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ForumsA few months ago I reviewed the product “Reimage” which had mixed responses amonst technicians. Some people said they would rather do the task themselves and others said that the product was great. For those of you who don’t know what Reimage is, its a website designed to automate the repair of severely damaged Windows installs. Through the Reimage website via an ActiveX control, they scan the system files, folders, registry keys and drivers looking for something missing or something that shouldn’t be there. This can be anything from missing critical system files to an adware infection of your computer. Once they find the problem, the website fixes it.
Nicholas Black from Reimage.com recently contacted me and asked me to take a look at the boot CD they have made. They have been listening to feedback from Technibble technicians for some time now and have improved the product immensely. So, I thought I should take another look at it but using the boot CD instead to bring a fatally damaged Windows install back from the dead.
I disabled my test Windows install by deleting NTLDR and NTDetect.com from the C drive root directory. NTLDR is essential for Windows XP to boot up and if its missing you will get this message and be unable to boot up:
I created a boot CD using the files and instructions located here, set my computer to boot from the CD drive and started up the computer with the boot CD in the drive.
The Reimage boot CD seems to be made from the BartPE enviroment that many of us are already familiar with from using other boot CDs. Once the Reimage boot CD finishes loading, you are presented with a desktop that looks like this with immediately launches Internet Explorer and takes you to the Reimage.com website:
I logged in using my 7 day trial account and clicked “Start Repair”. The Reimage website analysed the computer which took about 5 minutes and displayed what it found:
Something I didn’t like about Reimage before was the fact that it didn’t really show you exactly what it was fixing. Now, it provides a full log and gives you the ability to uncheck things you don’t want it to fix.
Once I’m happy with what I want fixed I pressed the “Fix” button and let it go though the fixing process, this probably took around 15-20 minutes:
Once it completed the repair process it asked me to restart the computer and it powered up into Windows as normal. It seems to have successfully noticed that the NTLDR and ntdetect.com were missing and replaced them accordingly. Once I was fully into Windows I was presented with the following popup:
The guys at Reimage also wanted me to check out the Undo function if I wasn’t happy with the repair. In this case, I was fairly happy with the repair but I am going to test it for the sake of this review.
I pressed the Undo button, it went through its processes, the computer restarted and I was presented with this:
Yep, the undo function works.
While there was mixed feedback amongst Technibble technicians last time I reviewed Reimage, they seemed to have improved greatly and might be worth another shot, especially with the Boot CD to recover a dead Windows install. The technicians that currently use it find it great for finding those “needle in the haystack” problems.
Anyway, you don’t have to take my word for it, try it out for yourself and see how it works for you. With a undo function there really isnt much for you to lose. Ive managed secure us some 72 hour review accounts which you can get via the following link if you want to try it out:
http://www.reimage.com/index-land2.php?tracking=technibble&banner=whitty
Thanks Mr. B,
I look forward to testing this on my rig.
thanks for the trial bryce will give it another go to see if i can get along with it this time.
I intially had a problem using the boot CD for reimage. It would half boot up and then crash.
I eventually tracked the problem down to creating the boot CD on a non SATA machine and using the disk on a SATA machine. Once I created the boot CD on a SATA machine everything worked all ok.
I wish they would give a trial based on number of uses (1 – 3 maybe) rather than the VERY short 7 days.
When I signed up, I didn’t have a machine that needed that sort of treatment. Since then I’ve had a couple of candidates.
I suggested this to them and was ignored.
I actually like the product after testing, but I will not use it. I do not like their pricing options. $79 for 3 repairs or $199 for 20.
Buying in bulk takes over half off the cost, but what if i do not need it 20 times in one year. I would consider $199 for 20 uses if they did not expire… If you are going to sell it at this price, it comes to $10 a repair. I would rather pay say $30 for a yearly membership and then $10 a repair than buy in bulk and take the chance of having no “roll over” repairs.
