Shadow Protect User question

[viking33]

This is for any users of Shadow Protect|Win 7 64bit|Mozilla Thunderbird.

I've been using Acronis True Image for MANY years now and am\was very happy with it. I've only changed from Outlook Express to Thunderbird maybe 4 or 5 months ago? Recently, I tried to make an image of JUST my email messages, contacts list, etc. that TI allows you to do instead of a full image. The image appeared to create OK and it validated fine. Tuesday, I tried to do a restore of the email messages, due to being too quick on the delete button. A sad tale ensues....The restore didn't work, even though TI said it restored without a problem. Apparently, it only restored the contact list but NOT the email messages. Went to online chat with TI techs in India ( two different ones ) and we attempted many things to make things restore but I had to surrender after a number of hours, saying "let's pick this up another day."
I did some googling and found a couple of sites that said that in effect that TI does not work and is not compatible with TBIRD!!
So after an exercise in futility with Acronis's own tech reps, I find that this is a known bug in TI???

So we are finally at the question for SP/TB users.
Does SP have a feature that will allow imaging JUST TB, including the actual email messages, not just the program itself?
Talking to a SP rep, he said it should do it but wasn't sure if it would include the messages.
TI did include messages if they were in Outlook Express, Live mail and other MS mail formats. I know that I can get the messages from a FULL image even with TB.

[Bigaldoc]

That's a sad tale of woe, Bob. As far as I know, Shadow Protect will image ONLY partitions, NOT individual files. Sorry.

[Rebel]

"Does SP have a feature that will allow imaging JUST TB, including the actual email messages, not just the program itself?"

Not to my knowledge Bob. As far as I know, SP will only image complete volumes. You can have a look at the SP User guide at http://www.storagecraft.com/help/Shadow ... _files.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[viking33]

"Does SP have a feature that will allow imaging JUST TB, including the actual email messages, not just the program itself?"

Not to my knowledge Bob. As far as I know, SP will only image complete volumes. You can have a look at the SP User guide at http://www.storagecraft.com/help/Shadow ... _files.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks John and Al.
That's about what I suspected, despite the rather casual off hand statement by the SP guy.
It was just a very handy (I thought) feature of TI, that imaged just the emails and it only took a few seconds to do it.
I guess I have to do more frequent full images in order to keep current on emails. Right now I do a full image about every two weeks, so that is about what I lost this time, about 2 weeks of saved mail. No huge disaster but annoying.

[PJ_in_FL]

Although having multiple partitions and drive letters can be less than desired, perhaps move the email and other important and frequently updated files into a separate small(er) partition and back that partition up more frequently.

I moved all of my "My Documents" off into it's own partition to help me keep up with full image backups. I'd avoided them as the single "Windows+everything else" partition I was using was way too big to backup regularily.

Under Win XP, r-clicking the My Documents icon and selecting Properties brings up a dialog that supports moving to a different location, and managing all the changes in the registry.

Just thinking....

[viking33]

Although having multiple partitions and drive letters can be less than desired, perhaps move the email and other important and frequently updated files into a separate small(er) partition and back that partition up more frequently.

I moved all of my "My Documents" off into it's own partition to help me keep up with full image backups. I'd avoided them as the single "Windows+everything else" partition I was using was way too big to backup regularily.

Under Win XP, r-clicking the My Documents icon and selecting Properties brings up a dialog that supports moving to a different location, and managing all the changes in the registry.

Just thinking....

It's a thought, I suppose. Creating a new small partition is simple enough but I'm not sure that Tbird, under Win7, will allow installing and STORING the email profile in a new location. Right now the actual profile and email messages are located in C:\Users\xxx\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\u5ttoebn.default\mail\Local Folders.
I just put that on the "things to do\check list."

[PJ_in_FL]

It's a thought, I suppose. Creating a new small partition is simple enough but I'm not sure that Tbird, under Win7, will allow installing and STORING the email profile in a new location. Right now the actual profile and email messages are located in C:\Users\xxx\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\u5ttoebn.default\mail\Local Folders.
I just put that on the "things to do\check list."

Well, from Mozilla's website:

Moving a profile
Occasionally, you might want to move a profile or tell Thunderbird to use a profile stored in another location.

1.Shut down Thunderbird.
2.Move the profile folder to the desired location. For example, on Windows XP, move the profile from C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default to D:\Stuff\MyMailProfile. (If you are reverting to a backed up profile, this step isn't necessary. Just note the current location of the profile you want to restore.)
3.Open up the profiles.ini file in a text editor. The file is located in the application data folder for Thunderbird:
â– On Windows Vista/XP/2000, the path is %AppData%\Thunderbird\
â– On Windows 95/98/Me, the path is usually C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Thunderbird\
â– On Linux, the path is ~/.thunderbird/
â– On Mac OS X, the path is ~/Library/Thunderbird/
1.In the profiles.ini file, locate the entry for the profile you've just moved. Change the Path= line to the new location.
2.If you switch from a relative path to a non-relative path, the direction of the slashes may need to change. For example, in Windows, non-relative paths use backslashes, whereas relative ones use forward slashes. Change IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
3.Save profiles.ini and restart Thunderbird.

HTH

[viking33]

Thanks, PJ~
That may be worth a shot. Will post back after change.

[Rebel]

I guess I have to do more frequent full images in order to keep current on emails.

Bob, what about using MozBackup? According to that site, you can choose all or selected parts of the profile, it is compatible with Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit) and you can change the default location for the backup file. I imagine you would want to store it on an external drive.

[viking33]

PJ~
That seems to work out fine as a quick workaround to the problem.
I chopped a few gigs off of my seldom used XP partition and created a new "MAIL" partition.
Moved the profile info to it and edited the profile.ini to point to the new partition.
Did an image of the new partition and it only took a few seconds to do it. Now a happy camper!
Thanks for the tip!

[viking33]

I guess I have to do more frequent full images in order to keep current on emails.

Bob, what about using MozBackup? According to that site, you can choose all or selected parts of the profile, it is compatible with Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit) and you can change the default location for the backup file. I imagine you would want to store it on an external drive.

I DID have that in my back pocket, as an alternative method but wanted to be able to do it within TI. So now I'm back in good shape. Thanks.