Deric:
Yes, there are 2 downloads for the Enterprise version, which I've already downloaded and installed. It's the desktop version I'm referring to. It only has one download, which Dave explained in an earlier post. The "missing" download is the one which creates the Recovery disk.
Just looked at the user manual for the download of the desktop version and had my question answered. The manual is exactly the same as the manual in the Enterprise version, and Restore Anyware is included. That makes my decision very simple. I'll buy the desktop version and get the discount.
It's been a while since I downloaded SSR 2013 and my memory is slowly fading, anyway once installed you can create a recovery disk. On the main UI click Tasks on the menu bar at the top and create recovery disk. We refer to it as the (SRD) Symantec Recovery Disk. You will need the installation disk to create the SRD, put the disk in the burner and follow the instructions on the screen.
Another way is to set up "Lights Out Restore" which is a faster way than using the SRD you will have an entry when booting up to select "LOR". Try it it works a treat.
Deric
The SRD is not in the install download. It, actually they, are is a zip file that contains two zip files containing ISO files for 32-bit and 64-bit.
Sym_System_Recovery_2013_11.0.1.47662_English_Recovery_Disk.zip\
\SSR11.0.1.47662_AllWin_64bit_English_SrdOnly.zip\
\ReadmeISO.txt
\SSR11.0.1.47662_AllWin_64bit_English_SrdOnly.iso
\SSR11.0.1.47662_AllWin_English_SrdOnly.zip\
\ReadmeISO.txt
\SSR11.0.1.47662_AllWin_English_SrdOnly.iso
I also noticed there's an option under Tools to create a customized SRD, which is recommended even if the original SRD appears to be working. Of course, you need the original SRD to create the customized one. Also tried to purchase the desktop download and got an error message "Symantec Internal Error Page!". Will try again later today.
Personally, I wouldn't purchase it until your sure it works.
I also would not bother with a custom recovery disk if the standard one works. Unless you need a special driver not included, the only advantage of a custom recovery disk is being able to add your serial number so you don't have to enter it when making an image from the recovery disk. So if you have not purchased it you should wait.
If you signed up for the discount in the top section of this forum, it took me a week or so to get my 40% discount code.
You don't need to actually download the program, just fill in your name and email address and submit it.
In the meanwhile, you want to use SSR 2013 to create images of every partition on your old system.
When selecting the "source" partition, click the box to show hidden drives and also look in disk management to make sure you know how many partitions your hard drive really has. It's normal for a system with windows 7 to have one or more hidden partitions in addition to the windows partition.
When you get the new laptop, you want to boot it with the 64bit recovery disk and the external drive attached.
Then go to: Analyze > Explorer my Computer and browse around to make sure you can access both your hard drive and the USB3 external drive. If you can do that then your fine and do not need a custom disk and your ready to go.
Dave
DaveH;
Thanks for the advice. Everything I've tried has worked fine so far. When I boot the recovery disk, I can see all my restore points on my external USB 3 drive plus I can browse them. I have 2 partitions on my hard drive and they are both backed up on my external HD. The second partition is for restoring Windows to its original state and there are no hidden partitions. My current system is a mid-tower HP Pavilion and its replacement will be a custom built mid-tower, not a brand name. I have no qualms about buying SSR 2013, because Ghost is no longer supported. I tried buying it again today and still got the error message. The link to purchase the product was sent to me by email after signing up for the 60 day trial. There's also something odd about Symantec/Norton online chat support. I reported the problem, but the lady on the other end had no idea what I was talking about and had never heard of SSR. She gave me a 1-800 number to call. It seems SSR, including the desktop version, is considered to be an "enterprise" product, not for home use. I think that's why the chat lady didn't know anything about it. Judging from the support web pages for chat, all products must be in the Norton family, which SSR is not.
Regarding the discount, the email says it will be applied at check out time. If I could get that far, I'd be happy.
jimboden wrote:DaveH;
Thanks for the advice.
The link to purchase the product was sent to me by email after signing up for the 60 day trial. There's also something odd about Symantec/Norton online chat support. I reported the problem, but the lady on the other end had no idea what I was talking about and had never heard of SSR. She gave me a 1-800 number to call. It seems SSR, including the desktop version, is considered to be an "enterprise" product, not for home use. I think that's why the chat lady didn't know anything about it. Judging from the support web pages for chat, all products must be in the Norton family, which SSR is not.
I think by dropping "Ghost" the SSR 2013 team are geared up for business users and the "Ghost" team are now non existent which is a pity.
Time for Andy to get involved to sort out customer relations for the retail (home) section.
Deric
Hi Dave and Red:
I hope this is my last question, but you never know. Today, by a bizarre coincidence, I had to use the SSR disk to restore my system. I installed new drivers and related stuff from AMD's web site to update my video card drivers and utilities. All that went well, but it turned out the new software made my video card completely useless for playing games. I tried going back to the old versions, doing repairs, etc. and that caused other weird system problems, mostly applications crashing for no reason.