I also agree with you Steven…
After signing up, I tested it on my corp xp pro license machine. Even after a fresh install, it told me that it was so corrupt it could not repair it. Not a problem, considering I assumed it just did not like the corp. images and most the computers I will repair will be either home or pro.
By the time I got my hands on a machine that would be a candidate, my 7 day trail is finished. 1-3 machines makes a lot more sense to me… that way I can actually get a chance to test it out correctly.
sorry… forgot one other thing…
Windows 7 is almost ready for beta. Looks like Vista SP2 will be out before 7 is ready to ship, but come on, we are on Vista SP1. I have a hard time investing in product that will not help me out on the Vista side… especially since I have seen in increase of over 30% in the last month of people using the OS. Prices are just to high for a product that should have been out years ago. I would pay the above mentioned pricing idea I mentioned (see previous post) for a reimage product for Vista, but since XP is soon to be 2 OSes deep.. think about it this way…
would you pay these prices to fix a computer that is having issues if it was running Windows ME, 2k, or 98?
I tried reimage, it is awesome. I do a bit of work on the side and would recommend. It’s easy to create an account and get started. I didn’t know if it works on Vista yet, but for XP, it couldn’t be better.
This could be a great resource for any technician, but considering the pricing structure… it doesn’t make sense to use this tool regularly. We’re in business to make money, not take costly short cuts.
I’d market this to the consumer market at this higher price, but if we were ever going to use it… it’s gotta come down to a reasonable price point.
This is my third review of Reimage. I really like the concept and really like the mechanics of using the boot disk, analyze, fix, reboot, all in 20 minutes or less.
I’ve run it maybe 40 times over the past month and a half on everything from a missing file to virus problems. My experience is that it has maybe a 15% success rate, success being defined as either fixing the problem outright (such as missing operating system files) or getting the pc into a place that another process can finish the fix (mostly various types of virus issues).
As an example of a success I had a customer last week with the ubiquitous Win Antivirus 2008. I sat down at his PC, said that it might not work but I wanted to try something that would only take a few minutes and would save him a bunch if it did work. I ran Reimage from boot disk and after 15 minutes it did remove the virus. While running it came up with a red line saying that it had found the suspicious file and on reboot it seemed to be fine. I ran AVG from safe mode and it didn’t find anything. So I was able to correct a virus problem in under an hour on site. That is a first. Customer was VERY pleased.
And I just got through running Reimage and, again, it saw the Win Antivirus 2009 (this guy is on the bleeding edge of virus problems). But this time when it finished the “you’ve got virus’s” bubble came up. So, I booted to safe mode and installed Malwarebytes which found a dozen various Trojans and such and it looks like it may be clean. If the Malwarebytes and Reimage got together so that Reimage would run and boot straight into a bootable version of Malwarebytes then we really might have something.
On a PC with apps for which the customer has no disks or one that can’t leave the work space to go to the shop for reload or some similar situation Reimage is invaluable. The problem is that what may be a ‘successful’ run to Reimage ultimately may not result in a fix for me. Buying by the unit creates a situation that I’m judging whether it worked as a fix or not and I’ve got to run the undo before doing the back up and reload to get my unit back. So, the question is whether $149 per month is worth it and I’m still on the fence. Integration of spyware/virus removal automated tools so that the whole thing would still run under an hour would certainly contribute to my liking the monthly freight a lot more.
I spent the $199. I am 0 for 7 so far(including using the boot cd), counting several trials. Of the one or two Reimages that “took,” I had to later return and do a bare metal reinstall. I could save myself time and money, by DIY.
It is a great concept, but I think it is still beta for techs that need to get Windows XP computers back up and running. I will give it some time and then try again.
Program sounds great but do you have to have a Cd for each verion of XP as Pro now has a new build and can you use a home verasion boot disk on a Pro and vise verser?
When the trial first came out it wasn’t seven days unlimited but 3 uses which is what I got.
I finally gave it a try last week and used up one of my 3. I did it inside windows (not bootcd) Took about 25mins and it did solve the issue which would of taken several hours doing a fresh reinstall.
