Other External products

[Rick in PA]

First, this is a great product.  I'm backing-up two computers (500 GB Replica).  I've Recovered 3 times now (on a Windows XP machine, testing & tinkering) and it's worked every time.

Question 1:  During the initial backup on a Windows 7 machine, the back-up was interupted due to the computer going to sleep.  It seemed to pick-up OK when I restarted the machine.  Is this a potential problem?

Question 2:  Why does the table-top base have two USB connectors on it's cord (just curious)?

Now to the ramble (think of it as user feedback).

The quick start guide supplied with the unit should have a short paragraph (just like it does for turning off your virus scanner) about temporarily changing the power option so the machine doesn't go to sleep during the initial backup, see Question 1.

The quick start guide should also have a little more information about ending the Recover process.  I.E. there should be a step 6. discussing removing the Replica Recovery CD, turning the computer off, disconnecting the Replica backup system and turning the computer back on.  I got some sort of non-system disk error before I learned to disconnect the Replica backup system, that was a little disconcerting.

I'm surprized the Replica doesn't seem to have the same placement as other products.  The somewhat plain brown box.  The display rack hanger tab.  (Should I look for it next to the sundries at the check out counter?)  This is a kickin' product, worth the 100 +/- bucks!  Dress it like one.  It should have a good tag line too, like "When all else fails, this will save your **bleep**."  OK, that may be a bit too earthy, but that's how I feel about it.

Anyway, good luck with the Replica product.  Is there a 1 TB model in the future?

Rick 

[dianetoronto]

Hi Rick,

Sorry I don't have answers for you, just questions.

Re: your backing up 2 computers.

this was going to be my question...

the Replica says it can back up more than 1 computer but one at a time which goes without saying... it can only be connected to one computer at a time.

But does this also mean it can only back up 1 C: drive?

Can I disconnect Replica from my PC and connect it to my friends's computer and it will back up that computer as well. Is there some kind of partition for this... I don't see one. I see how to "remove drives for backup" but not "adding another C: drive" (from another machine).

Would Replica see 2 C: drives and overwrite the first one?

It looks like according to the instructions, one would have to remove the first C: drive to accomodate/back-up the 2nd. Is that your take on it? That's why I bought the Replica, so it would back up entirely 2 HP PCs. How did you back up 2 computers? Was the Replica automatic? If I connected the Replica to my friend's PC, would a screen show up to add another C: drive? before I make a mistake. I can't find anything in the help instructions.

When I view the Drive Selection pop-up, my C: drive takes up 224 GB; the D: Recovery takes up 9 GB. I also had a J: drive taking up 75 GB but I removed it from the list. The remaining C: drive and D: drive have a checkmark in the boxes, but they show up as gray so there's no way I can uncheck them even if I wanted to. The TB shows my own PC's OS, apps and files are all backed up. I have 327 GB available to back up a second PC.

I was glad to hear that my D: drive, which is almost full, is perfectly ok that way. Backing it up may seem unnecessarily repetitious but I'm backing it up anyway.

Just a note, the Replica sits on its dock, working quietly in the background, flashing away ah, I feel so much better now, love it, because my last PC crashed and all I got on recovery was gobbledegook! I also was wondering why there are 2 plugs with drive and dock as well.

(Everybody check that your capacitors are working well... don't let them fry before you replace them! hee hee. If you computer slows down and keeps rebooting, pay attention! Also, if you keep your machine on as I do, replace the fan if need be and vacuum often (oops, sorry, got off topic there!)

Diane

[Rick in PA]

Well, I'll tell you my experiences.

It backs up two computers, keeping track of it by computer name.  Of course, you can only have it connected to one computer at a time.  That's what I do, I connect the Replica to each computer in turn, usually once or twice a week.  I'd recommend connecting the Replica and letting it set a recovery point before any major computer change.  My son wanted to install a Sims expansion pack (one of many) and after I loaded the expansion pack, the game crashed BIG TIME and I couldn't recover.  Replica to the rescue.  I just reimaged the drive to a point before the game pack install and everything was hunky-dory.

The replica backs up entire physical drives (partitions and all) so if you have a single physical drive partitioned into drive "C" and drive "D" it will back-up both in one file.  That's the way it works on one of my machines (that has a partitioned hard drive).  Each physical drive is a seperate restore file.  I'm not sure how it would handle (naming wise) multiple drives on the same machine.  The restore process seems to reference the drive manufacturer and model if I remember correcty.  My take on it is that you plug it in, point it to a desired drive to back-up, and it sorts thing out.

Excersizing the replica has given me confidence in it.  Long story, but each of my computers has an "extra" drive (hey, drives are inexpensive these days).  Anyway I often reimage the "extra" drive so therefore I have a back-up to the back-up (sort of a belt & suspenders thing).

