What keeps users from using rollback/eazfix?

I would have to say negative reviews/remarks.
Mostly from earlyer versions where problems may have occured but some are not so forgiving and continue to write/report bad experances with these products without tring newer versions.
Myself Rollback Rx has saved me everytime even when I could not boot into windows.
Some snapshots have been corrupted from time to time but I've always been able to get out of trouble with it.

 

Lonewolf,

did u make offline backups with RB ?

 

No never tried.
Always been fine the way it worked.
Although I know I should have another back up in place (imaging)
I have not done so as of yet.

 

Well, if I am not wrong you can image using rollback .If that works and you can copy the image to an external drive you're good to go.

 

You are correct on this.
But first I must get an external drive.
With rollback you can also transfer this on CD/DVD.
Something else I have not done yet.

 

This thread is interesting but at this point I've become a bit confused.
So I need to ask the following:
1. Can you name some of the inexpensive and reliable imaging programs please.
2. Is an imaging program able to make a boot cd that will work?
3. What's the difference between imaging and rollback, if any?
4. Are there any easy to use programs that 'do it all'? I ask this because so many of you appear to have bought a bunch of different programs to accomplish system restore, backups, imaging boot disks etc..
I'm like a permanent novice compared to most of you and I'm trying to learn more before I buy.
Regards.
Hugger

 

you are likely to get no agreement here

(1) Acronis has always been reliable for me and I think $49 is inexpensive.
(2) I mainly use an Acronis CD to boot - to make images and to restore
(3) difference - sorry no idea I don't use rollback or eazfix
(4) I only use Acronis to make full images. Keep C: small and it doesn't take long.

Others will prefer Paragon, ShadowProtect, Ghost.....

 

I agree. I keep my C drive small and just for essentials. I locate the pagefile onto another partition together with temp files. Backup with ATI takes 3 mins and restore once in Linux is quicker.

 

You can get Acronis 10 for free if you own Seagate or Maxtor HDD. Drive Image XML is a freeware imaging app.

3- Rollback/ISR is faster than imaging. Also Rollback/ISR uses snapshot technology so you can keep various system configurations and switch between them.
4- No. But don't bother with Rollback/ISR, it's a luxury which most users don't/won't need. Imaging is a must if you want to be able to recover your system partition in little time. If you don't have disk images, each time do you want to start from scratch you need to format, install Windows, install drivers, install updates, install your applications, tweak the settings to your liking, defrag, etc. This is a time consuming process. If you have images, this process is reduced to few clicks and 20 minutes of your time (maximum)

 

Thanks for all the replies.
I realize I didn't phrase #3 properly.
I'm trying to understand the difference between imaging and snapshots and software suchas rollback/eaz-fix.
And which of these replaces system restore.
And which is easiest to use for system recovery type functions.

Lucas.
You say that imaging is a luxery. Then you go on to say the time it takes to do a reinstallation of the OS.
I've got to save some pennies and get one of these programs.
I enjoy installing different types of software and learning a bit about them.
But doing clean installs is getting to be a drag.
Again, thanks to all of you for your help.
Hugger

 

Hi Lucas,Your on the same veins with Erik, '' Imaging is a must,all else is luxury ''.

BTW Completely silence from the Erik Fortress !

 

ISR-type software are designed to replace system restore. When you have problems, boot to another snapshot and done. Imaging protects against disk failures, malware, corruption of ISR (it might occur), etc.

Imaging is a must, ISR/Rollback/instant recovery is a luxury. With small system partitions and today's imaging apps (most of them are very fast), the speed of restoring is a non-issue.

Yup, only imaging is necessary.

I miss his posts Maybe he's on vacations?

 

The way RBx/EF is written containing MBR code means that it is usually not possible to carry out normal imaging with apps like TI and SP whilst RBx is installed.

Therefore the alternative was not do imaging at all,which carried a huge risk in case of disaster,as the RBx ISR snapshots must be stored on the same disk,or to uninstall each time imaging is done.

All this quite rightly, must have been seen as a big marketing penalty by the developers,so the later versions of RBx/EF added an imaging as well as the normal ISR snapshot function.

Unfortunately at the current stage of development this imaging is not a true alternative to the standalone proper imagers.

All the operations are disastrously slow-in another thread,a user reported it took 53 minutes to backup 4gb-the restore is similarly slow and the image size is large.

The only time I tried to write the image to DVDs it took 5 DVDs and the test restore failed.