My big problem and deal breaker with this is the 1-year validity. I just don’t think I’d use 20 installs in a years time. If reimage folks are reading this bump it to 2yrs and you got yourself a customer.
I am waiting for it to come in a version that supports the Danish version of Windows XP.
Any idea when that might be?
This is an official response by Reimage Support addressing the various issues raised in this forum
• Reimage trial mechanism was improved to address your comments. The user decide now when to start the free trial period.
• There is no correlation between the BootCD OS SP and the SP that is being repair. Bootcd need to be created using XP Professional Edition, Service Pack 2, while the repaired PC can have other SP.
• The best way to deal with badly infected PCs is simply run Reimage through a BootCD. To remove Antivirus 2009, is
• Reimage success rate is high and each failure is being checked by Reimage Support. There are few things that one needs to confirm before running Reimage:
o Reimage can’t work on PC with lame hardware
o Reimage does not fix 3rd party software
o Do you have a LAN connection? Wi-Fi is a greater risk. A firewall/gateway with strong content filtering mechanism MAY also harm Reimage’s ability to ‘fix’ by altering the communication with the Reimage servers.
• In any case of concern or a problem, you are welcome to send your inquiry to support@reimage.com
Sorry for the missing line.
It should say:
The best way to deal with badly infected PCs is simply run Reimage through a BootCD. In order to remove Antivirus 2009, you should boot the PC in Safe mode with networking and run Reimage
So if it has to go to safe mode for a virus removal, shouldn’t it be made to automatically go to safe mode each time? In fact why not build this into the boot cd so that it’s a no-brainer? What we techs are saying in the background of our comments is something like, “If I have to still guess which way to go and why it does not work one way and not the other way (including non-SP3 so far), and what if it’s hardware problems hiding and waiting to come forth after a failed Reimage attempt (etc), then why do I need this and the time bother that seems to come with it?” While we understand that you at Reimage are creating a product with a purpose and so you can make money (that’s legit as a company), we also must consider if this is worth it for us. I do on-site service so have to be “on my feet” ready for whatever I’m up against and trying to keep costs down since I already incur travel costs, etc. We need to be thoroughly convinced this will benefit our company as well. As the old addage goes, “Help enough others get what they want/need and you’ll get what you want also!” So if you can come up with a way that is not so high priced so that you attract more customers among techs then you will most certainly be guaranteed a good return! I just came away from a huge corp that ignored this and lost hugely when over 100,000 clients/distributors walked away. Provide and satisfy and you will see a return on investment – works all the time because we’re working with people ultimately, not machines! Trust this summation helps understand where we techs are coming from.
Wow… very article…
I tried the free trial the first review and was impressed. I just don’t like the high prices and the fact its only for xp. Like someone already mentioned its going to be 2 OS’s outdated soon, and I rarely come across an XP system which requires more then a few hours to repair/reimage. The majority of issues I have with corrupted system files would be from Vista.
I dont care if there is a free trial… I would rather go with the open source alternative.
What open source alternative? Better be specific. We are not talking about reimaging a PC but correcting problems without having to reimage. That’s what REIMAGE.com does.
There is a program that is free called PC Fixer http://www.digitalsupporttech.com/en-us/download.htm
PC Fixer looks like it could be promising in the future… Could use a little more organization to how it operates… but even though I said I did not like Reimage, you can not compare the two… Reimage wins hand down!
tried it and didnt like my machines one little bit,just not the product i was expecting and not the product for me.
So … “J” says we should checkout another Product, gots a response and “JJ2000″ says he does not like Reimage.
J – you should have chosen a different name … such as “K” …. yes, “K” is better than “JJ2000″
ok, some of you are having problems because you don’t read the instructions on making the Boot CD , I have tried it 4 times already in the last few days all were successful, I am surprised by the problems you are having. I will try to detail what i did to get mine working great.
