I'm new to Paragon B&R, and I'm very happy to see this forum. My thanks to Wilders Security. 1) I back up my computer for two reasons: The first is so that, should my hard drive go up in smoke, I can get a new drive and get back to where I was before. The second, perhaps less important, is so that I can go back and find a file that I might have subsequently deleted or modified. The summary for B&R 14 suggests that I can make a full-computer backup and that I can use this to restore the whole drive or individual files. So far I haven't found a way to do this with B&R Recovery. Am I missing something? Is it possible to back up a disk and have backup access to individual files as well? Or do I have to make two sets of backups, disk and file? The manual talks about a Universal Image Mounter, which seems to do what I want, but I can't seem to find how to access it. When I've made a "New format" backup and added it to "Archives" (and just what does that mean, exactly?), even then the Mount Archive button (which may be the thing that does what I want with files) is greyed out. 2) I've been working with computers a long time; I have read lots of computer technical manuals; and I've written a few, but I don't think that I've often come across pieces as opaque as B&R'14's description of the "New File Format," alias pVHD; it seems to require that you already understand what it's trying to explain. I'd be very grateful for any clarification about what it is, what it does, and what advantage it might have for me. For one thing, it appears that one can do only incremental pVHD backups, not differential ones. I will be studying the manual closely again, and if I come up with any additional understanding I'll post it here to save others the trouble. Many thanks.
>> Is it possible to back up a disk and have backup access to individual files as well? The short answer is yes: Use the Mount Archive function. Select your full backup image archive and mount it as a drive letter. Then copy whichever files/folders you want. Here is the thread where I asked the same question! https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/dm-14-cant-mount-archive.356297
Many thanks. When I tried it a couple of days ago ago, the Mount Archive button was disabled, but I'll play around with it again. Later: I see that the linked thread addresses this. Thanks again.
I have found some advantages in the pVHD format when I backup several partitions in one operation. For example, to backup my UEFI laptop, I backup not only the OS (Windows) partition, but the whole "system", which comprises 6 partitions. The pVHD image contains 3 files, the PBF image contains 21 files (without splitting). Also, there are several options to restore such images from the Linux boot medium, and the user can explicitly specify how to manage non-recognized partitions (Ask user, Process as raw, Skip). Nothing very special about this, the same or similar options exist in other imaging programs. But a progress with respect to the confusing way Paragon programs have managed multi-partition images in the past.
To restore a single file / folder (or set of files and folders) from the pvhd image, it is necessary to mount the necessary partitions of this image. https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/solved-hdm-14-suite-and-pvhd-files.356115/ To restore a single file / folder (or set of files and folders) from the pbf image, mount image it is optional. Extract the files in several ways: eg. using the Restore Wizard or File Transfer Wizard or Volume Explorer, etc.
I think if the "Connect VD" option is available in the program used, and the pVHD is connected, it´s also possible to use Volume Explorer and File Transfer Wizard with a pVHD.
The "Switch to File View" like with archives shows with a pVHD Restore Wizard but when I selected another location hit Next, it did nothing. EDIT: The "Restore from VD" appears under different views but the "Switch to File View" only appears under Backup and Restore>Restore from VD. Don't know what I did wrong earlier but it works now on both W10/W7. Tried again first from W10 but on the reboot to boot into W7, it generated a CHKDSK of my W10 HD. This didn't happen on W7 after rebooting so it didn't like something that HDM15S did, I assume.
