Shadow Protect 4.1.0 to the rescue!

[John Gray]

Just thought I'd recount the story of my main PC, running Windows 7 64-bit, which, when I powered it on when I got home this afternoon, came up with Startup Repair (a new phenomenon to me). After about 10 minutes it asked to reboot, and, just after the flying windows logo showed, it immediately performed STOP 0x50, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON-PAGED_AREA.

After a few iterations of this, I powered off and on, following which the screen remained blank, and the PC wouldn't boot at all. Removing one memory stick (of the 2 x 2 GB) enabled it to reboot, and Windows Memory Diagnostic ran clean for ever-so-many passes. But still the STOP 50 occurred shortly after reboots from the C: drive.

So I booted from the Shadow Protect ISO on CD, and restored the C: drive back to yesterday evening. This took about 20 minutes, following which it was possible to do a clean boot (a couple of drivers needed to load, interestingly), and I am now typing on the PC's keyboard. Hooray!

I talked to the manufacturer's technical support, and they are going to send out a new 2 GB memory card by courier (I have to carry the old one around with me, so that we can do a swap!), and amazingly, just as I was a few seconds from finalising the phone call, the credit on my phone ran out and I was unceremoniously cut off! I say "amazingly", because the usual event is that you get cut off at the most vital time...

So I'm very impressed with Shadow Protect's recovery capabilities, never previously used in anger by me!

[tedshemyers]

I have often needed to restore (I tend to "play" a lot with my Os and with new apps, some that do not play well) so I rely on my Up To Date Images. Mine takes just under 10 minutes to restore. I use Acronis True Image Home 2011 and an Acronis Rescue Disk (I downloaded the original app so do not have an install disk). I state Up To Date Image because I do recreate Images regularly. The closer your Image is to the exact moment the "bad" thing happened the shorter the restore time frame.

I guess in summary, the Imaging app you use is not as important as the need to use something to create Images. They will save your bacon when something bad happens at the worst possible time.