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Main Area and Open Discussion => Living Room => Topic started by: mouser on October 14, 2012, 11:37 AM

Title: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: mouser on October 14, 2012, 11:37 AM
A family member recently got hit with a nasty malware virus (File Recovery Virus (http://malwaretips.com/blogs/file-recovery-removal-guide/)).
The steps required to remove it are numerous and painful, and there is no guarantee you'd get everything.

Let this be a reminder to everyone that the idea of removing all traces of a nasty malware/virus after you are exploited is at best a very troubling solution.

You cannot guarantee you won't be hit by one of these, but the best thing you can do if you are, is have a FULL DRIVE BACKUP on an external hard drive that you can restore, to put your machine back to where it was before the infection.

If you don't yet have a drive imaging tool and an external hard drive, go out and get these now.

It doesn't really matter which brand you use, and many of the external hard drives come with imaging software included.

Decide on a schedule (like once a month) to perform a full drive backup, and follow it religiously.

I'd also add that for optimum safety you probably want to keep that external drive disconnected when not being used for backup, to avoid the possibility that a really evil malware could wipe it -- though that's unlikely.


Bottom line -- put yourself in a position where you don't have to go through the hell of trying to clean your files of an infection and hope you can get all the bad stuff removed and never know for sure.  Have a drive image you are willing to go back to.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: 40hz on October 14, 2012, 02:14 PM
+1 x 10^24! :Thmbsup:

What we suggest to our non-techy clients for their personal machines:

1. Set up your PC with at least 2 partitions C & D.

2. Put your OS and programs on C

3. Move your MyDocuments folder to D

4. Make a habit of saving all your data to folders on the D drive if you don't like the using the MyDocuments folder for everything.

5. Download a copy of Macrium Reflect Free Edition (http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx). Install it and follow the directions for making a rescue CD. Make at least two copies. Store the disks in a safe place.

6. Use Macrium to copy the C (system) partition to an external drive either bi-weekly - or after any major system upgrade or new program installation. Keep the two most recent copies.

7. Use Macrium to copy the D (data) partition to an external drive at least once per week - although daily or every other day would be best. Just kick it off when you're done for the day and walk away. Keep your two or three most recent copies.

8. Stop worrying.

 8) :)

Note: this is far from ideal from an efficiency viewpoint. But it's as close to "no-brainer" as we can make it. Fortunately, once set up, it's easy enough for the most technophobic user to handle and understand.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 02:30 PM
By the way if you rely on Windows 7 backup for imaging I discovered it no longer works on 3Tb drives (or any drive that has a 4mb block size). Seems Windows backup is optimise for 512kb block size.

Very annoying as a customer just bought a 3Tb Seagate drive to do backups.

It is supposed to be fixed in Windows 8.

FWIW Paragon Free Backup and Recovery seems to do a good imaging job, though it lacks a lot of the subtlety of their paid offerings.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: NigelH on October 14, 2012, 02:46 PM
Partition level back tools are somewhat unreliable - even if they offer file level recovery from their image backups.

I'd add a 3rd level of backup.
Use a folder synchronization tool to backup your important data folders to separate external drives or machines with shared folders.
Make sure you do a one way sync - targeting the remote folders.
That way, if you accidentally delete something, the deletion is not sync'd to the remote folders and you can reverse the direction of the folder sync to restore what was deleted. Or to delete from the remote folders what you intentionally deleted on the primary.
Folder level synchronization is also very quick comparatively.
There are free options for this as well as paid options.

If this (conceptually) is difficulty for you to do, get a copy of  Fab's AutoBackup 3 (EUR 4.90 or $6.50 ).
Fabs "knows" about most of the default folders on all recent Windows releases and will backup your important stuff.
You can also add separate folders to the backups.
If you restore, it knows how to put everything back in the correct place even if you restore from backups made on an XP machine to a Windows 7 or 8 machine etc.
Fab's backups are "full" backups, i.e. all your data files each time, so this takes a while. But if you start running of space on your target drive, you can delete the older backups.
Fab's Autobackup tools (http://www.fpnet.fr)

Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: rjbull on October 14, 2012, 02:53 PM
have a FULL DRIVE BACKUP on an external hard drive that you can restore
-mouser (October 14, 2012, 11:37 AM)

How many levels of old backups is it recommended to keep?
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: mouser on October 14, 2012, 03:15 PM
How many levels of old backups is it recommended to keep?

as many as you have room for?

the important thing is to understand WHY you dont just want *one* backup -- and that's because it's too easy to end up in a situation where your one last backup was made AFTER the actual problem started -- or worse that it's damaged.

so ideally you'd like a bunch of backups made at different times, so that if you need to you have some options about how far back to restore.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: Shades on October 14, 2012, 03:50 PM
Partitionguru (http://www.eassos.com/partitionguru.php#Free) by Eossos. Their freeware version (v4 I believe) I have been using lately to fix several Windows PC´s.

This is a piece of software that really belongs in any tech´s toolkit. It easily trumps Partition Magic (in their good days!) and has the abilities of Norton Ghost as well. And I liked the amount and lay-out of shortcut keys, I had no trouble doing all the fixing without a mouse.

The only disadvantage I could find is that the english is not always correct...well, not as I would have translated it. Its origins lie in the Orient (China). Please don´t let this stop you using this brilliant piece of software.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: 40hz on October 14, 2012, 05:35 PM
Partition level back tools are somewhat unreliable
-NigelH (October 14, 2012, 02:46 PM)

??? :huh:

Beside Acronis TrueImage's problems a while ago, is there another one you had in mind?

- even if they offer file level recovery from their image backups.

Why would they want to offer file level recovery from a partition image? That's what a traditional backup or sync utility is for. Or going with realtime drive mirroring. Extracting individual files from an image sounds like a good way to risk damaging the integrity of the image.

I was always under the impression that disk and partition images were intended to be used for "all or nothing" recoveries. Did somebody try to create a hybrid?
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 06:10 PM
Why would they want to offer file level recovery from a partition image?
-40hz (October 14, 2012, 05:35 PM)

One of the things I like about Paragon is that you can 'mount' the images as read only drives and recover individual files and folders using normal Explorer methods. This can be handy - but I take your point that file backups are best done with appropriate tools.

I used to like that feature in Acronis but have given up using their bloated bugfest sometime ago when they caused me a lot of embarrassment with clients having recommended their tools. Ever since Acronis TrueImage Workstation 9 it has been a disaster with inconsistent (and random) VSS errors, corrupt archives, random errors with no explanation. They keep adding features - I just wish they could get back to basics and do the simple things well again.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: 40hz on October 14, 2012, 06:37 PM
One of the things I like about Paragon is that you can 'mount' the images as read only drives and recover individual files and folders using normal Explorer methods. This can be handy - but I take your point that file backups are best done with appropriate tools.
-Carol Haynes (October 14, 2012, 06:10 PM)

Oh I agree with you. It does sound very handy. But it still makes me nervous since it's one more thing that can break. And Murphy's presence is inescapable in our line of business.

I used to like that feature in Acronis but have given up using their bloated bugfest sometime ago when they caused me a lot of embarrassment with clients having recommended their tools.
-Carol Haynes (October 14, 2012, 06:10 PM)

Makes two of us. I actually ended up buying back several copies from clients I had recommended it to.  Something that caught me by surprise since TrueImage had worked very reliably up until version 8 based on my experiences.

Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: f0dder on October 14, 2012, 07:05 PM
By the way if you rely on Windows 7 backup for imaging I discovered it no longer works on 3Tb drives (or any drive that has a 4mb block size). Seems Windows backup is optimise for 512kb block size.
-Carol Haynes (October 14, 2012, 02:30 PM)
Wouldn't that be 4kb and 512byte sectors? Interesting if that's preventing a backup utility from working.

Also, mouser, why specifically recommend image-based backups? Sure, it's faster to restore an image than doing a clean reinstall, but other than that? Isn't the most important thing to have backups, and to have several revisions of each file so that you don't overwrite a valid file backup with a corrupt or ransomwared copy? (And yes, it's a good idea to only have the backup drive connected when backing up - even if you don't get hit by a nasty, there's oversurge from lightning or cable cutting fsckups).
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: mouser on October 14, 2012, 07:17 PM
Also, mouser, why specifically recommend image-based backups?

