Casper

Has anyone used Casper 11 or Casper Secure 6 for cloning or imaging? Is the software reliable?

He always says hello
And he's really glad to meet you
Wherever he may go
He's kind to every living creature
Grown-ups don't understand
But children love him the most

Sorry, couldn't help it. It's pretty ingrained.

Keith Weisshar said:

Has anyone used Casper 11 or Casper Secure 6 for cloning or imaging? Is the software reliable?

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Some people here have used it but it is not cheap. Frankly, it is not a mainstream app like Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper or Easeus Todo all of which offer a good basic free version which is adequate for most users, with premium featurers at a cost.

I did test it a while back but was not majorly impressed. However, it is the only tool I know that has a feature similar to Macrium Reflect Home's (paid version) Rapid Delta Restore but I have never tested it.

It is interesting to note from latest Macrium Reflect update:

• We've fixed a bug that caused a program crash if a disk was connected that was originally cloned using a 3rd party product called 'Casper'.

Obviously Casper was doing something non standard that Reflect found a workaround to fix.

In the end, the most popular apps are popular for a reason, with reliability being paramount - especially Macrium Reflect .

Price wise the paid version is pretty much same as Macrium Reflect.

It seems to have a similar feature to Macrium Viboot (available on free version of Reflect) whereby an image can be loaded as a Hyper-V VM. I am not certain, but its image backups (from Windows 10 onwards) seem to be a clone to a VHDX file rather than a compressed image file, so I think the image backups must be larger than Reflect backups but I accept I may be wrong on this. Nowhere in the guide below is compression mentioned. It seems to be quite storage hungry - 3 x amount of used space for images on Reflect would hold around 5 images (I rarely hold 3 or more - just keeping last two).



Macrium Viboot also works on Home versions of Windows 10/11 using Virtualbox.

From guide :
"The VHDX image file format is supported only when running on Windows 8 and later or when booting and running from a Casper Startup Disk created with the Windows 8 or later ADK. Bootable image recovery is supported only on Windows 7 and later. Testing a restore-point backup within a virtual machine is supported only when running on Windows 10 and later."

https://download.fssdev.com/download/userguide/en-US/fss_casper_110_userguide.pdf

I could not see any reference to differential or incremental backups but that may be just different terminology. If it cannot do this, this would be a major downside, compared with mainstream image tools.

Price for price, I cannot see any major driver to go for Casper (compared with paid version of Reflect), but of course, even the free version of Reflect is quite powerful and meets most users needs.

I admit to being totally biased towards Macrium Reflect as it has never let me down (2/3rds of members of this forum use it according to latest poll). In the end, does Casper have such a proven reliability track record?

Only one way to find out though if prepared to splash the cash.......

Saw your post and was curious and just tested Casper 11 Home Edition trial here. Terminology is a bit different, nice clean interface. Created a Restore Point Backup of my C: drive. Created, a bootable USB disk. Formatted my C: drive with G Parted Live, and then booted from the USB it created and restored. All went well with no hitch.

Badger said:

Saw your post and was curious and just tested Casper 11 Home Edition trial here. Terminology is a bit different, nice clean interface. Created a Restore Point Backup of my C: drive. Created, a bootable USB disk. Formatted my C: drive with G Parted Live, and then booted from the USB it created and restored. All went well with no hitch.

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I don't understand.
Why would you wipe out your system drive to test a bootable USB disk, when all you have to do is change your computer boot priority in your UFEI to test said external bootable drive?
Secondly, wiping out your own system is a pretty risky endeavour. With all due respect, doing it to just test a software does not sound believable, by a long shot.
Thirdly, AFAIK, reformatting your system drive would delete your restore point, so you wouldn't even be able to restore your system in case your Casper USB image did not work.
Conclusion : The test you claim to have performed does not make any sense to me, but I probably missed something. Could you please elaborate?

Qubitus said:

I don't understand.
Why would you wipe out your system drive to test a bootable USB disk, when all you have to do is change your computer boot priority in your UFEI to test said external bootable drive?
Secondly, wiping out your own system is a pretty risky endeavour. With all due respect, doing it to just test a software does not sound believable, by a long shot.
Thirdly, AFAIK, reformatting your system drive would delete your restore point, so you wouldn't even be able to restore your system in case your Casper USB image did not work.
Conclusion : The test you claim to have performed does not make any sense to me, but I probably missed something. Could you please elaborate?

