GoBack

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Norton GoBack (previously known as Wildfile GoBack, Adaptec GoBack, Roxio GoBack) is a Microsoft Windows based disk utility, that can record up to 8Gb of disk changes. When the filesystem is idle for a few seconds, it marks these as "safe points". The product allows the disk drive to be reverted to any safe point. It does this by effectively undoing all changes made to the disk since the safe point.

1 How it works
2 Incompatible products
3 Usage precaution
4 Product history
5 External links
6 Related articles
7 Competing products

[edit] How it works

GoBack replaces the Master Boot Record, and also replaces the partition table with a single partition. This allows a hard drive to be reverted even in the event that the Operating System is unable to boot, while also protecting the filesystem from alteration so that the revert information remains correct.

[edit] Incompatible products

Due to the changes made to the partition table, this can cause problems when dual booting other operating systems on the same hard disk. It is possible to retain dual-boot compatibility, but can involve saving the partition table before enabling GoBack, and after enabling GoBack, re-writing the partition table back to the disk (after booting from a different device, such as a Live CD).

It may also be necessary to disable GoBack prior to using certain low level disk utilities, such as formatting software. Such low level utilities which do not first check for the presence of GoBack can (in combination with GoBack) cause data to become corrupted.

GoBack is not yet officially supported by Windows Vista.

[edit] Usage precaution

GoBack is not compatible with RAID drives.

[edit] Product history

In 1999, GoBack was first designed, written, and patented by a company called Wildfile.
March 2000, Adaptec acquires Wildfile for approximately $29 million. [1][2][3]
April 2001, Adaptec created another company, Roxio. Roxio retained the GoBack product. [4]
May 2001, Roxio GoBack version 3 is released, this time also supporting the NTFS filesystem, which by now was being used more widely since the release of Windows XP. [5]
April 2003, Roxio sells GoBack to Symantec for $13 million. [6]
September, 2004, GoBack version 4 is released.