselected by default - if you have the full version, you can choose the WinPE version too):
http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r47/End_game__/macrium2.jpg

Step 4: Click Finish (the correct CD drive should already be selected, but if you have multiple CD/DVD drives, then make sure to choose the one with the writable CD you want to use):
http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r47/End_game__/macrium3.jpg

Wait 2 seconds for Macrium to burn the CD and ba-da-bing ba-da-bam ba-da-boom you are done!

Just give it another go. Macrium is really not that complicated.

 

Well done pajenn!

 

inm retesting ifw out now and im doing a lot of reading this time and am learning a lot about the program i actually just made a windows7pe disc!!! very nice and it works awesome

 

How did you get ShadowProtect to work in BartPE? Is there a plugin for it? Did you use the Recovery Environment?

 

Thank you very much for this, I will be back home on Thursday and will give this a go. Very much appreciated.

 

Assuming you are familiar with building BartPE plugins and have the ShadowProtect recovery ISO/CD, then using it to make a BartPE plugin is straightforward. The only thing to realize is that the PE version of ShadowProtect is in a folder called SHADOWPROTECTPE on the Recovery CD or you can extract it from the BOOT.WIM file. I also included the drivers that ShadowProtect installs, though I'm not sure they are necessary.

Details below:

1. Make a folder called ShadowProtect (or whatever you like) in your BartPE plugin folder. Create a files folder in it (see attached pic).

2. Copy all files from I386\SHADOWPROTECTPE on Recvoery CD (v3.5.0.8 at least) to files folder (the same SHADOWPROTECTPE folder should also be in the BOOT.VIM image on the Recovery CD, which you can either extract with 7-zip or similar utility, or boot the Recovery CD and just browse to and copy the folder)

3. Copy vsnapvss.exe from WINDOWS\System32 and stcvsm.sys from WINDOWS\System32\Drivers to your plugin folder. (stcsnap.dll is already in the SHADOWPROTECTPE folder). These files were added by ShadowProtect assuming you installed it.

4. Make a standard inf-file for the plugin. For example:

Note: If you are using the XPE plugin, then add the XPE shortcuts to the inf-file, but I haven't tried whether ShadowProtect plays nice with XPE.

5. If you use nu2menu (default BartPE), then add the nu2menu xml-file. For example, ShadowProtect.xml:

Note: If you don't use nu2menu, remove the reference to it (last 2 lines) from ShadowProtect.inf.

That's it. For people unfamiliar with BartPE that may seem complicated, but 90% of plugins have that same format, and there are free plugin builders available or you can use Reatogo to build standard plugins. After you get used to them, it's just a matter of taking an existing plugin, renaming the file/folder references in the existing inf and xml files to the program you want to use, and replacing the files in the "files" folder with files your program uses.

Adding extra drivers is a tad trickier, but you just have to reference some of the 'building a custom bartpe plugin' type guides available on the web. Basically, vsnapvss.exe=2 copies the file to the BartPE system32 folder (2 refers to system32) and stcvsm.sys=4 copies it to the BartPE drivers folder.

This way of making plugins works for simple or portable programs, or specially prepared versions of more complicated programs (like ShadowProtectPE). There are ways to build plugins in more complicated cases, but it's gets tricky and time consuming...

 

Yeah, but I would buy the server company and sync. Money was invented to be spent. lol

 

Now I have a headache. To me it more than "seems" complicated,,,,I can state with confidence that it is.

I will give it a shot though......no doubt I will be asking for help before I am done.

Still, much appreciated, thanks.