RollBack Rx and O&O DiskImage

[PeterR]

How can RollBack Rx and O&O DiskImage 5 work together? My guess: RollBack Rx must be uninstalled before making an image. When restoring an image to a PC that is not working anymore, but has RollBack Rx still installed: will there be problems?

Thanks,
Peter.

[HDS-Jacob]

Hello Peter,

Welcome to the Horizon DataSys Forum! For reference, support can be reached at http://support.horizondatasys.com and let's see if we can get an answer for you.

Best,
Jacob

[Owl]

Originally Posted by PeterR

How can RollBack Rx and O&O DiskImage 5 work together? My guess: RollBack Rx must be uninstalled before making an image. When restoring an image to a PC that is not working anymore, but has RollBack Rx still installed: will there be problems?

I don't know anything about O&O, but it depends how it images the disk (you'll need to research it). The name implies it does not just take a backup of files. The following applies to any imaging software equally.

If O&O can be configured to make a complete image of every sector in the partition, then it should be fine. If you can make a copy of the MBR (Master Boot Record) as well, so much the better. What you will have is a complete record that can be restored to produce an exact copy of the disk (partition).

Restoring the partition complete with the MBR recreates the situation at the time you made the image in its entirety. Restoring the partition but not the MBR will work if the MBR already contains the Rollback Rx mini-OS. If the MBR has been corrupted (Windows reinstalled for example), then it would be as well to restore the Rollback MBR from a saved copy, or at worst to reinstall Rollback Rx on top of Windows, before restoring the rest of the partition. As far as I can see, booting the restored RBRx partition with a non-RBRx MBR will revert the partition to the baseline and lose all the other snapshots.

If on the other hand O&O uses the file allocation tables to ignore "unused" sectors (and thereby save time and storage space in the imaging process), then it will miss all the Rollback data and only create an image of the baseline, and when you restore it Rollback Rx will (I believe) be non-functional.

[PeterR]

Originally Posted by Owl

I don't know anything about O&O, but it depends how it images the disk (you'll need to research it). The name implies it does not just take a backup of files. The following applies to any imaging software equally.

If O&O can be configured to make a complete image of every sector in the partition, then it should be fine. If you can make a copy of the MBR (Master Boot Record) as well, so much the better. What you will have is a complete record that can be restored to produce an exact copy of the disk (partition).

Restoring the partition complete with the MBR recreates the situation at the time you made the image in its entirety. Restoring the partition but not the MBR will work if the MBR already contains the Rollback Rx mini-OS. If the MBR has been corrupted (Windows reinstalled for example), then it would be as well to restore the Rollback MBR from a saved copy, or at worst to reinstall Rollback Rx on top of Windows, before restoring the rest of the partition. As far as I can see, booting the restored RBRx partition with a non-RBRx MBR will revert the partition to the baseline and lose all the other snapshots.

If on the other hand O&O uses the file allocation tables to ignore "unused" sectors (and thereby save time and storage space in the imaging process), then it will miss all the Rollback data and only create an image of the baseline, and when you restore it Rollback Rx will (I believe) be non-functional.

Hello Owl,

thanks for your answer. DiskImage normally uses the method 'only used sectors', but can also be set to 'forensic'. According to their documentation, the image includes the MBR.
So, if the image is used to restore a PC (with RollBaxk Rx installed) which is in an unclear state, it would be best to first install Windows, then do the restore; in this case Windows will also have the data partitions (E:, F:, etc.) available in a healthy state.
Is this correct?

Best Regards,
Peter.

[PeterR]

Originally Posted by HDS-Jacob

Hello Peter,

Welcome to the Horizon DataSys Forum! For reference, support can be reached at http://support.horizondatasys.com and let's see if we can get an answer for you.

Best,
Jacob

Hello Jacob,

When I try to open a ticket for this, I get 'No Products are associated with this Customer.' instead of '2 licenses Rollback Rx'.

Best Regards,
Peter.

[HDS-Jacob]

Originally Posted by PeterR

Hello Jacob,

When I try to open a ticket for this, I get 'No Products are associated with this Customer.' instead of '2 licenses Rollback Rx'.

Best Regards,
Peter.

Hello Peter,

I apologize for the inconvenience. Please initiate a chat session with customer service: http://www.advancedchatsolutions.com...hp?chatcode=30 and I will flag this for Nick as well.

- Jacob

[Owl]

Originally Posted by PeterR

DiskImage normally uses the method 'only used sectors', but can also be set to 'forensic'. According to their documentation, the image includes the MBR.
So, if the image is used to restore a PC (with RollBaxk Rx installed) which is in an unclear state, it would be best to first install Windows, then do the restore; in this case Windows will also have the data partitions (E:, F:, etc.) available in a healthy state.
Is this correct?

What you say sounds like a complete image including the MBR, so I assume it can be restored to the same state so there would be no need for any reinstallation of Windows or anything else. Indeed, it would be a complete waste of time because the restore would wipe it all anyway.

Illustration:

1. Virgin system
2. Windows installed
3, Rollback Rx installed
4. A few snapshots taken, everything working
5. Disk image taken including "unused" RBRx sectors and MBR
6. More activity
7. Something goes wrong, system flakey, Rollback does not recover situation
8. Restore system from image
9. System back how it was at stage 5, no other action necessary.

[PeterR]

Originally Posted by HDS-Jacob

Hello Peter,

I apologize for the inconvenience. Please initiate a chat session with customer service: http://www.advancedchatsolutions.com...hp?chatcode=30 and I will flag this for Nick as well.

- Jacob

The session is done. Now I have 2 open tickets: one from the sale and one from the chat...

Best Regards,
Peter.