I've always advocated (https://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/BackUpGuide/index.html) for a dual approach to backups:

And that remains the soundest advice.

Versioned backups are to protect you from something going wrong with one of your files.
Drive Images are to let you go back to a known good complete computer state.

I wouldn't ever go with just one.  If you don't do a lot of document creation/editing you could get away without the versioned backups as long as you drive image frequently and occasionally backup your documents to a usb stick, etc.

I'd hate to be without drive image backups though -- they let you get back up to a running state after a catastrophic hard drive crash or system-wide infection, etc.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: NigelH on October 14, 2012, 08:17 PM
Beside Acronis TrueImage's problems a while ago, is there another one you had in mind?
-40hz (October 14, 2012, 05:35 PM)
Acronis was a case in point. But we're talking about relying on the integrity of a single multi-gigabyte file. I suspect many 100s of gigabytes for many people.
Not something I want to trust fully. I don't know how many of these tools are able to handle damaged clusters in an image file on a backup drive.

Extracting individual files from an image sounds like a good way to risk damaging the integrity of the image.
-40hz (October 14, 2012, 05:35 PM)
This was answered by Carol, but your question surprised me seeing that extraction is referring to just reading data from an image file.

Nevertheless, as long as you have your personal data backed up using any competent backup/sync tool, you can recover.
Unless your machine is old, you can't buy a restoration disk from the vendor to put the OS back and you don't know how to get around that.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: Carol Haynes on October 15, 2012, 02:54 AM
Wouldn't that be 4kb and 512byte sectors? Interesting if that's preventing a backup utility from working.
-f0dder (October 14, 2012, 07:05 PM)

Sorry yes - brain addled!
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: Carol Haynes on October 15, 2012, 03:03 AM
why specifically recommend image-based backups?

Both types of backup are useful but with incremental and differential options for image based backup - plus image mounting to retrieve files it can satisfy all needs with just image backups.

The big question is 'do you trust the software to produce faultless images'.

In the case of Acronis I no longer do - I have seen too many failed backups, too many images fail to validate.

Experience so far with Paragon has been good - plus it has the option of backing up offline (using the Windows based recovery disk) if you do come across online issues (which I haven't).

Acronis allows mounting of images in both R/O AND R/W - the latter I think is particulalry stupid and I would never trust Acronis to 'touch' files in images via Explorer - seems like the ideal way to kill an image. I have never really understood why they thought this feature was necessary.

Paragon allow R/O mounting and I don't see any reason why this should damage the image since you are not making changes to the file.

The biggest issue with image files AFAICS is, assuming they are produced without error, the problem of a single bad block appearing on the hard disk rendering the whole image unusable. I have seen no mention from any of the major software houses on mitigation for this issue and when you are talking about images potentially in the 100s of Gb soor or later there is going to be a block error.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: IainB on October 15, 2012, 04:08 AM
The big question is 'do you trust the software to produce faultless images'.
In the case of Acronis I no longer do - I have seen too many failed backups, too many images fail to validate.
-Carol Haynes (October 15, 2012, 03:03 AM)

Yes, very good point. After doing any kind of backup, it's a good idea to test it to see if it really works in the restore operation. It's a bit too late to leave that test till you have to carry out a real live restore...    :(

I hadn't heard about Acronis failing to do proper backup/restore. That's a bit scary isn't it? Though I've never used it myself, I had rather gained the impression that it was widely used and recognised as a Good Thing.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: nudone on October 15, 2012, 04:10 AM
Just thought I'd mention a couple of issues I encountered that meant my "typical" backup routine didn't work anymore.

Problem 1)
Usually I'd use Paragon or Acronis, no real preference between them, but recently found that such things don't like backing up encrypted drives. Well, Acronis will backup an encrypted system drive but the problem is how do you then recover the backup without a lot of messing about, i.e. creating custom boot disks to deal with the encryption issue or some other convoluted procedure because you can't read the backup (maybe I haven't tried hard enough to find a suitable solution).

