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Thread ID: 129798	2013-03-14 01:23:00	Easy backup software - free or paid	wratterus (105)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1332653	2013-03-15 22:59:00	Mmm I may be a bit old fashioned But I like to do my backups Manually I copy them from my D drive to an internal E drive and an external drive. I Use Windows to do it. Copy ad Paste. I don't trust all these compressed and propriety formats And I don't really understand images. That sounds like a slow & painful process	Greven (91)
1332654	2013-03-15 23:11:00	Which version of ShadowProtect are you using btw? version 4.2. something or other, running on W7. It was purchased originally late last year, just before V5 came out. As I mentioned before, a customer of mine brought It after following advice from posters in this forum. :horrified While it appeared to be doing daily backups, when they actually were required they had failed. Cant remember the exact wording but the message was something like this is not a valid file, even booting from the CD trying to open them it couldn't. He was trying to recover a few word documents he had deleted by mistake. Thats when he put in Active@ and is very happy with it, as we have since done test recoveries a couple of times and they worked perfectly. He asked me If I wanted the Shadow Protect -- Take it off his hands so to speak, If I didn't he would simply bin the CD, and software -no use to him, doesn't trust it. Originally he was going to contact storage Craft about the problem but decided to go with Active@ since that worked every time. I did find out he had contacted Storage craft saying he was unhappy and he advised he was giving the software away to someone else for free as thats how much he thought of it. Apparently he got a replay simply directing to the troubleshooting page and a message saying sorry he was not happy with the product ( words to that effect)	wainuitech (129)
1332655	2013-03-15 23:40:00	What does everyone use for cloning faulty drives? I have tried a lot of different products & different versions of those products, but the only one with a clone option on the boot CD that actually works with a bad drive most of the time is Acronis True Image 2009 Define Faulty ? Normally I'll use Active@ to make an image,usually doesn't matter how corrupted the drive is the image is made, then when laid back onto another drive it is exactly how the original was. If theres a physical problem with the drive thats a different story - requiring different methods - Does the drive spin up etc ?	wainuitech (129)
1332656	2013-03-16 00:50:00	If the SP was only bought late last year you can download and use the latest version for free as you get 12 months maintenance included in the purchase. www.storagecraft.com/software_update.php	CYaBro (73)
1332657	2013-03-16 02:35:00	Yep saw that CY, The account is under the guys name so I'll have to see if he wants to, but I doubt he will, this software has lost all creditability. But just had a "Play" with , dissimilar hardware -- total failure, just finished installing a XP machine, nothing on it except XP and all current updates - Imaged it to a USB Drive , (That went perfectly fine) then put the image onto another workshop PC as a trial, made sure the boxes were checked for dis-similar hardware, As per the instruction manual, 4863 Original has Intel Board onboard everything, going to a Gigabyte onboard everything both Socket 775. Laid it down Ok, but on bootup, blue screens and endless reboot, even in safe mode its a no go :groan: You can boot the PC from a bootable CD like ERD Commander or linux and see all the files/folders etc. Sorry but this software is to unreliable. I'll stick to software I can trust thanks all the same. :) PS: If you put the original image back on the original PC using another HDD it went perfectly fine, but not on dis-similar hardware.	wainuitech (129)
1332658	2013-03-16 02:59:00	Well I don't know what to say, I've never had the issues you seem to be having and been using shadowprotect since about v3 so approx 7-8 years.	CYaBro (73)
1332659	2013-03-16 08:22:00	Seems a bit odd that its causing so many failures. The original install, I asked the guy what he did to do a backup. He said installed the program, rebooted as instructed, then open the program ran through the backup wizard, looked in the USB external drive and there was a backup. Unplugged it till the following week, and manually did another and repeated several times in the following days/weeks. When the files were required all were tried and were useless. Same when I tried various options here everything appeared to be working fine. It was'nt until I went to use the dis -similar hardware, and as mentioned before unless ticking the check box wouldn't boot without repairing. ( Even made a New Bootable CD) So why its not working correctly ?? No idea, but I'll keep plodding along and try to figure out why. But I'm not prepared to risk customers data and wasting chargeable time with a possible failures. May contact storage Craft when I have time and see if there's any suggestions as to why the problems. Thanks for any suggestions so far :)	wainuitech (129)
1332660	2013-03-16 10:01:00	If anything it shows that you need to check your backups and don't just assume that because the software says the backup completed ok that you'll actually be able to restore your data. I always mount the backup image once it's complete and make sure it's possible to browse the data.	CYaBro (73)
1332661	2013-03-16 10:53:00	Couldn't agree more there. Had to replace a failed HDD a few weeks back on a Compaq PC, person was using Acronis, doing weekly backups to a External Drive, pity they had all failed. They didn't lose everything though, all the important things like Pictures and documents they had also uploaded to a couple of online storage sites.	wainuitech (129)
1332662	2013-03-16 22:44:00	Define Faulty ? Normally I'll use Active@ to make an image,usually doesn't matter how corrupted the drive is the image is made, then when laid back onto another drive it is exactly how the original was. If theres a physical problem with the drive thats a different story - requiring different methods - Does the drive spin up etc ? By bad, I meant bad sectors. Is there a reason Active@ makes you create an image to an external drive before restoring to the new drive? Cloning direct to a new drive is so much quicker & easier	Greven (91)
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