System Restore Alternatives?

I am seriously considering disabling "system restore" and replacing it with Acronis True Image, RAXCO FirstDefense-ISR, VCOM Recovery Commander or other similar alternatives. What are the strengths and weaknesses of these applications? I am looking for an app that consumes little resources, is reliable and relatively, easy to use. Any comments or opinions would be greatly appreciated regarding this matter.


Peace & Love,

CogitoErgoSum

 

I use on my laptop "Norton Goback 4" without any problems so far.

Have disabled "system restore", Goback is now doing the job, i'm really satisfied with it.

Key Features

• You can now drag and drop recovered files to their desired locations, and rescue multiple files simultaneously.
• History buffer now holds up to 8 GB of data*.
• New user interface lets you quickly recover files, restore an entire disk drive, or activate SafeTry Mode.
• Restores your disk drive to a previous healthy state after a system crash, failed software installation, user error, virus attack, or other problem.
• Allows you to restore just the files or folders you need, or an entire drive.
• AutoBack enables you to schedule regular rollbacks.
• Virtual Drive displays a previous state of a disk drive.

New Features

• SafeTry Mode lets you uninstall new software or undo actions with a single click.
• Familiar, intuitive search bar makes it easy to find the files or folders you want to restore.

* Quantity of historical information stored depends on available hard disk space. Maximum history on FAT32 filesystems is 4GB.


More info here

 

I too have disabled System Restore. I use TI8 (I won a licence here at Wilders). There is no comparison between the two. If I were you I would get TI just for the peace of mind. TI can restore your partition if anything and/or everything gets destroyed; there's nothing left. Windows' system restore cannot. It takes me 6-7 min to create an image and then 2-3 to restore one. TI has excellent compression when making images.

 

I have windows' system restore disabled, and I am using Acronis True Image to make images of my hard drive for back up. I am using version 8 right now because version 9 had a lot of problems with it when it was first released, but it seems that most of the major problems have been worked out on version 9, and the latest build #2323 seems to work well for most people now. I use an external hard drive to store the images onto, and that has been working out very good for me. Once every few months, I will also use about 3 or 4 blank cd's, and put an image onto them for extra assurance. Good luck!

 

Thanks Smokey, n8chavez and "the bigdintx" for the input.


Peace & Love,

CogitoErgoSum

 

I can mention that between the ones you mentioned, the two that I have are Acronis True Image and VCOM. If I had to choose only one of them, I would most definitely go with Acronis True Image. It's the most powerful, and gives a full restore. You can also use it now to backup single files or folders. It would be the one most worthy of disabling system restore, especially if you scheduled images. They've also got a 40% off sale going right now, coupon code CHRISTMAS.

The one advantage that you can have with VCOM's Recovery Commander, over ATI, is that you can set it to pop up and ask if you want to take a snapshot when you run an installer. This is a good part of why I keep VCOM on backup.

 

I believe it's a mistake to compare Rollback programs with Disaster Recovery (imaging) programs. The better Rollback programs (System Restore hardly qualifies!) can properly restore your system/files most of the time that it's necessary to do so. First Defense ISR is one such program which has a major Wilders following. However, there are other good Rollback programs, such as CleanSlate and ShadowUser (I don't know anything about Recovery Commander, but I would say avoid GoBack).

Imho, the only time it's necessary to resort to an image backup (from the likes of Acronis TI or Norton Ghost), is when you have a major system problem preventing your system from booting-up!

 

Goback is a rollback program, and IMO a very good one.

We are indeed talking about a rollback program, and not about imaging software.

What are your arguments to make such a negative statement about Goback?

 

Some Norton Goback 4 reviews:

http://www.kickstartnews.com/reviews/utilities/norton_goback_4.html
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/utilities/0,39024205,39174238,00.htm
http://www.epinions.com/content_195784314500

 

Hello, CES, your System Restore options are: FirstDefense-ISR and BootBack (they're the exact same program), GoBack, RestoreIT, and I believe Rollback RX. There may be others, but these are all that I am aware of. All of these programs, if they work as advertised and I can vouch for two of them, will do a much better job of restoring your system than System Restore. Good luck.

Acadia

 

No kidding ? I had no idea !

Check this screenshot at http://redmondmag.com/images/1105red_ProdRvw_Btbk_Fig1.jpg Looks like the only difference may be the application titlebar !

 

Yeah, Raxco and Leapfrog worked together to develop FirstDefense and Bootback (or something like that). They are affiliated somehow. Ever notice when you are done updating a Snapshot, you hear the croak of a frog.

Acadia

 

Well, I knew about Leapfrog but I always thought that was the chirp of a cricket !

 

A couple reasons I'm not so big of a fan of GoBack is, first, if your hard drive fails, your up sh!ts creek without a paddle, as they say.

GoBack should really have a way to save the revert times to a cd, dvd or another hard drive. Then if you do a defrag of your hard drive, or are involved in other disk intensive activity, you won't lose your go back times and have to wait over 4 hours till GoBack disables, so you can get it working again!!

Normally GoBack can be disabled in under a minute, but try doing a defrag and then check to see if you have any GoBack times. I bet you won't, and the quickest way to get GoBack working again is to shut it down and restart it, which takes hours. It can take up to 7 hours to fully disable it in some cases.

Maybe if GoBack just had some way to save the revert times or temporarily shut it down, but save your go back times, before a defrag, then I would like it somewhat more. But what's the point of running GoBack if you have to shut it down before doing a defrag, erasing large files or doing other disk intensive activity?

I'm considering trying Rollback Rx because I heard you can't lose your revert times so easily and they take up far less space on your hard drive too. Plus Rollback Rx allows you to save your revert times for many months if you want (or longer), try that with GoBack!

GoBack has a ways to go in my opinion to be the ideal system rollback utility. Though GoBack is far better than just System Restore because you can recover from viruses and other problems, you can't do that with just wimpy System Restore.

To me it looks like Rollback Rx is far ahead of GoBack at this point. But so far I've only briefly looked into Rollback Rx and I don't think it has a way to save your revert times to cd, dvd or separate hard drive, just like GoBack doesn't have those features either. But if Rollback Rx did, I feel it would be the ideal rollback program.

 

hardhead, keep us informed of your progress with Rollback RX. I am very interested in all of the Instant Recovery programs, they are my favorite type of programs because I am mainly interested in helping newbies protect themselves, and these programs, at least those are really do work, fill the bill. Thanks.

Acadia

 

Ooooooooooooo!! (Good one, Peter!! )

Acadia

 

Hi pvsurfer,

Not if you're disciplined about imaging. I image daily...sometimes more than once a day when I'm beta testing. With BootIt NG installed as a boot manager, it only takes 4.5 minutes to image one of my systems (~5GB of data), and about 3.5 minutes to restore. Image validation adds more time, but, with Terabyte's reliability, I tend to skip validation now. I also archive my images on a third HD, and can restore images from a year ago if required. While roll-back solutions are convenient, they will not help you recover gracefully from a HD failure.

Nick

 

I have used RestoreIT for years and wouldn't be without it. Takes about 7 seconds to make an incremental backup and uses no real resources. It's also the easiest program I have used to make a bootable image of my system.

 

The thread is about a System Restore Alternative, not about imaging software...

 

Thanks Notok, pvsurfer, Peter2150, Acadia, hardhead101, nick s and Ailric for your respective input.


Peace & Love,

CogitoErgoSum

 

You're most welcome, it's been a good thread.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hanukkah to all.

 

Smokey..i just reinstalled GoBack after removing it a year ago......my question is......if i do a rollback will i lose where i left off with the PC games i play ?