So my experiment with using paexec + restic to backup ALL Windows user profiles on our network is about to prove useful. We have a file server that everyone is supposed to store their data on, but plenty of people have a ton of documents on their local machines.
It just so happens that this morning a user’s drive failed. Hard. Beeping. Won’t even spin up. Aaaaand I have a snapshot from literally an hour before. The backup is likely what pushed the aging HDD over the edge - but hey, now I’ve got all his data.
So I’m currently restoring his profile to a flash drive, and reloading his machine with an SSD with our default image. Let’s see how well his profile restores!
I’ll post my script to the “Recipes” sub-forum once I refine it a bit.
As an update, I’m going to use the excellent Fab’s AutoBackup tool to pull the important data from the restored user profile folder. This will leave behind all the junk, and hopefully restore the profile to basically what it was before the crash! I’ve used this tool on busted machines where the drive still spun but wouldn’t boot, and it’s worked like a charm. So I’m expecting similar results this time.
Restic has saved the day twice now. I like that I can start a separate restore for just one file, while I’m still doing the user profile restore. Had an INI file get corrupted on a local profile. Had it fixed in a couple of minutes.
I love this little app I didn’t think I’d be able to find a cheap, and more importantly fast backup program that could handle what I wanted it to do.
And hey, now my users love me again. They’ve been hating me for awhile, because I instituted a “phishing campaign” against them and have been forcing training on anyone who clicks LOL.
Even better! By the way, are you aware of the restic mount command? It’s not available on Windows (unfortunately), but you can also mount a repository containing Windows snapshots on Linux or macOS.
Yep! That’s what I was trying to do here but the Sync() errors prevented me from doing so. I could have probably done that by unplugging the USB repo and plugging it into my Mac, but I was already about ~70GB into using restic restore when I thought of it, and didn’t want to have to start over should it not work.
I was going to use restic mount on the SMB share to basically then serve up another share using my Mac with the mounted files, then use that Fab’s AutoBackup app to pull the profile while skipping the junk, without having to fully restore the snapshot. Didn’t work out that way, and it took all day to do the full restic restore - but by the end of the day, I was indeed able to restore the user’s ~238GB profile and get him back up and running.
@akrabu This is great to hear! Unfortunately it seems like this type of thing happens often, but the restic team doesn’t get to hear the praise they’ve earned. Thanks for reminding us to be grateful and share our stories!
@fd0 restic team and forum members: Thanks for all the incredible work you’ve put into restic and this community! I’ve not only recovered from a tight spots thanks to restic, but I’ve also gained a substantial amount of peace of mind! With restic and its rclone integration, I can back up my entire linux install incrementally in five minutes to several different cloud storage providers. I have the peace of mind of knowing that a simple 5 minute task can pretty much save my digital life! I hope you all can give yourselves a well-deserved pat on the back! For every 1 restic user like akrabu, who speaks up and reminds us to express our thanks, there are likely another 1000 who have also been saved but haven’t came back and thanked the community! I myself am guilty of this…
I hope all those who contribute code to restic and all those who contribute on the wiki and forum all can see how much of a difference they’ve made in people’s lives. A secure and stable backup solution is at this point the most important aspect of using a computer, and having one that’s free, open source, and community supported is a huge advent to the FLOSS community and much more generally to all those who use computers.
Thank you again to all those contributing on restic and in this open source community, you’ve saved me many times, and you’ve given me the peace of mind that is far too hard to achieve in this digital age. Congratulations on your work and your accomplishments!
-jedi453
I didn’t think I’d be able to find a cheap, and more importantly fast backup program that could handle what I wanted it to do.
