Romex Software Forum

Just a word of warning. Today I found that my Macrium Reflect image backup was partly corrupt. This kind of corruption may occur with any image backup utility.

PrimoCache's write delay was set to 5 minutes. I had just checked my mail (Outlook) and quickly made an image backup, as I do every few days. After restoring the backup to another volume, Outlook.pst was corrupted beyond repair.

Cause: Macrium Reflect reads physical disk sectors, seemingly bypassing PrimoCache's disk driver. Part of the modified Outlook mail file was still in PrimoCache's write buffer and hadn't made it to the disk yet. Checking the original partition, the .PST was fine. Also, testing the backup showed no error because all it does is check the archive for readability. It does not have a compare option.

Solution: turn off the write delay before imaging. Simply flushing the buffer is not enough, since any part of the partition may be modified at any time on a running system.

Interesting that it's possible to use a system for years without a single problem and suddenly discover that I've been making potentially worthless backups all the time. Be warned.

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=2599

PrimoCache bugs when using Norton Ghost.
It seems that all works fine if PrimoCache is paused when Norton Ghost is backing up the cached volume...

Perhaps Romex could include a "backup" mode which disables write caching temporarily (and flushes any pending writes) when a recognised backup process is started? Hooking into Windows' CreateProcess function and checking every program started against a list of names (plus allowing users to specify one if their backup program is not included) would seem a sensible (and low-impact) approach.

I don't trust backups at all unless they are done offline using a bootable usb method. That way you can be 100% sure the backup will be good. I've had too many fail while backing up a live disk even without Primocache. Thanks for the alert Bjameson.

Backups that allow you to verify images (as in "compare backup with original data", not the simpler validation that the likes of Acronis offer) should be able to detect such issues. Going the (offline) bootable USB route almost certainly means a slower backup speed (due to non-optimal disk drivers) and being unable to use your PC for normal tasks until the backup is done.

Booting from a live CD or USB stick is indeed the safest. But a faster and also quite reliable backup method is to boot from a spare partition and use Reflect/Ghost/Acronis/whatever from there. It allows one to make a true offline backup of the main partition while still having fast disk access. A poor man's fast alternative to a USB boot disk.

I have no problem with using Acronis True Image 2015 to backup my laptop while Primocache is running without any problem Also used Diskeeper for my defragmentation utility. Seem I hear allot of issues with users using other utility in combination with Primocache.