This is so cool! One second for a full system restore!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joep
  • Start date Start date
J

Joep

I know, there are draw backs. It will not replace the 'tradional' backup but
for a one_second_system_restore this beats every thing!

What am I talking about? This:
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/Card.htm

Just received a batch of samples this week, it's amazing. Think of any
disaster (apart from physical failures) - one second and you're entire disk
is back as it was, I tried it all, dump the system folder, trash the
registry, even formatting the c: drive! I didn't believe it until I saw it
with my own eyes. I am not just saying so because I'll be selling them, I am
so truly amazed that I had to share this. Seriously, this is not intended as
spam.
 
Well daddy, as it *does* work there must be something wrong with your
understanding of physics.

How do you know this?
Do you have one?
They aren't for sale yet, according to the linked site.
Do you have one of these?
 
I have a very good understanding of physics, my friend, and just because you
say something is true doesn't make it so. Remember the claims of the Flat
Earth Society, or the "validated evidence" of an alien life form at Area 52
in New Mexico? Your claim is just as ludicrous.
 
J.Clarke said:
And you know this how?

Because:

1.It's nothing new, these cards are sold as well under different names,
'boot and go' being one. They're on the market for quite a while.

2. Yes, I have test samples. They work. Although less flexible than for
example DriveImage (the cards can maintain one point in time) they're a lot
faster and ideal for for example protecting the partition containing your
windows installation.

- In my tests I formatted a FAT32 partition containing Windows XP > verified
the partition was indeed empty > rebooted again and told the card to restore
the partition > within one second Windows boots up. Note that for 'un-doing'
the format the card *just* needs to restore the FATs and the root directory,
which is a couple of MB's maybe, and that *is* physically possible.

- Same test, format c: /s > same result

- Same test + copy 30 new files to root of formatted partition > same
result.

I was sceptical as well before testing, after testing I was amazed and
enthuesiatic.
 
Papa said:
I have a very good understanding of physics, my friend, and just because you
say something is true doesn't make it so.

Still, it *does* work, you claiming that it is bull doesn't make it bull
either. Maybe you don't understand than how easy it is to unformat, *if* you
are able to monitor transactions on a disk, and this is exactly what the
card does. For unformatting a FAT(32) drive, you basically only put back the
FATs and the root, a couple of MBs. There's nothing physically impossible
about that. SO maybe you have some understanding about physics, you don't
have a good understanding of disk structures.
Remember the claims of the Flat
Earth Society, or the "validated evidence" of an alien life form at Area 52
in New Mexico? Your claim is just as ludicrous.

No it isn't ludicrous. Before I made the claim I verified it. I *was*
sceptical as well, so I asked the manufacturer for samples. They do work as
described. It's cool.

--
Joep

D I Y D a t a R e c o v e r y . N L - Data & Disaster Recovery Tools

http://www.diydatarecovery.nl
http://www.diydatarecovery.com

Please include previous correspondence!

DiskPatch - MBR, Partition, boot sector repair and recovery.
iRecover - FAT, FAT32 and NTFS data recovery.
MBRtool - Freeware MBR backup and restore.
 
Where are the changes stored? Does the card have huge flash RAM?


| 2. Yes, I have test samples. They work. Although less flexible than for
| example DriveImage (the cards can maintain one point in time) they're a lot
| faster and ideal for for example protecting the partition containing your
| windows installation.
|
| - In my tests I formatted a FAT32 partition containing Windows XP > verified
| the partition was indeed empty > rebooted again and told the card to restore
| the partition > within one second Windows boots up. Note that for 'un-doing'
| the format the card *just* needs to restore the FATs and the root directory,
| which is a couple of MB's maybe, and that *is* physically possible.
|
| - Same test, format c: /s > same result
|
| - Same test + copy 30 new files to root of formatted partition > same
| result.
|
 
Eric Gisin said:
Where are the changes stored? Does the card have huge flash RAM?

Hi,

Nope. It stores data on the hard disk itself. This is why it's worthless in
case of physical hard disk issues. You could basically see it as a hardware
version of GoBack, or SecondChance.