Because of this I've abandoned backup programs that make an image file and just use EaseUS Disk Copy http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/ to make an exact duplicate of the encrypted system drive to another drive. So, this creates a bootable encrypted system drive. I like this method as if a drive dies it will only take me about 1 minute to swap it for its duplicate. (I duplicate the drives about once a month.)

Problem 2)
I've happily used MirrorFolder http://www.techsoftpl.com/backup/ for years to make duplicates of all my important data. Since moving to Windows 7 64 bit and an SSD system drive I started getting regular bluescreens when saving MS Office documents (regardless of Office version). After lots (weeks) of messing around trying to resolve this problem I finally found one single comment somewhere onilne that hinted that MirrorFolder could be the problem - and simply disabling MirrorFolder wasn't enough (which I'd already tried) - it had to be uninstalled (to remove the driver). It worked, MirrorFolder is gone and my system is now super stable.

As a replacement I'm using Allway Sync (pro version) to do all the data backup. I don't use it to do "realtime" duplicates but it seems to work perfectly well backing up after a few seconds of drive inactivity (there are lots of rules you can implement, of course).

As for revisioning, I realise I may have a problem with the encrypted system drive as I may be also duplicating problems from drive to drive. I've not got a good solution for this - using Acronis to make the occasional backup seems to be the answer; it would be acceptable as a last resort, though, I'd have all the issues of restoring the image.

All my important data is also revisioned (kind of) to two external drives. Rotating these so that one remains off site after the backup is done.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: f0dder on October 15, 2012, 05:56 AM
Experience so far with Paragon has been good - plus it has the option of backing up offline (using the Windows based recovery disk) if you do come across online issues (which I haven't).
-Carol Haynes (October 15, 2012, 03:03 AM)
Do they still have the offline feature? I received a mail a while ago wrt. Paragon Virtualization Manager, that due to Micrsoft sumfinsumfin they would no longer be able to offer the WinPE based rescue disks :/

The biggest issue with image files AFAICS is, assuming they are produced without error, the problem of a single bad block appearing on the hard disk rendering the whole image unusable. I have seen no mention from any of the major software houses on mitigation for this issue and when you are talking about images potentially in the 100s of Gb soor or later there is going to be a block error.
-Carol Haynes (October 15, 2012, 03:03 AM)
You shouldn't have an entire image ruined because of a single sector error, as image compression is normally done in blocks rather than image-wide... but it will still affect a larger block than a single sector, which can obviously be disastrous (registry hivefiles, executable files, or some of your important damage). Plus, I dunno how restoration deals with these errors - ideally you should be able to let the restoration continue, but get a list of smashed-up files, but I wouldn't be surprised if most software goes "sorry, failed, bummer mate."

PS: never back up (solely) to usb flashdrives, they're way too unreliable.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: Stoic Joker on October 15, 2012, 06:42 AM
http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/rescuedisk

Free effective external scan, does wonders for cleanup of all sorts of evilware.


Also, while imaging is fun in a techy sort of way ... The in-box Windows backup actually does work quite well. Mine runs nightly to a network location and affords the option of doing a complete restore from several different versions of the system.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: tomos on October 15, 2012, 06:46 AM
Two questions (first is answered I think):

1) [what's the online/offline thing with Paragon?] OK - found this (I think correct):
'online' is image made while windows is running;
'offline' = windows not running - presumably with boot cd then

2) is it important to also create an image (or regular images?) of the 100mb hidden partition in Windows 7?
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: edbro on October 15, 2012, 07:27 AM
I use a 3 point strategy. When I originally install a new OS I set it up just how I like it and image it before I install any other software. Now, I'm never more than 20 minutes away from a fresh, clean install. I sometimes create a differential image after installing my software but I prefer to reinstall them manually after applying the base image.

For file backups I use Syncback Pro to backup to my NAS.

