ShadowProtect Desktop Image Backup: Is it what you need?
As some of you have noticed, I like to play with various image backup & restore software. Today I'll report on ShadowProtect Desktop ver. 3.5.1.4183, from Storagecraft. It turned out that they are located about 6 miles from my home however that has nothing to do with my test or report. I am using a new computer loaded with Win 7/64 having sata drives.
ShadowProtect has plenty of bells & whistles that I have no interest in but their basic backup & restore seems as good as that of TI. Maybe better, to each their own.
The backup image files can be single large files, or split. Each backup image file also has a companion file that is a text file of the MD5 sum of the image.
The backups are fast, similar to TI. The restores are a little slower. Images can be verified.
The images can easily be mounted for looking or running.
Restores are about as complex as those of TI however the process is different and going slowly is a good idea. There are many options but the default options seemed to be the ones I wanted.
Note that there is an option for restoring to different hardware that I did not try. It seems to be included in the price of the software.
Restoring to an unformatted drive offers all kinds of partition options, default was correct for me.
Now I want to mention two details that were surprises.
1. The free trial version that is down-loadable by anyone is limited (of course). The limitation seems to be a lockout to being able to restore a system partition. This keeps people from using it free.
There is a unlimited version boot CD that can be downloaded as a zipped ISO image. This file isn't available unless one submits a request form, and is given permission and a download source to get that file. Again, this keeps people from using it free. I was able to get the ISO file and burned it to a CD. This CD is how I did my test restores. It operates much like a TI CD however it seems to be a Windows PE type of disk. I did not have to create it like BART, I just burned the ISO.
2. Biggest surprise: ShadowProtect has a mild hiccup when restoring Win 64 system partitions, the small 100 MB "reserved" partition is the thorn. SP doesn't quite have this part as automatic as it needs to be. If you installed Win 7 to a pre-partitioned drive you probably don't have this small partition to worry about.
I restored first the "reserved" partition, then the C: system partition. Boo hoo, Windows wouldn't boot. Later, on their forum (which has fast responses from people who know) told me what I needed to do. It was two simple, but impossible to guess, details. What is done is a linking of the C system partition to the active "reserved" partition. Not hard but their software should just do it for you.
An even bigger surprise: I was told that if I restored only the C: system partition (not the small 100 MB one), on booting Win would "fix" everything and it would boot to Win 7, and would no longer have, or need, the small 100 MB "reserved" partition. I like that idea. Bitlocker may not be available this way, so what.
I did such a restore to a spare drive and sure enough, it boots fine and there is no more hidden "reserved" partition to worry about.
Summary:
Of all the image software I have used (about 6 or so) TI and SP are the best.
If you are having issues with TI then try SP. I'm not so I doubt that I'll buy SP but it is nice to know. If there are features that TI can't offer to you, look at SP. I do think it costs a little more than TI but one soon forgets that when a hard drive crashes.
Fungus