With the amount of time you can spend installing a system, updating, loading user software, anti-virus software, getting all of the settings just right, etc., etc...  Computer systems are so dynamic these days, it's not like years ago when everything was relatively non-changing.  Between the time I wake up, the family hammers on the computer all day, and I go to bed, the computer is different, sometimes radically so.  I strongly feel disk reimaging is an essential part of computer maintenance these days.

Keep your computer off the floor.  I built a couple of 8" high pedistals for mine.  Ramble alert!  back in the 1960s, my brother worked for Univac (one of those old time computer manufacturers).  They were having terrible troubles with a new disk drive crashing (the disk drives were open to the environment those days).  The engineer had my brother perform a dirt analysis, scanning the room air from floor to cieling.  Guess  what they found out, there's a lot of dirt near the floor (surprize, surprize)!  Anyway, the cooling air was drawn in from floor level, blew through the disk drive, and exited at the top.  They reversed the air flow (making it top to bottom) and all their troubles went away.  Keep your computer off the floor.

Yeah, heat's the enemy of capacitors.  The electrolytic types have a given life expectancy.  If you heat them up, the life expectancy goes down, sometimes dramatically so.

Good luck with your Replica,

Rick  

[dianetoronto]

Hi there!

About keeping the computer off the floor... well I had it sitting on an empty keyboard box that crushed... I know, very bad

I bought an adjustable-width cpu tower stand on casters that cost me $27... good investment.  The cpu is 5 inches off the floor and I can slide it in and out easily.

I was going to unplug the relica and plug it into my friend's computer (same make and model) to back it up, but decided to leave the replica on mine for the night.  I had done a Windows Defender Scan and everything was ok.

Well, that night between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m., not only did the computer go to sleep on it's own, it crashed!

I hard booted it, nothing happened, black screen.
Rebooted again, the Desktop showed up, but nothing worked.
A popup came up:
"Microsoft Windows problem signature.  Event name:  APPcrash."
Name:  slipcore.exe, version 5.0.5.0 (an accelerator).. Read our privacy policy"... (why Microsoft would send me to their Privacy Policy, I don't know :?  but one website says slipcore is NOT Windows).  It runs on startup. I may have gotten it when I downloaded some software.  slipcore is from "SlipStream Data Inc" or "Nitro Web Accell" or "Dodo Speed Accell" or "1Dial Web Accell" or "QLink Fast" or "PurSpeed XL".  :/ Technical security rating is 65% dangerous.  slipcore.exe can be a "pest".  The program listens for or sends data on open ports to LAN or Internet. slipcore.exe is able to monitor applications."

Another website says slipcore errors are Windows file errors and are caused by a defective program registry that should be fixed immediately... fatal crashes; app freezes, shut down and start up trouble (that's me) and internal speaker beeps (that's me too... all youtube vids were beeping)."  The website says to "run a performance and registry scan to idently related errors to prevent further corruption."  holy cow!

I was scared to reboot the computer with replica plugged in, but I did and no problems, no popups.  Everything seems to work fine.

Replica didn't cause the problem.  But it has slipcore.exe backed up which I may not need.  If I get rid of slipcore.exe, replica should delete it when I plug it back in.

So I'm going to run a CCleaner registry cleaner without replica plugged into the usb ports, and see what the cleaner says.  It's always possible though that registry cleaners come up with files to be cleaned or deleted when they're just fine for your computer. 

It's hard to know what to do without a computer pro and apparently CCleaner has one so I'll post my registry logs on their forum and have them take a looky.

I'm putting the replica on my friend's computer tonight while I run the cleaner and I'm sure all will run smoothly on her machine.  My friend is so excited to have a major backup!

[Ken K]

I've got to give Replica a thumbs down.  I have the 2TB version and two drives on my computer.  One primary drive (c and one used just for misc backups (d.  The Replica drive now throws an error that there is not enough room.  So, the obvious answer is to not back up the d: drive (right click the icon|more|select drives to backup).  But, you can't uncheck that drive because all drives are grayed out.  What kind of software would work like this?  So it still tries to back up the back-up drive.  Still throws the error.  Slows my computer to a crawl.  I think my only option is to uninstall the replica software and just use the drive as another manual back up.  Any other suggestions?

[Rick in PA]

(original poster)

Well, it's been a year and a half I've been using the Replica, and the blush is off.  With my first post I was quite happy with the Replica and I guess it showed.  Since then, I've come to understand the Replica better.  I still use it for two Windows XP machines and it works, it's a little quirky, but I've gotten use to it (I switched my Windows 7 machine to a different disk imaging set-up).  I believe the Replica is an orphan product, and that's a shame.  It had a lot of promise but it didn't seem to get the support it needed.  Perhaps the market for it was not strong enough.  You don't see them out there for sale very prominently...