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Author Topic: Defragmentation programs doesn't co-exist that well with Norton Goback  (Read 10045 times)

patteo

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How many times have you installed something and deeply regretted it, you deleted the important spreadsheet and only realised your mistake a few days later when your boss asked you for it and of course you just cleared your recycled bin and the os has also overwritten the area where it was last stored.

How you wished you could "Goback".

Well, I've been doing that for years with Goback which maintains a large history file of all activity on your PC and once the file is full, it drops off the oldest history and depending on how large this file is (goback.bin) your history can run into many days, ie you can goback several days.

I was kind of surprised that there's only one other mention of Goback in this forum at
https://www.donation...index.php?topic=84.0

Some mentioned was made in that post about strain to the system.

But frankly, even when I was using it years ago, the strain if any wasn't visible and certainly not in today's speedy system.

But I can say that it certainly has save my "life" countless times, whether due to a virus, a malware when I installed something a new download or messed up some settings etc or even a dreaded BSOD.

And if you are a download junkie who likes to try new software, Goback can really keep your system clean, just like VMware, but in a different way by allowing you to Goback if you have problems.

I can say that looking at some of the posts here of people who have experienced crashes etc due to addition of a new hardware driver, software etc, Goback would have saved them endless gnashing of teeth or even a complete reinstall.

Now a proviso and a request for any ideas.

I also use defragmenters, in this case Diskeeper 9.

The only problem is that Defragmenters create lots of file activity when they are defragmenting and this kind of fills up the goback.bin and if it proceeds for too long, Goback stops recording and gives you a warning that it has "Suspended because of massive file activity"to give Goback time to catch up.

It then resumes maybe like 5 - 8 hours later (don't know why it needs so long to catch up) which can be an eternity if you happen to have installed something that messes up your system during this intervening period. The problem is that you may not even know that Goback has been suspended until you need it.

So my strategy to overcome this is to initially fully defragment the disk and then use the "Set it and forget it scheduler" in diskeeper for it to do bits and pieces of defragmenting every now and then.

So this kind of keeps Diskeeper and Goback working together happily.

Unfortunately, periodically when I'm doing a lot more work deleting and doing file maintenance, Diskeeper tend to work harder at too long a stretch creating too much activity at one go - resulting in "Goback Suspended because of massive file activity"

Ideally Diskeeper should have a setting that limits it to 10 minutes, wait say 30 minutes before it restarts.

Does anybody out there know of a defragmenter like Perfect Disk which can do this work 10 minutes, wait 30 minutes before it restarts.

I kind of read somewhere that PerfectDisk has a full commandline interface too - so I guess it can be combined with some scheduling software to achieve this Work Stop Wait functionality.

Any additional ideas will be appreciated.

brotherS

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How many times have you installed something and deeply regretted it, you deleted the important spreadsheet and only realised your mistake a few days later when your boss asked you for it and of course you just cleared your recycled bin and the os has also overwritten the area where it was last stored.

How you wished you could "Goback".

Well, I've been doing that for years with Goback which maintains a large history file of all activity on your PC and once the file is full, it drops off the oldest history and depending on how large this file is (goback.bin) your history can run into many days, ie you can goback several days.

I was kind of surprised that there's only one other mention of Goback in this forum at
https://www.donation...index.php?topic=84.0

Some mentioned was made in that post about strain to the system.

But frankly, even when I was using it years ago, the strain if any wasn't visible and certainly not in today's speedy system.

But I can say that it certainly has save my "life" countless times, whether due to a virus, a malware when I installed something a new download or messed up some settings etc or even a dreaded BSOD.
I happen to run into that kind of problems only very, very rarely, so I personally don't see the need to use something - even if only a bit, it *will* decrease the performance of your PC. A program that keeps track of all my opened IE windows, logging the URLs might come in more handy for me...
:D


[...]
So my strategy to overcome this is to initially fully defragment the disk and then use the "Set it and forget it scheduler" in diskeeper for it to do bits and pieces of defragmenting every now and then.

So this kind of keeps Diskeeper and Goback working together happily.

Unfortunately, periodically when I'm doing a lot more work deleting and doing file maintenance, Diskeeper tend to work harder at too long a stretch creating too much activity at one go - resulting in "Goback Suspended because of massive file activity"

Ideally Diskeeper should have a setting that limits it to 10 minutes, wait say 30 minutes before it restarts.
Just schedule Diskeeper to defrag your HD daily for a limited period when you are sleeping or not at the PC. Would that work for you?

mouser

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a program like goback can be a great help. i know people who swear by it.
everyone should have either something like goback or a drive imaging program.
some of us prefer to decide exactly when and how to make images, others prefer the background running no reminder needed things like goback.
highly recommend that you have one of these.

(and if you have a non-technically-advanced relative with a big hard disk goback can be the perfect solution.)

Carol Haynes

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I know some people swear by GoBack but I have to sound a note of caution ...