First I made my ISO image with the Winconsole app, provided by Reimage.com, from a non-customized ,non-slip streamed version of XP Pro MSDN VLK with SP3, yes I know it said SP2 inthe instructions, but it went flawless. I Booted 4 different comps off it, 1 media Centre version, 1 pro corp, and 2 home editions. You cant use xp home edition or any customized or slip streamed crap to make your BartPE CD, it has to be an untouched version. The Pro version is needed to cover all versions of Windows you might need to use it on. Vista support will be out later and still included in your subscription price. It didn’t harm anything on the comps, and it fixed various problems. I am writing a comprehensive review shortly of my results for the company. My other thoughts on the software, I noticed the browsers all opened faster afterwards, no biggy but nice. It seems also to scan the processes, even hidden process like rootkits, so if you don’t know how to use unhack-me then this is a bonus for you, as I saw it found the same entries in the drivers section that unhack-me found which I left intentionally to test the product. I have written to the company to ask them to include remote support for my company clients away. if the can integrate TeamViewer and the anti-malware kit, then it would be a very useful edition to my arsenal. I think it warrants more testing but not by so-called techs who say they would only use it a few times a month, they can’t be full-time techs – just home users looking for a cheap way to repair their mistakes. if they were full time techs with a client base they would use it at least once a day. I can fix all the issues the program has in its list of supported fixes but if its that fast, why waste 1.5 hours -2 hours doing repairs and recovery consoles and risking the data. OK backup your data first with UDB if its not booting normal, then do your thing. But for others to say they would rarely use it each month are either pulling our legs or are not busy techs, just leeching off our knowledge base.
I tested the product remotely, team viewer downloaded and worked flawlessly. I took control and finished everything and logged in after the fix reboot.
I have paid the $139.00 for 10 repairs. Order ref. #36719466 on 11/13/08 . I have gone through following the instructions and have the problems noted and push the fixit button and they want payment again and again. Please contact me asap and HELP ME! I’m a paying customer.
James, this is a review of Reimage and we are completely independant of them, we have no control over the workings/billing that they do. Contact their support line at support[at]reimage.com
I purchased and downloaded this program abot a month ago(Dec 24th), but so far have been unable to run it, despite using the Registration Number you gave me. I am nearly eighty years old and cannot put up with this any longerso, I would appreciate a ful refund as per your guarantee. I cannot access your website any other way, so please pass this on to the relevant department at your end.
Sincerely GSC Crabbe
Hi , the trial is actually 3 days , as i just did it today , well im scanning atm , and will see what will happen!
I love the way that James and Gerald somehow think that this review is actually the website of reimage. Makes me larf!
Anyway, I digress, I have just tried the trial and have to report that it was quite successful. The machine I tried reimage on had quite a number of problems, one of which when going into safe mode I got the infamous blue screen of death. Reimage sorted this problem and the others out with no dramas. I probably would have had to do a repair using the windows cd or at worst reinstalled. I am going to try it on a couple of other machines and see how that pans out, but so far so good.
One problem I noticed is that for some reason it turned the logon background black. God knows why it did that. Just a niggle
The biggest problem I see (and has been noted by others on this review) with reimage is the price. For one fix it is 65 US$ which is quite a lot and if it was my PC I would just reinstall.
Gerald Crabbe, again, this is a review of Reimage and we are completely independant of them, we have no control over the workings/billing that they do. Contact their support line at support[at]reimage.com
Hi , im back with a report , i scanned / fixed my comp with the trial of Reimage , and it fully repaired my computer. FIxed directx witch i thought i needed to reformat to make it work again , and loads of other stuff. The program is great!
Reimage ruined my computer. The technical support department have ignored 20 (yes – TWENTY) requests for assistance. I will have to reformat the hard drive and re-install Windows. As far as I’m concerned, Reimage is the worst, most disastrous software I have ever encountered. Their tech support is hopeless beyond belief. Use Reimage at your peril. This is software sent by the devil.