B&R v10 Free: Recovery CD Boot fails

Backup and Recovery v10 Free Edition - Windows XP SP2

Hello,
I downloaded the free backup and reovery package a few days ago, as I wanted the extra security, and I needed to change my HD to one with a bigger capacity.

Last night I did the backup of the old drive to a USB external drive, and I created a boot CD. However, when I tried this cd, it did not work. I created another, this time without putting on files of my own, and it brought up the standard interface ok - I was able to start the Recovery Wizard before cancelling it.

This evening, I swapped the HD drives over, put the recovery cd in, powered off and then on to re-boot, and ... failure.

The symptoms are: I always get the basic choice start screen (ie to choose which type of interface).
If I choose Linux then after about 10 secs (with some cd activity) I get a message saying: 'Ancient Bootloader' and offering several video formats. If I choose one or not it makes no difference (except to the size of the printing on the screen - command line type output), I get several screen loads of messages ending with something about a 'wizard.txt' file is missing.

If I choose 'Safe Mode', it gives me the operation choice menu, and upon choosing Recovery, something happens with the cd, a few messages apear and then... 'wait for init' ... and it waits...

If I choose 'Low resolution safe mode', it seems to do a bit more, but then I still end up in a wait.

Now, I have tried 3 different recovery cds (all were 'verified' of course) and all have behaved in the same way - except of course, for that one time when I had the old HD in place with XP still on it, and it worked just fine until I cancelled out of the Recovery Wizard.

This is both very, very annoying, and very worrying - the boot from recovery cd worked once, but other than has always failed (12+ attempts), and it seems to get to different parts of the startup before collapsing. Can anyone help?

 

Some ideas:
1. Download a trial version of Backup and Recovery 10, burn a boot CD. If it works, there is a problem with the Paragon software you are using.
2. Burn the CD with Nero or ImgBurn.
3. Check the optical drive with the available diagnostics program.

 

Bit more info...

When selecting Normal Mode from first menu:
Get command-line msgs:

Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)
Undefined video mode number = 314
Press <Enter> to see video modes available or <space> to continue (or wait 30 secs)
>>>> if I select a video mode it only changes the type size <<<<

then:
lots of msgs...
Master resource control: runlevel 3 has been reached
wait for init
>>>> long wait <<<<

then:
'The program can not start due to incorrect BIOS settings or a lack of video memory on your computer'
'cat: can't open "/tmp/wizard.txt" no such file or directory
>>>> then wait... <<<<<

----------------------------

If I select Safe Mode:

Command line msgs...
Loading boot sector
Mouse driver loaded
Loading Paragon engine
>>>> and wait... <<<<

----------------------------

If I select Low res safe mode


>>>> as above but after short wait I get the operation choice screen (Lo-Res of course) <<<<

I select Simple Restore (or B & R gives same result)

and it waits...

If I select Command Line I can browse around the disc (cd mounted as Y: ), which has volume name of RAMDISK. In \dos\restore\cd\dos there is a config.ini which appears to be empty or possibly corrupted. It does not respond to the 'type' command.
-----------------------------

I am mystified - I hope I can go back to my old HD tomorrow and go back to XP - and then look for another way to upgrade...

 

Thanks for the reply Robin A.

That seems a sensible move, as long as there's no mismatch between the backup files and the new recovery disk - I will give it a go tomorrow.

Thanks again.

 

The recovery cd will be fine with all Paragon backup arc images.

 

To Robin A. and SIW2:

It looks like option 1. is a non-starter. From the download web-page for B & R Suite v10: '30 days trial. Limitations: Please note, Recovery CD included in the installation packages is available in demo mode only, no physical operations are possible'; although I guess I could see how far I get. Hmm...

Option 2 may be a possible 'runner': when I re-instate my old drive and boot up XP tomorrow I will try to create a CD image file instead of directly burning a CD from B & R v10 (I take it that is what you meant in your option 2), and then burn it with Nero 7 (Not Nero 9 as that is another disaster that I have to sort out - what a mess that release is...).

As for suggestion 3, I will try whatever diagnostics I can lay my hands on easily to test the CD/DVD drive, but I do quite a lot of ripping/burning/copying and backing-up, and have not had any major worries thus far.

