Boot from backup

[time]

This thread is about software that can create bootable backups; specifically the ability to run directly from a USB drive backup. The point to this is that when an HDD dies, a user can be up and running again almost immediately, allowing more time for skilled personnel to become available to replace hardware and restore the PC.

Or with identical hardware, the user could takeover a spare PC and boot up with their backed up environment ...

My first experiments with this concept involved CMS Bounceback. Until someone can conduct more testing, there's a question mark over its ability to do this, along with its ability to restore the runtime image to the replacement drive. It seemed to struggle with more than one drive and partition.

I've also tried copying a drive to an external hard drive, but although the boot loader runs okay and tools confirm the drive letter is set to 'C', the startup fails after displaying the Windows logo. I used Paragon Disk Manager, but it looks like Acronis TrueImage has the same limitations.

There's a sort-of-free product called XXClone, but the last update was in 2007 and I read a report that it fails with Vista.

But there's also something called Casper. Geddit?

I tried version 6, which downloaded an update immediately after I installed it. I installed it on an old copy of Windows Tiny XP that doesn't even have VSS, so it failed with an error ... and displayed hotlinked help that told me how to diagnose the error, how to restore VSS, and how to run it without VSS. Which I did, backing up C and D drive to a Samsung 320GB USB removable drive.

My test config was a WD 80GB partitioned into roughly 10GB and 70GB, as well as a Samsung 2TB with a single partition:

(10 + 70) + 2000 + DVD + 320
  C    D      F     E    n/a

After the backup completed, I rebooted with USB-HDD priority in the BIOS boot sequence:

(10 + 70) + 2000 + DVD + (10 + 70 + 240)
  G    H      F     E      C    D   n/a

which I guess is pretty much perfect ...

So who wants to test this with Windows 7?

 

[time]

I repeated this exercise with Bounceback 11.0 (the latest version). It was equally successful, although because I didn't release the drive letters, the removable drive partitions advanced to J and K rather than G and H. One of the annoyances with Bounceback is that it now expects the backup partition to be J. Because I remapped that to G, it can't recognize the drive and will want to repartition if I force another backup.

For each backup configuration, Bounceback stores a small binary file on each backup partition as well as a larger file in its program directory. I was unable to decipher one enough to edit the drive letters.

The big advantage of Bounceback is its integration. It amends the boot menu on the primary drive so you can switch to the backup drive if required. If the primary drive is dead, the BIOS should drop through to the USB drive (if you've set it up properly). There's a prompt when you boot from the backup drive that both confirms what you're running from and asks if you want to restore to replacement media. And there's now an option to convert the backup drive to the primary drive (by removing the extras I just mentioned).

So now we need someone with Windows 7, a spare HDD, a spare USB drive, and some time, to clone their drive and go through the entire process of backup and restoration.

 

[Howell]

It is difficult to understand what you mean by "release the drive letters" and what your procedure was the second time through.
Did you uninstall/reinstall Bounceback after the recovery?

 

[time]

The partitions on the removable drive were still assigned as G and H. When I installed Bounceback and it repartitioned the drive, the new partitions were assigned the letters J and K (presumably because G and H were already in use).

At least, I think that's what happened.

No, I haven't uninstalled Bounceback yet; I've still to restore the backup to a new drive. I don't think there's much point doing that unless it's all Win 7.

 

[Stereodude]

Seems like a lot of trouble to me to have a bootable drop in replacement backup.

 

[LunarMist]

That could be a lot of work for many users. It seems like that would also run really slow and burn up the USB drives. (Where are they all stored?) How many SSDs are failing? Has it been determined to be a good ROI?

 

[time]

It's good for home and small business - larger enterprises have staff on hand (and spare equipment) for this sort of thing.

Perhaps it's not obvious, but the user can continue to work after full or partial drive failure. The backup becomes their live copy.

It's particularly a problem if you want to make a warranty claim on a drive: turnaround can be weeks. The high cost of SSDs (up to $300 for only a modestly sized one) has brought this aspect into sharper focus for me. With this type of facility it doesn't matter.

I've also had endless hassles organizing technicians to rebuild PCs after simple drive failures. This dumbs it down to the point where anyone (even a Dell technician) can replace a drive and the completely up-to-date image can either be remotely restored or a user talked through a very simple task.

It's also an exceptionally good idea for laptop users when they're traveling. They won't need to find a service center and be without their PC.

 

[Mercutio]

Why not just enable RAID1?

 

[Stereodude]

Why not just enable RAID1?

I was wondering that myself yesterday. RAID is pretty good insurance against downtime (at least due to HW failure).

 

[Mercutio]

I suppose it won't work in a laptop configuration, but on the other hand, what laptop user is going to bother to plug in another disk drive to keep his or her backup refreshed enough to actually minimize downtime?

 

[time]

1. RAID 1 requires identical drives. If one is an SSD this becomes expensive.
2. RAID 1 does not protect against faulty host adapters or errors in SATA drivers (which can easily occur with faulty RAM or motherboard).
3. RAID 1 does not protect against data corruption, because by definition, the same data is immediately written to both drives.
4. When one drive begins to fail, it may not be clear which drive to replace.
5. RAID 1 does not protect against catastrophic power supply failure, lightning strikes, fire, flood, earthquake or theft. Admittedly, you may be unable to replace the PC in these instances anyway!

A bootable backup costs $50 for some software and $70 for a 2.5" USB 3.0 drive.

But keep talking, that's the reason I've been posting this stuff; I'm grateful for other viewpoints. For me, the obvious hassle is that Windows limitations mean you have to plug a removable drive into each PC to do a backup. I haven't found a way around this so far. What would be lovely is some way of dumping a networked image to a USB drive that could then be used to boot the problem PC.

 

[time]

what laptop user is going to bother to plug in another disk drive to keep his or her backup refreshed enough to actually minimize downtime?

A well-trained one? Seriously, I know exactly what you mean.

A feature of Bounceback is that you can configure it to launch the backup automatically when the drive is plugged in. So when the user is in their hotel room and turns in for the night, all they have to do is plug in the removable drive and go to bed.

In a couple of years, the removable drive will be a flash drive.

 

[Mercutio]

A well-trained one? Seriously, I know exactly what you mean.

In a couple of years, the removable drive will be a flash drive.

I don't have that much faith in any laptop user I support.

 

[time]

Well okay, I'll admit I don't either. That's why I started using automatic cloud synchronization - but that doesn't cover the boot image.

 

[Mercutio]

Well okay, I'll admit I don't either. That's why I started using automatic cloud synchronization - but that doesn't cover the boot image.

In theory, the boot image should be disposable. You can make a Sysprep image if not a one time re-deployable backup. You can redirect a user's important folder to a webDAV share or something to make sure their documents get backed up. There's just no chance I'd trust an end user with an extra local drive. It's just one more thing for them to loser and/or break and when the backup doesn't work right it's your fault anyway.