The way GoBack works can seriously screw up your system and make the recovery of partitions very difficult. This has happened to me once and because GoBack rewrites the partition data on your disc it is non-trivial to recover your system. I ended up using the drive manufacturers utilities to low level format the disc again and had to reinstall everything. (For this reason Fred Langa in his newsletters regularly advises users to avoid utilities like GoBack.)

My 2p would be to use a good incremental imaging software regularly using a separate partition for your backups. After the initial backup it only takes a couple of minutes to do an incremental backup - though it isn't as quick to do a restore if you want to step back.

If you like testing dodgy downloads (and who doesn't on this site) use TotalUninstall or simialr to install programs and log system changes so that you can instantly step back at registry and file level. There is no danger with this approach of your whole system suddenly becoming unuseable.

patteo

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Just schedule Diskeeper to defrag your HD daily for a limited period when you are sleeping or not at the PC. Would that work for you?

Ideally that would be the case, but the way Diskeeper was designed is to get the defrag job done - it does not have an option to defrag for a limited period.

I know some people swear by GoBack but I have to sound a note of caution ...

The way GoBack works can seriously screw up your system and make the recovery of partitions very difficult. This has happened to me once and because GoBack rewrites the partition data on your disc it is non-trivial to recover your system. I ended up using the drive manufacturers utilities to low level format the disc again and had to reinstall everything. (For this reason Fred Langa in his newsletters regularly advises users to avoid utilities like GoBack.)

My 2p would be to use a good incremental imaging software regularly using a separate partition for your backups. After the initial backup it only takes a couple of minutes to do an incremental backup - though it isn't as quick to do a restore if you want to step back.

If you like testing dodgy downloads (and who doesn't on this site) use TotalUninstall or simialr to install programs and log system changes so that you can instantly step back at registry and file level. There is no danger with this approach of your whole system suddenly becoming unuseable.

My experience with Goback all these years yes Goback is not the be all and end all of keeping your system running smoothly since if you accidentally dropped your laptop or your harddisk experience a mechanical failure, or someone stole yor laptop - you are basically in deep trouble.

Learning from all the gurus (Langa included)
1. I partition my hardisk into a C Drive and a E Drive
2. C drive basically contains all the programs, E Drive the Data files
3. Install and setup everything I need (which seems to take forever), then use Ghost to image C Drive onto another harddisk as a standby. Likewise I ghost E Drive to another physical drive or partition.
4. Enable Goback and use the computer
5. Periodically Disable Goback (see note below) and use Ghost to image both C and E (how many versions of the backup you use is up to you - like paying premiums on insurance. Like they say, no one ever complains that he bought too much insurance when they need to claim.)

Claim time :
6. Even with Goback I do find that now and then, I need to restore my C Partition, because I may have tried too many dodgy downloads, plugins etc and the system becomes unstable and you cannot identify the cause.

So I look for the most recent stable Ghosted backup disk and just Ghost it back over my C Drive and presto, maybe a 20 minute job and I'm back in business.

Do note that you have to disable Goback in order for another PC to recognise the harddisk for the purpose of Ghosting.

Speaking of the devil, like this morning, when I started the laptop, I experienced a BSOD: PFN_LST_CORRUPT. I thought about what I may have done wrong last night and Goback two hours and I was back in business quite quickly - stress free. To me, it works like a dream.

Yes, true I do do a periodic rebuild or should I say recovery from a Ghosted image. But in between Goback makes my life more stress free.

brotherS

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Just schedule Diskeeper to defrag your HD daily for a limited period when you are sleeping or not at the PC. Would that work for you?

Ideally that would be the case, but the way Diskeeper was designed is to get the defrag job done - it does not have an option to defrag for a limited period.
Oh, sorry, I confused Diskeeper with PerfectDisk, where that is possible. I used to use Diskeeper too, but find PerfectDisk to be much better.

patteo

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How many times have you installed something and deeply regretted it, you deleted the important spreadsheet and only realised your mistake a few days later when your boss asked you for it and of course you just cleared your recycled bin and the os has also overwritten the area where it was last stored.

How you wished you could "Goback".


FOXNews.com - Technology News - Anti-Virus Software Runs Amok, Deleting Wrong Files
"FOXNEWS.COM HOME > TECHNOLOGY
Anti-Virus Software Runs Amok, Deleting Wrong Files
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
By Ryan Naraine

Anti-virus vendor McAfee is scrambling to contain the damage from a faulty definition update that incorrectly flagged hundreds of legitimate software programs as W95/CTX, a low-risk Windows 95 virus that was first detected in 2004.

The erroneous .DAT file (4715) was shipped late on March 10 with definitions for a wide range of new malware threats, but when the update was installed, it quarantined or deleted several widely deployed applications, including Microsoft Excel, Macromedia Flash Player, Adobe Update Manager and the Google Toolbar Installer.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based McAfee acknowledged the gaffe and quickly shipped a new virus pattern file (4716), but for some users the damage was already done."
http://www.foxnews.c...,2933,187702,00.html

Well, if you are one of those affected, Norton Goback would have had you smiling !

It's made for precisely that kind of situations and many others like it. Cannot tell you how many times I've had to Goback !

Maybe McAfee should package their AntiVirus with Norton Goback !!!