Anyway, thanks to you both for taking the time to help.
Regards,
Arthur.

 

You might get hold of another Paragon Linux recovery cd - see if that is any better- easiest is to d/l the free rescue kit express - because it is small.

See if you get the same issue.

Check this thread for Kron's solution:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=255846

 

WELL NOW SIW2...

What an interesting thread you pointed me to...

I had tried downloading a trial of the full v10 B & R, to create another recovery-CD, and, guess what - the same thing happened - precisely the same in all ways.

Then, I read the 'Kron' thread, downloaded Drive Backup 9 Personal (as a trial of course), created the Recovery CD, put it in the desktop, booted, and...

it worked!

In fact it went right through to the restore. I went on expecting a message telling me that I could not actually perform the restore, but no such message appeared, and the restore would seem to be under way...

... so now I have a little problem - it's 3:30 in the morning, the backup is running and will be for at least a couple of hours, my wife will be waking from time to time and getting snitty and there is this backup, that I have been sweating over, chuntering away on my desktop PC - ok, I'll just leave it and go to bed - who the hell cares if the power-saving quiesce is working or not?

I hope everything will be ok while I snore and dream of sun, surf and Palm trees, and I will wake to find a newly usable PC...

Whatever - clearly there is a major problem with the recovery disks in the latest versions of the backup packages, and it needs sorting out by about yesterday.

Thank you very, very much SIW2,
Regards,
Arthur.

 

Hello again,
well yes, I do have a working desktop PC again, with a newer, bigger disk, and as far as I can tell at present all is well.

Thank you Robin A. for your suggestions, and especially SIW2 for the pointer to the Kron thread - the solution has been found.

To any Paragon employee who may read this:
I hope you can understand just how bad this is for the credibility of your company; a Backup and Recovery package where the stand-alone recovery facility does not work is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard - it does not matter at all whether the rest of the package is working excellently, the product is completely useless if, when you need to restore, the only way of doing it does not work. You should have either 'pulled' ALL of the V10 backup and restore products, or have put remarks, in VERY BIG LETTERS, all over your web-site saying that the restore facility in v10 DOES NOT WORK, and put up a simple download to overwrite the bad iso file in v10 with a good one from v9. As you have not done this, one can only assume that you do not consider that you have any obligations to your customers at all. Yes, I am currently using your free product, but I clearly may well want the full product later, that is of course why you offer the free version. But, other v10 products seem to be affected, so paying customers have been hit, and you seem reluctant to admit that anything is wrong - this is a major balls-up, and I say that after almost 40 years of working in what used to be referred to as the computer industry, and writing more KLOC of, usually, pretty technical code than I care to remember. I will ask you to remember here that I did test the recovery disks before I needed to use them, and one failed and one worked (as far as going well into the restore facility). I put the failure down to the fact that I put some extra files on that CD, the other was a 'typical' build and appeared to be ok. Only later, when doing the restore did I find that none of the 3 CDs I had burned would work. Thankfully I had a laptop and internet access, and through this forum sorted out the problem, but I would have been very stressed, and very angry, if I had been in a commercial environment (or even dealing with an impatient and short-tempered family).


This looks bad Paragon, it really does...

... which is a shame, a great shame, because the product seems otherwise to be very good, and quite possibly, to me, the best around.

Regards
Arthur.

 

Hi Arthur,

I am glad the V9 CD worked for you.

Perhaps as they add the add new drivers to the Linux cd, they remove some old ones. Not clear to me why they don't keep the older ones as well.

There will always be the occasional older machine the Linux drivers won't cover. That seems to be the case for all software - not just Paragon apps.

The WinPE cd should work with everything - sadly, you only get that with the paid editions.

Hope it helps.

 

Hello,

I am having the exact issue as Arthurb...the recovery CD does not work and provides a suggestion to increase video memory in the BIOS--a setting my computer does not have. Having said that my computer is not an antique. It's an Intel P4 2.66GHz with 2 GB RAM.

I also concur with Arthurb's indictment ot Paragon for putting out a product which offers illusory reassurance of recovering a failed computer.

Shame on you Paragon. I'll stick with Acronis True Image which has never failed me.