I have a full system backup going back to Jan. 1/14, so I used the SSR disk to restore it. It worked like a charm and I was really impressed that it only took about 55 minutes to restore 320GB of data. Before I did the restore, however, I ran an incremental backup of my files and folders, so I could restore them. What I discovered is that both Ghost and SSR create log entries, for lack of a better term, which keep track of where the backups are stored. When I searched for my backup files, they were a few days older than the backup I did before restoring the system. In other words, neither Ghost nor SSR could find my latest incremental files and folders. The actual backup folders are on my external drive and dated today. Is there some way to get SSR to recognize backup files that aren’t stored in its activity log? If not, that’s a serious flaw for a backup/restore system. There should be some way to force it to find my backup files. I can find them but, of course, can't do anything with them.
The reason why you loose some of your history is because that information did not exist then.
On Jan 1'st you had no "future" history because those events have not happened yet.
The history your missing were only added after that date, when you restored your system to Jan 1'st it now shows exactly what your system showed on January 1'st.
File and folder backups can be added back in but image history cannot.
To reimport your file and folder history open SSR and click the large button "Tasks" Then click "recover my files"
On the left side highlight "file and folder" (not recovery point). Then go to File > Import backup destination
Then browse to your backup location and it should add back in the data after Jan 1'st.
Images (recovery points) can't be added back in to the history but they are still fully usable.
Please check again in disk management for a 100MB hidden partition on the front of the drive called "system reserved".
It's the active boot partition for windows 7 and it is almost always present unless the user specifically wanted to install windows 7 without it.
Dave
DaveH:
Thank you very much. I looked in the SSR documentation, but didn't notice the feature you explained. Sounds like it should work, though, and will give it a try. SSR also doesn't recognize my last full system backup which I created on Jan. 1, It's the one I used to restore my system from the recovery disk. Guess the same technique should work.
DaveH:
Wow, it's amazing how many little things I've forgotten over the years. Of course there's an MBR hidden partition on my hard drive and I just backed it up. Also imported all my file backup and restore logs and that worked as well. I've had this computer for over 3 years and used Ghost regularly. When I imported all the file backups. it took almost an hour. Guess it's time for me to clean it up, so that's my next task. I'm thinking I should just delete everything in the folder and start over, but I don't know if SSR will be OK with me deleting files.
Well, I bought SSR 2013 and like it a lot, plus the discount was excellent. I have one question for the guru's here, which probably pertains to Ghost as well. For the first time, I did a base volume backup followed by a few incremental backups. I had to restore my system, so I used the SSR recovery disk and that all went fine. When I rebooted my computer and checked a few things, I noticed that some files were restored only as at the date of the base backup. In other words, the incremental volume backups were not used in the restore procedure, which I thought they would be.
My question is, what is the proper way to use volume incremental backups? They seem to be useless based on this experience, but I'm sure I'm not understanding something. My expectation was that a volume restore would use the base backup followed by every incremental one which is part of the backup set. I read and reread the user manual, but this falls into a grey area for me.
No, just select the latest incremental date.
Deric
Deric:
Thanks for the reply. I know the most recent incremental backup has the latest data. If I understand correctly, if I restore a volume using the most recent incremental backup, the restore will start with it first, then work its way back to the original base backup. I'll give that a try.
Thanks again.
The base image is used on a recovery and the incremental will add the changes, that is how I see it should work.
I tend to use the "One Time Backup" which is a simple manual full pc backup including all the folders and apps.
My data drive is backed up by a third party software on a daily basis.
Hope that helps.
Deric
Deric:
I also have been using one time backups, but decided to see if incrementals add any "value". They run in a few minutes, but I'm still not understanding how to use them for recovery. I use incremental backups all the time for files and folders and understand how they work. I'm going to read up on SSR in the Symantec forums, which is where I should be asking questions.
The incremental backup (iv2i file) is based on the previous changes. So let's say you have...
C_Drive001.v2i
C_Drive001_i001.iv2i
C_Drive001_i002.iv2i
C_Drive001_i003.iv2i
C_Drive001_i004.iv2i
C_Drive001_i005.iv2i
...C_Drive001_i005.iv2i relies on every file before. You can choose to restore from any one, which in my case is one day apart. Let's say you create a file that is captured in C_Drive001_i002.iv2i. If you restore C_Drive001_i002.iv2i or later, it will be recovered. Let's say the same file is deleted from your PC before C_Drive001_i005.iv2i is captured, and you restore C_Drive001_i005.iv2i, it will not be recovered..
Most important thing to remember about incrementals is that the one you are trying to restore from must have all of the previous backup files (v2i and iv2i) available that belong in the set. So in the case above, if C_Drive001_i004.iv2i gets deleted or corrupted, you can only restore C_Drive001_i003.iv2i or prior. C_Drive001_i004.iv2i and C_Drive001_i005.iv2i are no longer valid.
Red:
Thanks for clarifying that, which makes perfect sense. I was assuming that recovering a base backup would include any incrementals associated with it, but guess I was wrong. I can see why recovering all the incrementals by default could cause problems, though. Something in an incremental backup could be the reason for recovering a hard drive, so you don't want to recreate the problem.
I.ve never had any problem recovering from an incremental (iv2i) backup. It is always good to verify the bacckup first before starting recovery. To do this just open the backup you want to recover using Recovery Point Browser and use the verify button. It will tell you right away if any files are missing.
Oh, BTW, it is a gret idea to always verify right after creating an image. There is an option to do that.