"Rollback RX" and "Image For Windows"... perfect together??

[Froggie]

Originally Posted by wvbill

I have one question:

Uh, ohhhh...

Originally Posted by wvbill

If I want to do a Hot Image of only the current snapshot with IFW, I know I must have shield above Phylock in the Registry, but I am not sure about the option "Backup Unused Sectors" -- should it be checked, unchecked, or does it matter?

I would like to have the option to do either entire system with snapshots or just current system -- if image size becomes an issue.

#1: PHYLOCK above SHIELD (in the UpperFilters key) + IFW's "All Unused Sectors" = complete image of partition incl. a functional Rolback as well as all its sectors.

#2: SHIELD above PHYLOCK only = CURRENT SYSTEM STATE, no snapshots and non-functional Rollback (kinda like a normal "used sector" image backup). Also, if you do the restore (to the original imaged partition) without also restoring the saved MBR, you may have some other funny Rollback issues (the sub-CONSOLE linkage will still be in place but no snapshots will be available).

Whenever I've done this I always used the "Restore First Track (AUTO)" option. The reason... when you do this imaging operation, IFW winds up saving a STANDARD MBR ('cause that's what Rollback gives it during the imaging operation). So if you do a restore with the first track, you get a standard BOOT block MBR which will get you back to your restored CURRENT SYSTEM STATE with only a non-functional Rollback. If you don't do the First Track Restore, you'll wind up with the leftover Rollback MBR and no snapshots from the restoration... who knows how confused it'll be

BUT... be forewarned, if you do the 2nd backup above rather than unINSTALL Rollback and do a normal "used sector" backup (results pretty much the same as above), you may eventually have ACTIVATION issues with the product. HDS hasn't worked out all the kinks dealing with deactivation and activation and my guess is (don't know for sure) that doing #2 above a few times (it will require the removal of Rollback and reINSTALLation following the RESTORE) may give you some reactivation issues as has been chatted about elsewhere in this forum... don't know for sure.

Personally, I no longer use #2 above due to the lack of activation expectation. Since it's no big deal to unINSTALL Rollback prior to that type of imaging (and according to HDS the newest version allows for a proper deactivate/activate... not sure about this yet either), and the results are basically the same, I now do the uninstall instead.

But the specifics of #s 1&2 above are correct.

[Froggie]

Originally Posted by norman

My disk contains 4 partitions, C: (the system partition, 100GB), D: (50GB), E: (75GB), F: (54.1GB), and all 4 are monitored by RollBack. When I do a complete hot all-sectors backup in IFW, the log shows the following:

A hard drive error occurred while reading 127 sectors from LBA 585937360
Total Sectors:585937500 Total Allocated:585937500
585937500 Sector(s) backed up
Bad Sectors - Reading:36 Writing:0 (1)

I inferred from these numbers that the bad sectors (127 or 36?) must be near the end of partition F:, but when I did a hot all-sector backup of partition F: only, there was nothing in the log file to indicate the presence of any bad source sectors at all. Subsequent backups show the same numbers.
What don't I understand?

I don't think I can answer this question... it might be better answered in one of the IFW forums.

From your description above, there's some things I don't know about your imaging. First, when you're doing your imaging of the entire Rollback protected disk (with errors), are you imaging the entire disk in All Unused Sector mode, or are you imaging the four partitions (each selected) together... there is a difference in the imaging operation. If you image the entire disk, you will get ALL the sectors, including those that may not be part of the last partition (F:\). If you image the four partitions only during the imaging operation (checkbox each instead of a single checkbox for the disk), you will not get these extraneous disk blocks. That may be what's happening between the two different imaging ops.

I really can't tell for sure until I see your partition map... and know how you did the imaging. My guess at this point is that you don't have a disk problem... just an IFW anomaly.

[norman]

Dear Froggie,
Sorry for the long delay. I was busy installing a new motherboard on another machine and neglected to check the forum from time to time.
I was referring to a complete disk backup rather than to individual partitions. But a week or so ago, I began having problems with a program called eBoostr caused, it turned out, by a faulty smartcard in my printer. When I replaced the card, the 'bad sectors' message generated by the IFW backup diasappeared as well: the operation now completes with error code 0.
Thank you for trying to help.