Failing Drive Issue

[Robo]

After reading online about this application I had tested it with a virtual machine and was thoroughly impressed. Having the ability to rollback your OS with a simple keystroke I thought would be useful for people I know who sometimes get themselves in trouble with their systems (Virus/Malware situations.)

So I recommended the application to an associate who had issues with their system, mostly malware. They gladly installed the trial and went off running about their usual computing days and test the app. Until recently their system would not boot. So they selected one of the previous snapshots and the system tries to boot XP, gets to the XP boot screen and reboots. Most likely a corrupt OS. So reboot again, screen goes black and "Please Wait" appears which I believe is the Rollback app and again unsuccessful boot. When I looked at the system I had noticed that when I had selected one of the previous entries it would not do the typical progress bar of restoration, it would just chatter on the drive and then halt.

Lo' and behold. When I plugged the drive into another box it revealed by using a SMART utility that it is failing, the drive is intermittently dropping in and out. The associate is in a panic because they have not implemented a bare metal backup system and so the majority of their data resides on that failing drive.

To add into the mix, the person hired a client who tried to mount the drive using a WinPE/BART disk to look around, they also ran the install disk for XP and was about to run a re-installation/repair install. Also worked with Chkdsk which probably rebuilt the corrupted directories. Not being aware of the drive, the application 'Rollback', nor the integrity of the drive. They said that they saw several directories but were unable to transfer because the drive is dropping out/locking up. So I believe the file structure is also dropping and is quite possibly corrupted.

In a situation such as this, if I understand it correctly. The original snapshot during the install is the original file system/structure. The progressive snapshots are encrypted and hidden to the user. So if the drive was sent off to a drive recovery center, they could at least have the chance of getting back their original data during the initial install of Rollback RX. At this point the person is just concerned over the files that they neglected to back up.

So I guess my question is... would it be feasible to send this drive off for recovery? Any other suggestions/ideas? Again, great app... but also bare metal is a definite must have as well. Odd as it may seem, the built in SMART utility from the motherboard, as well as the Intel based app running in their OS never reported anything on the drive before this massive failure.

Thanks!

[HDS-Jacob]

Greetings Robo,

Welcome to the Horizon DataSys forum. For reference, support can be reached at http://support.horizondatasys.com

Let's see if we can get an answer for you here.

Best,
Jacob