Scott McIntosh

 

Hi,

Most of us have no issues with the Linux boot cd.

It appears one or two people do.

I am sure one of the PSG staff will pass this on to the development team , who will address it.

Thanks for bringing it up.

 

Hello SIW2,
I understand your desire to support Paragon, and I should also say that I criticised them with more sadness than anger - this is basically good software. However, I am clearly not alone with these problems, and I do not consider a machine of just less than 3 years of age to be 'old' - normal business practice in many countries is to keep PCs for about 3 years or just a bit longer (maybe a lot longer in some banks now - no, we've all paid for them to have new ones...).

The issue is, probably, twofold: insufficient rigour in the design (specifications for the stand-alone restore), and insufficient testing. I really do understand the costs of testing, very, very well, but I do not believe enough has been done here. However, what is unforgivable is that users may find out that they cannot use the recovery utility just when they most need it. If there were known possible problems, they should have been documented, and the design should have been checking the environment at the time of the back-up, and not leaving things to fail (badly) at the time of the restore. In addition, if drivers or other control-code has been removed between v9 and v10, why could a facility to re-instate them/it not have been made available from the downloaded software (perhaps by creating a second CD with the old stuff on it), with this documented in the help. Describing typical 'problem' environments would have been good too. By the way, am I right in thinking that you believe that this is only a problem with the free package, because I still had the error on a trial of the Personal v10 (ie paid for)?

What was annoying though, was that Paragon was clearly aware of the problem and the information could only be obtained from the offices of people such as you - this is simply not good enough (the developers can be thankful that I am not their manager) - messages/warnings should have been on the web site, and in the software download, pointing to the potential problem and its solution. As I said, there is no product more useless than backups that cannot be restored - simple risk analysis should have indicated to the development team that the risk to customers might be low, but the potential impact was high.

Anyway, I truly do hope this is sorted, and that the stand-alone restore is improved, because, as I said above and in an earlier post, this is basically very good software.

Still, thanks again SIW2,
Regards,
Arthur.

 

Hi arthur,

I am sure if the Linux disc from the Free Edition doesn't work for you - the Linux disc from the paid edition won't either.

One advantage of the paid version is you get a separate d/l of a WinPE recovery cd - that should work with everything as much greater hardware support is available than with any Linux cd.

It is not peculiar to Paragon - others have the same -I actually had what could have been a serious issue with an Acronis Linux cd ( luckily, I tested it and discovered the problem ) - Macrium support site has instructions for creating a Bartpe cd - if necessary.

Trouble is, you need a copy of XP to make that.

I agree, it seems odd they have removed some drivers - perhaps to make room for others or avoid conflicts - not sure why.

I also agree it should be brought to the attention of the developers - and hopefully addressed quickly.

You will find that when there are issues/glitches with Paragon apps - even with the free ones - you get more help and support here than anywhere else I have seen.

No PSG staff here at the weekend - but I'm sure you will get a reply from one of them soon.

You might also email support and point out the issue- the more the merrier.

Hope it helps

 

Make that three people. I tried to restore with Paragon 10 FB (64 bit) and the restore disk failed to boot. Restore disk (32 bit) did boot on my machine. I've been a long time user of Paragon Backup products so this surprised me a little, but I'm sure it will get fixed.

 

Hi Poet,

That's weird .

The restore disc is the same irrespective of bit version.

Maybe one of them was a bad burn or damaged in some way.

 

OK, that's good to know because I'm now going to retry the burn on a different disk. I used a CD-RW the first time and attempted a couple of burns. I'll let you know the outcome. Thanks for the help.

 

You could pick up the iso with magiciso free version and see if it says it's bootable:

http://www.magiciso.com/download.htm

 

I can't even access the disk now. Decided to restore an image of Win 7 32 bit because I think Win 7 64 bit might be having trouble communicating with my DVD burner. Used Paragon 10 free backup to again create another rescue disk with CD-RW and it worked fine. So something is up with Win 7 64 bit and my DVD burner.

So for now I'll stick with 32 bit over 64 bit until the drivers improve. I did get a slight performance boost in 32 bit. No more 32 bit emulation needed from 64 bit.

Thanks for your help

 

You're welcome.