Dont forget that its necessary to image at least once a day for proper security,so can you imagine the problems of going through this every day.

As RBx/EF are so good as ISRs,its a pity the imaging side hasnt been fully thought out.
It would probably make more sense for the developers to omit it altogether ,unless it can be improved

 

Further to the previous post,I've been experimenting with RBx and SP,in an attempt to image with SP whilst RBx is installed.

Three images were taken, using the recovery CD,all of which verified Ok and looked Ok.

The only problem was the images were of the RBx baseline snapshot!

However, it seems that if the baseline is updated to the current system,then the image will be current.

As SP will always backup the MBR and hidden tracks,then the MBR and hidden tracks must also be restored,together with the image,according to StorageCraft.

The only problem I had was the dreaded CHDSK needed to be carried out once only after backup,which had me wondering,but may have been coincidental.

I have not carried out a test restore,but so far it looks encouraging that SP may work with RBx.

edit ;Further tests suggested by StorageCraft will be carried out.

 

great for experimenting into this,if as you said problem with imaging is now being solved,or at least no serious conficts anymore then SP with RBX makes for a great combo,surely the imaging thingy in RBX need some fixing,maybe its too much to ask,the herous of the coding world are not found everywhere

In imaging to restore the image is the ultimate proof ,so i wait !.

 

As I have never even tried rollback/eazfix RBX I may be wrong but I thought that was the problem. You can have 6 million snap shots but only image the baseline ? so if you restore you go back to the start ?

 

To my way of thinking how often you image is a function of how you use C: and the degree of change in a system. I can see that those who store data on C: have a problem in that they need to image very often but if C: is kept very small and only has the OS and programs and if programs are only modified rarely imaging need not really be done very often. On my main work machine I could easily restore an image from a month ago and would have very few updates to do to bring it up to date.

 

Huupi

You may care to try SP imaging after collapsing the RBx baseline into current and see what happens.

Especially interested if CHKDSK needs to autorun after the backup,previously a sign of problems.

Have a feeling the industrial strength of SP will be sufficient to succeed in all of this.

 

Longview-

The baseline is like the original full image in True Image -the snapshots are like the incrementals.

With RBx, it is possible to update the baseline to the current system ,by consolidating all existing snapshots into it-just like the ImageManager feature in Shadow Protect.

As with TI,you could take massive amounts of incrementals,but in practice this doesnt make much sense-its the same with RBx-pointless and impractical.

The conflict problem is because RBx is necessarily written with MBR code,unavoidable.

Irrespective of how often you decide to backup an image,there has always been this problem as discussed before,but its obvious imaging should be no 1 priority for everyone.

.

 

yes 6 million snapshots they probably come out with that feature before they come out with 'backup all snapshots' feature lol

 

For me its obvious now to stay with FDISR,no need for playing with RBX/EAZ-Fix.Its kinda like exchanging a Ferrari for a T-Ford.Feel sorry for the guys without it.
I Understand that without FDISR[BootBack] you have to look for something similar,and yes RBX/EAZ-Fix looks promising.

 

I have to wonder just how many snapshots people really need. If I understand this correctly it is possible to make say 7 snap shots and to then image but when the image is restored effectively the snapshots will have been lost ?

Most agree that imaging has the highest priority ? so images can be made very quickly and stored on cheap external drives. I wonder if it might make more sense to simply have a work image, a games image, a movie image ....... and just restore as and when needed . If, of course, a program could be developed that would allow 10 snapshots which would survive imaging then fine. In the meantime I will just have to get by with 4 machines linked to one monitor and keyboard - time to change to a required snapshot 0.5 sec

 

Yes you can carry out a proper defrag and image with FDISR ,plus the very important fact that it will archive an image on another disk.
However there is no question that RBx is quicker and more practical,when used for software testing, as one example.

 

FDISR is more like Chevy Master, great but dead. R.I.P.
Your Ferrari would be a tortise for its speed compared to RBx/EF.
Felt sorry for you too.

 

Longview-If you update the baseline,then the snapshots havent been lost,but incorporated into it.
What has been lost is the ability to restore to a particular time-the baseline will be current time only.
With the ISR function of RBx the result isnt an image,but a snapshot.
RBx also has an imaging function,but its not of much use-see previous .
It seems possible,however ,to take an image of the current baseline of RBx using SP,which for all practical purposes would be identical to an image taken by SP alone,were RBx not present.