B&R 2010 Free - Recovery a Joke !!!!

[freddyflint]

History:-
When I first read about Paragon-Software B&R, I was blown away with what it claimed it could do. I had to investigate further. I downloaded the Program, registered, Installed it and away i went...

I did a backup on the fly, without rebooting. This was Great !! no more 10year old Symantec Ghost in DOS mode...
I even made a recovery media, and put it somewhere safe.

-------
Then Today, a nasty virus/malware/something.. A BSOD and no boot, or safe mode available. I thought to myself, no, a rebuild, what a waste of 24hrs.. BUT good news, I have a Backup & recovery program, and only last week did I do a backup (about 1 backup per month for me)

I hunted around for my secretly hidden recovery media, located it, and set about to boot and restore...
But to my surprise, It didn't work. All I got was the "white rectangle" problem as reported in a sticky above.
I read through all the info on a fix, download another copy of B&R 2010 Free, to install on my old dust covered PC, and then spent the next 6 hours trying to get the recovery media to boot.
Finally after trail and error, I did, but it then failed again, trying to load the graphics drivers.
You would have thought a company that's been around for 20 odd years to better programmers than this. There is no easy way around this.
Problems----
-The backup files themselves are only readable by Paragon-Software
-The linux/dos recovery media is a Joke !!!!
-I have a Win-UBCD but I dont know of or have access to the recovery files.

Alas I have concluded the following
-Paragon-software backup & Recovery 2010 Free, and Backup Recovery Home edition (trail) recovery part is a Joke.
-I am following up with Australian Authorities to find out if this product is in Breach of Consumer Laws of "false and misleading" claims.
-Advising to anyone/everyone that they SHOULD fully TEST the product before committing to it.. I've learnt the hard way.

------- done thus far in case someone can help
copied the "new" rmb.exe file into the Original Folder.
-This avoided the "white rectangles" recovery media boot problem

About to try Win-UBCD and executing the recovery program.
-*- This recovery program should be 100% folder/file independent. A 23kb file that executes a "wizard" is NOT 100% independent.

Fred
PS Most likely this will be my last post, as I'm sure the Admin will kill my account for such a negative view on paragon-software.

[SIW2]

No , I don't think they will remove your post.

The Linux based recovery cd works for most systems - but there will always the odd one where it doesn't.

That is true of ALL free imaging apps - they all have linux based recov cd.s - they are different , but again , none of them has universal support for every conceivable system .

Commonsense dictates to try out the recovery media first.

There are several alternatives - you can make a bartpe cd - there is a thread on the forum and a plugin to do it.

You can make a winpe 2/3 cd/flash - not difficult.

You can use the Paragon premade winpe media - but that only comes with the paid product becuase there is a license fee to pay to MS by commercial companies.

[Cudni]

so you had a problem on one computer (the one with bsod, no boot, no safe mode) but you then installed and attempted recovery on another computer?

[freddyflint]

Originally Posted by Cudni

so you had a problem on one computer (the one with bsod, no boot, no safe mode) but you then installed and attempted recovery on another computer?

Correct. To attempt to locate the problem with the recovery media boot issues, and to access the internet.

[freddyflint]

All is well now. I managed to boot my 'failed' PC Hard Disk Drives (Main & backup-data) on the dusty old pc, and utilise the Restore function, and restore the backup file to 'another' drive/location.

I would like to mention that since the B&R software operates with 'fan fare' it is weird that the restore screens are not worded well.
I was stressing out at the time when the restore media failed, and when I very quickly read the instructions whilst going through the restore steps, I missed read, and believed that I could NOT restore to an alternative location.

suggestion:-
either change the screen displays to numeric (Step 1, Step2,...etc) or just screen by screen, displaying basic options with Advanced Greyed out, and the final screen with a confirmation to commit changes.

Problem:-
My problem with Recovery Media, was that linux started to load, then failed with "failure to load graphics" or very similar. This streamed up the screen at a high rate and was difficult to read (multiple lines in error message)

I will look into your suggested bartpe recovery plugins, and see how I go. It is extremely baffeling that 'commercial' companies have problems with linux as you pointed out. I have a UBCD and it's boot loader is like 1meg disk space, and it loads and works fine. I have keyboard, screen, access to hard drives. What more do you need in a recovery program?
After all It's a recovery program to restore a backup. Yes you should be able to restore a single file if needed, but in a pinch, who cares about 1 file !!! 99% of the people using a B&R program wouldn't know which SYSTEM file is damaged and needs restoring.
(My 2 cents worth.... I'll get of my soapbox now)

Thanks
Fred


Thanks
Fred