Because it stores data on the hard disk, it can not monitor changes without
limitation. There comes a point where you tell the card, okay, regard the
current situation as the 'stable situation'. All transactions it recorded
till then are reset, and the card can start monitoring and recording changes
relative to the new 'point in time'.

It also has to 'know' the file system, this is why it only supports FAT12,
FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS at this time.

Basically it's like this:

You plug the card into a PCI slot > boot the machine, in case of Windows
9x/ME there's no need to install any drivers, NT based systems require a
driver to be installed > the card analyses the disk, as it needs contiguous
space to record transactions it may prompt you to defrag the partition(s)
you want monitored. It can only monitor the 1st hard disk up to 8 partitions
from there on, depending up on how you configured the card it can:

- Restore snapshot, point in time or whatever you want to call it
automatically up on every reboot (for example computer class rooms, test
labs etc.)

- prompt you to, and you decide if changes are included in snap shot
(because you for example installed new software).

- goto open mode: monitoring is turned off, so changes you make can't be
undone

To reduce the space required by the 'transaction database' it is advised (I
discovered) to move the swap file and temp directory to a different
partition. I may write something that I'll include to make this a little
easier.

Key is, that the card monitors changes, and only the changed data is stored,
to 'undo' or recover, this data is 'copied' back. Compared to a 'tradional'
backup, it works the other way around, rather that storing all data existing
in a certain point of time, it starts recording changed data relative to a
point in time and keeps a copy of that.

MBR and CMOS is also 'protected' and also low level disk interaction can be
blocked to for example avoid a 'low level format (pattern write with a DOS
tool)'.

--
Joep

D I Y D a t a R e c o v e r y . N L - Data & Disaster Recovery Tools

http://www.diydatarecovery.nl
http://www.diydatarecovery.com

Please include previous correspondence!

DiskPatch - MBR, Partition, boot sector repair and recovery.
iRecover - FAT, FAT32 and NTFS data recovery.
MBRtool - Freeware MBR backup and restore.
 
Joep said:
Still, it *does* work, you claiming that it is bull doesn't make it bull
either. Maybe you don't understand than how easy it is to unformat, *if* you
are able to monitor transactions on a disk, and this is exactly what the
card does. For unformatting a FAT(32) drive, you basically only put back the
FATs and the root, a couple of MBs.

Ahh, and all the overwritten files magically reappear.
There's nothing physically impossible about that.

Indeed. Pity that isn't all that's needed.
SO maybe you have some understanding about physics, you don't
have a good understanding of disk structures.

Ahh, but you do.
 
Hmmnnn. Then it must be true, even though not a single MVP, nor any other
respected expert, has said a word in it's favor.
;>)
 
Papa said:
Hmmnnn. Then it must be true, even though not a single MVP, nor any other
respected expert, has said a word in it's favor.
;>)

Well, I am surpised as well that those cards aren't more common. I read
about them already a year ago or so. As I mentioned in one of the above
posts, there are limitations, plus the card is less flexible than for
example DriveImage and Ghost (only *one* point in time is kept - 'backups'
are on the hard disk itself).

The card is also almost never mentioned in magazines, the last year I anly
saw it mentioned in 2 magazines, that's all.

But even when taking those limitations into consideration the card can be
very useful I think.

Anyway, then I received a batch of test samples, I made sure I installed the
card on an old test PC rather than a business critical one. And it did amaze
me how well and fast it worked. I am certain that anyone who actually sees
the card at work will like it.

I'll be equiping all machines with it, and specially for my test machines
it's gonna do great.
 
This card thingummy. You reckon it can switch back to a previous state
within one second.

This means that it has to track every single disk write so that it can
regurgitate the previous content within a second.

This means that it has to store everything in RAM memory.

So if this is indeed the case, which I seriously doubt, what sort of
overhead does this "thingummy" bring to bear on a system?

Odie
 
Hi,
This means that it has to store everything in RAM memory.

No I alreay explained it does not do that.
So if this is indeed the case, which I seriously doubt, what sort of
overhead does this "thingummy" bring to bear on a system?

The card produces no noticable overhead at all, since the card only writes
records changes the write access to the disk the card needs itself is kept
to a minimum.
 
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