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I do a lot of crash and burn testing here for various software. I have multiple backups and will take a full backup prior to testing a piece of software like Casper. I can restore my system if need be within 3 minutes. So I don't see any problem at all!

Badger said:

I do a lot of crash and burn testing here for various software. I have multiple backups and will take a full backup prior to testing a piece of software like Casper. I can restore my system if need be within 3 minutes. So I don't see any problem at all!

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Thanks, I see, very interesting.
Since you seem to know what you are doing, do you mind explaining why you just don't switch boot order via UFEI instead of going through all the (WIndows 11?) restore point shenanigan (you wrote you created a restore point), I suppose to an external drive (if creating Windows "restore point" on a external drive is feasible) since that restore point would have been deleted when you formated your C drive if you just had saved it on the system drive? And what do you use to reliably create these system restore point back-ups on an external medium? I suppose you have only a few programs installed other than Windows 11.

Yes, saved to an external drive. Why would I want to switch boot order? What better way to test the software then to create a full backup of my current C: / drive, and then to use that company's disaster recovery USB pen drive to restore that backup to a newly formatted disk. Whole process can be done within about 6 minutes. Guess you've never experienced a piece of software that's created its disaster recover media only to find that media fails to boot up etc.... Well I have.

Ok, you initialy wrote "booted from the USB it created"). You actually didn't boot your system image from the USB drive, you first copied it to your C drive using a disaster recovery USB pen drive (Casper has a function to create one), THEN booted it from the C drive. Fine.

The reason I asked what you exactly did is because I tried to boot a Casper system image from the USB drive onto which I created them. It did not work, although Windows 10/11 are supposed to be bootable that way. Myself, and probably many other users, can't simply wipe one's whole system drive just to test the viability of a system image, hoping that the Casper system image, once copied back onto the C drive, will actually boot. So, since that image is not bootable from the USB drive, we have no way to test whether it would actually be operational in case of disaster.

Have you tried booting directly from the USB drive onto which you created your Casper system image, and if so, did it work?

That test took place on July 11th. I no longer have that image nor use Casper. Remember, this was just a test I performed. Here is what I remember doing. I installed Casper on my C:/ drive, and then used Casper to create a backup image file of the C:\drive to another SSD drive as the destination. I then used Casper to make a recovery USB pen drive. I proceeded to wipe my C:\ drive clean. I then booted from the Casper USB pen drive and restored that image file back to the C:\drive. I then rebooted the machine which booted up into the C:\drive successfully.

Badger said:

That test took place on July 11th. I no longer have that image nor use Casper. Remember, this was just a test I performed. Here is what I remember doing. I installed Casper on my C:/ drive, and then used Casper to create a backup image file of the C:\drive to another SSD drive as the destination. I then used Casper to make a recovery USB pen drive. I proceeded to wipe my C:\ drive clean. I then booted from the Casper USB pen drive and restored that image file back to the C:\drive. I then rebooted the machine which booted up into C:\drive successfully.

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Yes, I perfectly understood that. I was asking in my last message whether you tried to boot the image directly from the USB drive, and explained that, if feasible, that would be an important test of the image viability for Casper users who can't take the risk to wipe out their system drive just to test whether their regular imaging efforts are worth anything.

You kind of hint that you actually never did boot from the USB drive.
So until someone confirms a positive boot from a Casper system image on a USB drive and describe how that was achieved, Casper users have no way to know whether such a system image is likely to be functional once copied back on their C drive. And that's a problem (although the fact that it did work in your case is good to know, but not enough in my book).

Qubitus said:

Yes, I perfectly understood that. I was asking in my last message whether you tried to boot the image directly from the USB drive, and explained that, if feasible, that would be an important test of the image viability for Casper users who can't take the risk to wipe out their system drive just to test whether their regular imaging efforts are worth anything.

