Acronis 2011 - and Rollback RX

[ErikThorne]

Ok I am confused ..

Lets say I have rollbackrx installed .. and I make a image with acronis in windows.
Can i restore that acronis image ? or is it not going to work ?

I make a backup/image every night with acronis .. but rollback is installed.

What is going to happen if i have to use that nightly image ? To restore my HD ?

[bgoodman4]

If Acronis uses Microsoft Shadow Service it should be OK. Check out the last 2 or 3 pages here for a discussion regarding doing hot images with 3rd party imaging programs while Rx is installed. The info you are after and any caveats should be provided there.

Rollback Rx 9.1 - New Build (July 18, 2011) - Wilders Security Forums

[ErikThorne]

LOl Yea .. I read that .. Thats why I am Confused !

Really I Just want to know if it works ?
I guess I really do not care if I lose the rollback snapshots :/

I just want to make sure i can do a restore from a boot arconis disk
and it will boot :P

[Baldrick]

Hi Erik

I use ATI Home 2011, take an image every week AND use RB Rx as my primary 'get out of trouble' mechanism with the image as a second line of defence.

I have in the past successfully restored to an ATI image using the Recovery CD (and selecting the image to be restored from an external hard drive)...but of course did lose all my snapshots, and had to re-install RB Rx on the restored image. But it all worked fine.

Hope that helps?

Merry Festive Season!


Balders

[nexstar]

Originally Posted by ErikThorne

LOl Yea .. I read that .. Thats why I am Confused !

Having just read that thread, I can understand why .

As Baldrick has tested this successfully then I won't repeat the test as I don't use Acronis. There does seem to be a large amount of confusion over the MBR situation and this is partly because there are quite a few variables involved.

Was the image made 'hot' or 'cold'?
Does the imaging software save the MBR by default?
Does it restore it by default?
Is it necessary to restore the MBR?

The last question creates a lot of uncertainty and I think that one point which tends to be missed is why you are restoring an image in the first place.

If you just want to go back to a previous setup then it is probably not necessary to restore the MBR.

If, however, you have either had a hard disk failure or have suffered some corruption in the MBR itself then you will almost certainly need to restore the MBR. To my mind, as it is no particularly hardship to restore the MBR then why not just do it to rule out any potential issues? Some imaging apps (like Drive Cloner) will restore it automatically in any event so the question never arises.

The other thing I would suggest, if you aren't already, is to get comfortable with restoring from a backup. Make sure you have created a bootable environment on either CD or a USB drive and test that it does actually boot up ok. Then do a few restores with RB uninstalled. The procedure is going to be exactly the same whether RB is installed or not.

You may already be fine with this but I think that the whole imaging/restoring can appear to be more daunting than it needs to be and there's nothing like doing it to actually get comfortable with it and much better to learn it when you want to do rather than when you need to do it!

Graham

[nexstar]

Just had one other thought which may be worth mentioning. If you are using Windows 7 then you may have a hidden 100MB partition called 'System Reserved'. If this exists then it is your Primary and Active partition. Which means it is what gets booted first.

In the event of a complete system restore, you will need to restore that partition as well, so make sure it is included when you do your backup. It's not big so it doesn't take long!

I tend to forget about this as I normally by-pass its creation on my systems. Like the MBR, in most situations you wouldn't need to restore it as it will still be present but the idea of imaging is for it to be the last line of defence and so it needs to be done with the idea that you may have to be restoring the image(s) you are creating to a brand new drive.

Graham

[ErikThorne]

Thanks guys !

Yea .. I have used arconis many times ..

Baldrick .. Thats great news I could care less about the snap shots really.
I just want to make sure if i have a really bad hd fail or if something goes wrong
with rollback I will be able to use my arconis image to restore my system!
Really NOT a big deal if I have to reinstall rollback In My Mind!

nexstar .. Yes I make a full image of the drive including the 100 partion and mbr.

And I guess its making a "hot" Image because its ONLY does the used sectors
and its made in windows ? ( Takes about 14 minutes to make an image )
I do not make a sector by sector backup every night.

Thanks guys for helping me ..

[Baldrick]

Hi Erik

No problem...always glad to help if one can.

I agree with Graham that it is sensible to actually test the process so that you are 100% happy that it works, ie, just after you have taken the image with ATI, restore it using the Recovery CD. Sure you will have to reinstall RB Rx but if you a not overly worried about losing the snapshots then the practice will be good...assuming that you are happy withthe state of you system at the time that the image was taken.

Regards



Balders

[pvsurfer]

Erik,

Please do not view my comments as Acronis bashing, but I personally know two Acronis True Image Home users who have had serious restore issues (and neither one uses Rollback Rx). In my attempts to help them I visited the ATIH Forums and was shocked to read the many horror stories to be found there!

So I was wondering if you have ever attempted to restore your system before installing RB? If you have done that successfully, then I would agree with the advice you have received in this thread. But if you've never restored your system with ATIH, then I would be very concerned.

pv

[ErikThorne]

pvsurfer ..Yea .. I tried 2012 and got a refund ! Its Bad Very Bad!

2011 Seems to work well ..
I have restored a arconis image before without rollback installed .. that worked fine in the past.

I am Just concered about using an image made with rollback installed!

I have not tested it .. because of the time and so many different ways
to have to test it to make sure it works

1. make image with rollback not installed .. boot recovery cd and do restore.
2. make image with rollback installed .. boot recovery cd and do restore.
1b make image with rollback not installed .. boot recovery cd and do restore. with mbr
2b make image with rollback installed .. boot recovery cd and do restore. with mbr
ect ect ect ..

IDK .. crosses fingers .. and hope it works i guess ..