For versioning I rely on Dropbox to do that for me. I've had occasion to use this feature and it is really good.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: Carol Haynes on October 15, 2012, 08:22 AM
Paragon still provide WinPE start up disks but not prebuilt. You have to download and install Windows AIK from MS then use Paragon's tool to build the disk. Previously they provided an ISO prebuilt. You can also burn a Linux startup CD version but I prefer to use WinPE with pure windows systems as I have had a few issues with Linux based boot CDs in the past.

SyncBack Pro, SE or even free provide a good solution for making mirror backups, even across a network.

I still use FileHamster for versioning.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: mouser on October 15, 2012, 10:00 AM
You know what thing we need to add to our "kit" of tools recommended for dealing with data loss situations is: A second PC.

A decade ago that advice would be impractical for most folks due to the price of computers.  But these days, having a second PC you can use to help you deal with data loss situationsis practical and extremely helpful -- i dare say essential.

Whether it's being able to surf the web, download stuff, burn cds, copy hard drives, etc., a second PC makes recovering from data loss a million times easier.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: 40hz on October 15, 2012, 10:08 AM
Also add a "live" bootable Linux CD/DVD (or USB key) to the toolkit.

You don't need one of the "system rescue" distros either. Anything with a a Gnome desktop (to make things easy for a Windows users) will do.

When Windows flat out refuses to boot, juts pop in the CD/DVD/USB key, boot from that, and move your files over to an external drive.

Far from ideal - but at least you'll be able to copy your data off the harddrive without too much of a hassle prior to reformatting and reinstalling Windows.

Sometimes when things go completely south and your images and backups aren't working (for whatever reason) this is your only alternative. :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: SeraphimLabs on October 15, 2012, 12:02 PM
I actually don't bother backing up the workstations at work.

Everything important on them is saved to the company server, and all of the software they use has the installers in a secure on-site archive.

Then what happens is if a workstation gets damaged, wipe and reload with a max typical downtime of 2 hours.

The server itself stores everything on a RAID1 array, with twice-daily rysnc to an external hard drive, and a weekly encrypted rsync to an offsite server.

Always make 3 copies of anything important, and store them separately.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: f0dder on October 15, 2012, 12:15 PM
http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/rescuedisk

Free effective external scan, does wonders for cleanup of all sorts of evilware.
-Stoic Joker (October 15, 2012, 06:42 AM)
Thanks for the link - trying to diagnose a friend's royally messed-up laptop... I'm wagering hardware fault, it's either that or some really nasty malware.

Kaspersky's tool to write the ISO to USB flashdrive is severely retarded, though, it can't handle neither 16- or 8gig drives. 32bit arithmetic bug?
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: nosh on October 15, 2012, 12:36 PM
You know what thing we need to add to our "kit" of tools recommended for dealing with data loss situations is: A second PC.

+1

I added a Mac Mini to my home setup a couple of weeks back. It basically serves as an HTPC, and could serve as a backup computer if the main machine goes on the fritz. It's nice to be able to shut down the beast (noisy, hot...) at night. I'm sure my power bill's going to be considerably less since the AC and the main machine both run in the same room nearly 24x7.

OT:
Spoiler
A side benefit: running OSX has made me appreciate my current (XP) setup a lot more. OK, 15 years vs. 15 days of exposure to an OS is probably a contributing factor. ;D

I like some ways in which it's different from Windows (no registry!  :-* ) but the "it just works" thing is sooo much baloney. It just... wouldn't let me login after I changed my username (this happened in the first 5 minutes of running the new machine, hilarious  :Thmbsup:) - had to restart a couple of times to fix that, it just... couldn't repartition a 3 TB external drive that it had formatted and partitioned earlier (a confirmed bug) and it just... froze the f*** up on more than one occasion when third party apps raised some hell. D-oh!

Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: rjbull on October 16, 2012, 04:07 PM
You know what thing we need to add to our "kit" of tools recommended for dealing with data loss situations is: A second PC.
-mouser (October 15, 2012, 10:00 AM)
+1.  And maybe a second router too.  When my router failed, it was a pain to even order another one.  Without Internet access, it's getting very hard to do anything with computers, from finding help to ordering parts.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: 40hz on October 16, 2012, 04:25 PM
Thanks for the link - trying to diagnose a friend's royally messed-up laptop... I'm wagering hardware fault, it's either that or some really nasty malware.
-f0dder (October 15, 2012, 12:15 PM)

FWIW, I have an old PC dubbed Sydney Cove that sports a very stripped down version of Windows and is loaded with every form of malware scanner I could put my hands on. It's never connected to my internal network. (Most times I leave its NIC unplugged.) I use it to scan and disinfect suspect and severely infected Windows HDs when all else fails to root out the problem. Just pull the drive from its PC, mount it on SC, and "Bob's yer uncle."

It has yet to fail although sometimes it only results in my being able to safely salvage the user's data since some malware occasionally damages Windows enough it becomes unbootable after the scrubbing.

Right now I just nuke and then reimage Sydney Cove's drive after each use to remain as safe as possible.

I was tempted to implement it as a virtual machine, but haven't gotten around to it. And in the wake of some new nastiness that can affect virtual machines I think I may just keep it on hardware for the time being.

YMMV  8)
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: mouser on October 20, 2012, 03:57 PM
I think an important way to think about backing up stuff is to consider what you are protecting yourself AGAINST.

I make full drive images to protect myself against a hard drive failure, or a malware attack; in such a scenario the only good option is to restore the entire operating system and all installed programs to a known good state.  The odds of this happening are very low on a day to day basis, so I don't do this very often -- perhaps once a month.  I try to do this to external drives which are only connected for this purpose.

I have versioned document backups running in real time, onto a separate hard drive mounted on my pc; I do this to protect myself from accidentally deleted a file i later realize i need, or making changes to a document that i realize i shouldn't have, etc.  This has to run all the time.

Now this dual approach takes care of most of my WORRIES.  However, I have recently forced myself to use an online backup system.  Even though I dislike the speed of such a thing, I am forcing myself to use it because it's the only protection I have against a fire or robbery that would result in the PHYSICAL loss of both my computer and my onsite backup drives, or against the unlikely scenario of a voracious malware that struck while my backup drives were connected.  This is a very low risk event, but the total catastrophic loss that would result from it is enough to scare me into using an online backup solution.

Keeping an old ENCRYPTED full drive image at a friends house (or safety deposit box) is also a good protection against robbery+fire.
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: tomos on October 20, 2012, 04:32 PM
I have versioned document backups running in real time, onto a separate hard drive mounted on my pc; I do this to protect myself from accidentally deleted a file i later realize i need, or making changes to a document that i realize i shouldn't have, etc.  This has to run all the time.

Now this dual approach takes care of most of my WORRIES.  However, I have recently forced myself to use an online backup system.
-mouser (October 20, 2012, 03:57 PM)

I back up [my versioned backups of important stuff] online.
Should do the off-site backup as well but dont ...
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: rgdot on October 20, 2012, 04:42 PM
So this begs another question may be in another thread, beside the big usual places (newegg, etc.) where can I find cheap external hds shipped to Canada?
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: IainB on October 26, 2012, 02:30 PM
Just thought it might be useful to make a side note in this discussion thread about the Volume Shadow Copy facility and in particular ShadowExplorer (http://www.shadowexplorer.com/), if you don't have access to Volume Shadow Copies.
In the event that you didn't make a full drive image backup, or had somehow irretrievably lost/deleted something prior to backup, then accessing a VSC might just save your bacon. Not to be relied upon as a standard backup/recovery tool though.

I don't think I had heard of ShadowExplorer (http://www.shadowexplorer.com/) before reading of it in the DC Forum:

As it says on the ShadowExplorer (http://www.shadowexplorer.com/) pages:
ShadowExplorer
Since the Volume Shadow Copy Service is included, and turned on by default, in all editions of Windows Vista/7, why not take advantage of it? All it takes is an additional tool like ShadowExplorer, that can access the shadow storage and make the point-in-time copies accessible to the user.

Features
    * Show available point-in-time copies
    * Browse through Shadow Copies
    * Retrieve versions of files and folders
Title: Re: Remember to make full drive image backups
Post by: wraith808 on October 26, 2012, 02:43 PM
^ Thanks for bumping that.  It looks quite interesting.