You kind of hint that you actually never did boot from the USB drive.
So until someone confirms a positive boot from a Casper system image on a USB drive and describe how that was achieved, Casper users have no way to know whether such a system image is likely to be functional once copied back on their C drive. And that's a problem (although the fact that it did work in your case is good to know, but not enough in my book).

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If I understand you post, you're asking if they booted from the drive with the image. You boot the computer with the Casper rescue flash drive and restore the image that was saved to the USB HDD.

Winuser said:

If I understand you post, you're asking if they booted from the drive with the image. You boot the computer with the Casper rescue flash drive and restore the image that was saved to the USB HDD.

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I understand this is the standard way to proceed and so, as I concluded in my previous message and to reiterate it, it seems that there is no way to test the validity of a system image created by Casper on a USB drive... until you wipe out the present system on the defective machine and replace it with that image. To me, that's a major problem.

Technically, a complete Windows system can boot and run (slowly) from a USB drive, but it would have to be specifically prepared for that purpose. See here. It probably applies to Windows 11 by the way. I thought that was the case for Casper bootable system image. That's why I asked Badger if he did try to boot the image FROM the USB drive. He did not. My experience seems to indicate that Casper system images are not created in a way that make them directly bootable from the USB drive onto which they are written. So they cannot be tested without wiping out the perfectly functional system they are supposed to replace in case of disaster. Again, to me, that's a major design flaw. It's like if you create a back-up of your data but would not be able to check whether the backed up data are indeed accessible without first wiping out the original data!

Qubitus said:

I understand this is the standard way to proceed and so, as I concluded in my previous message and to reiterate it, it seems that there is no way to test the validity of a system image created by Casper on a USB drive... until you wipe out the present system on the defective machine and replace it with that image. To me, that's a major problem.

Technically, a complete Windows system can boot and run (slowly) from a USB drive, but it would have to be specifically prepared for that purpose. See here. It probably applies to Windows 11 by the way. I thought that was the case for Casper bootable system image. That's why I asked Badger if he did try to boot the image FROM the USB drive. He did not. My experience seems to indicate that Casper system images are not created in a way that make them directly bootable from the USB drive onto which they are written. So they cannot be tested without wiping out the perfectly functional system they are supposed to replace in case of disaster. Again, to me, that's a major design flaw. It's like if you create a back-up of your data but would not be able to check whether the backed up data are indeed accessible without first wiping out the original data!

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Then connect an external USB (HD or SSD) drive to your system and restore your C:\ drive's image to it, which will alllow you to boot off it to test the integrity of the image you created without touching your original C:\ drive.

what is this bootable image you refer to ?

according the manual

Badger said:

Then connect an external USB drive and restore the image to it, that way you can boot from it and test the integrity of the image yoiu created without overwriting or destroying your original C:\ drive.

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So you are suggesting that restoring a Casper created system image on an other USB drive (that would essentially be a sector-to-sector exact copy) would miraculously make that second USB drive a completly bootable and functional Windows system drive even it the original was not? Sorry, I don't see the logic in that.

I never used Casper and I doubt I ever will. With thar said. Dose Casper have an option to verify the image? It does take longer but I chose to have Macrium Reflect verify my backup images.

Qubitus said:

So you are suggesting that restoring a Casper created system image on an other USB drive (that would essentially be a sector-to-sector exact copy) would miraculously make that second USB drive a completly bootable and functional Windows system drive even it the original was not? Sorry, I don't see the logic in that.

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That assumed your C:\ drive was your system boot drive and you imaged it for the test.

Badger said:

That assumed your C:\ drive was your system boot drive and you imaged it for the test.

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Ok, still not sure I understand what you mean, but anyway :

1. According to the ref. I pointed to previously, you would have to buy a new Windows licence to be able to engrave a USB drive with an autonomous Windows version. That makes a mere validity test quite expansive.

2. The scenario you describe is so speculative and complicated that I would prefer to have someone who actually managed to perform a successful test of a Casper created system image (without having to first wipe out their how functional system) to chime in and describe the whole process in detail.

There might be a way to do it simply, but so far nobody has done and described it. And unfortunately (but maybe because it cannot be done), Future System Solution (Casper developpers) does not describe a way to do it in its literature and does not even address the testability issue.