Hard Drive Imaging Freeware

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by TheKid7, Nov 1, 2009.

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  1. prius04

    prius04 Registered Member

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    Perhaps I misunderstood (or failed to read closely) but I was under the impression that the s/w worked well for you *with the exception* of the 'linux rescue cd'.
     
  2. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    TI 10 or 11 will not do for Win 7.
     
  3. Tony

    Tony Registered Member

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    I was very happy with the speed and performance of Free Macrium reflect.
    But one of the most important features (for me at least) is being able to restore an image by using the recovery cd.

    When i used linux i had to add acpi=off to the boot process as no linux os be it PCLinux, Ubuntu would boot without it.
    It may just be something simple as that to get the linux recovery cd working, which would benefit both free and paid users.
    But, as there is no support for the free version then there is no way of trying to resolve this.


    Anyway, back on topic, Paragon Back up and recovery free always performed well for me in the past, it was just very slow, although very reliable.
    I dont know what the new version is like.
    Maybe time to check it out.
     
  4. Fuzzfas

    Fuzzfas Registered Member

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    I see. Well, you 're very unlucky.

    Yes, it's great program, but i too wanted to register to their forum and ask specific questions about the license limitations and saw that you can't even register unless you 've bought the paid version...

    Other than that, i am too among the users that Macrium free has never failed them. Also since i moved to Win7, i do the images with "high compression" (while the recommended is medium) and they still don't give me errors. It's very good. You can also disable the Macrium service from running at background when you 're not using it and restart it on demand when you want to image. All this very nice.

    I agree. Furthermore, i don't think the paid version does some new "miraculous" Linux CD. If the free version's CD doesn't work will you, it's pretty much certain that the paid version's CD won't work either.

    And it's a shame really because their Linux CD is very easy to handle and restore an image.
     
  5. DOSawaits

    DOSawaits Registered Member

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    Count me in as another that was extremely satisfied at first after installing Macrium Reflect and making a first backups, but then found out that the Linux Recovery CD (including with Compatibility mode enabled) didn't do more than a blank screen or a menu without any way to navigate, no mouse, and no keyboard shortcuts to get through the menu's either.

    Sorry, but this doesn't give me the feeling that the paid version WinPE recovery environment will be any better.
     
  6. Tony

    Tony Registered Member

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    The paid version has a WinPE recovery cd that they say supports a greater range of disk devices.

    Anyway, i have been trying Paragon Back up and recovery free version.
    A full image file created was 47,8 gb using normal compression compared to 45.2 with Macrium free.
    The image took 59 minutes to create whereas Macrium took 58 minutes.
    More importantly the recovery cd loads on boot and restored the image perfectly.
    Backup & Recovery 10 Free Edition has improved a lot since the last time i used it, especially in terms of speed so for the moment this is my recommendation for anyone wanting free imaging software.
    The support forum is not too far away either :D

    I hope i do not seem to be knocking Macrium as a lot of people are very happy with their product.
    But they really do need to provide support to the free customer, even if only in the support forum.
    After all, free customers turn into paying customers.
     
  7. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    With paragon you do not even need a recovery boot media (unless you have problems entering in windows).

    Panagiotis
     
  8. Tony

    Tony Registered Member

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    Yes i realise that thanks Panagiotis :)
    Actually the more i play around with Paragon the more impressed i become.
    There is a lot you can do with it for a free program.
     
  9. prius04

    prius04 Registered Member

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    I took a quick peek at the Paragon product and it certainly looks decent.

    Just curious as to why it's a ~102MB download versus ~28MB for Macrium and ShadowProtect. o_O
     
  10. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    Because it is a .msi file, not an .exe
     
  11. Sully

    Sully Registered Member

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    Now maybe this is just me, but in general *nix boot discs of the fashion Macrium is using have always been a little 'hit or miss'. My experience with them has been 50/50. BartPE or WinPE, IMO is somewhat easier, because usually all you need is the correct driver for the chipset. And I think everyone agrees that if you cannot find a driver for M$ for your chipset, then you will have less luck finding one for *nix.

    Bashrat the Sneaky's driver packs take care of finding a driver for your chipset, thus I consider PE to be better. (strictly from a getting it to work easily with your harddrive standpoint). I could imagine that the WinPE option is better, but have never tried it.

    The *nix cd that Macrium free makes does not work on my computer. But the bartPE plugin works fine.

    Sul.
     
  12. Fuzzfas

    Fuzzfas Registered Member

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    Since i have not used Paragon, i 'd like a clarification about that. Do you get a boot menu instead? Can you restore image of the system active partition from the boot menu, without CD? That would be great!
     
  13. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    If you can enter windows, you just choose the image you want to restore (even of the active partition) and hit restore. Paragon will inform you that the active partition can not be restored online and the process will be completed upon system restart. When you restart the system, Paragon loads before windows and performs the operation.

    You only need the boot media if you can not boot into windows or you want to do a backup/restore from outside windows.
     
  14. Fuzzfas

    Fuzzfas Registered Member

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    Wow, that sounds very nice! I will download it!

    Thank you very much.
     
  15. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Same feature is in acronis as well.
     
  16. rolarocka

    rolarocka Guest

    How do you make it in Acronis?
     
  17. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    Same way.

    Acronis boot disk is Linux based.
    Otherwise, you can restore from within Acronis, unless the drive has pagefile or boot related files, in which case you have to boot from the Acronis boot cD.

    I expect that Paragon works the same way, but has winPE.
     
  18. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    No, there is not a similar feature in acronis.
    Paragon does not need a PE enviroment to restore.

    Panagiotis
     
  19. 800ster

    800ster Registered Member

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    There IS this feature in Acronis. Select an active partition to restore and Acronis will inform a reboot is needed. This then reboots the system, loads Acronis and automatically restores.
     
  20. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    Are you talking about "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager"?

    Panagiotis
     
  21. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    No.

    Just choose Recovery in TI, then choose partitions to be restored..
    If it cannot restore a partition whilst Win is running, then just boot with Acronis boot CD.

    Do not see how this is any different than with Paragon, except TI has linux based boot CD.
     
  22. rolarocka

    rolarocka Guest

    I was understanding that if the partition is locked it will boot and restore an image without cd. I dont think Acronis can do that. Perhaps with the "Secure Zone" it is possible. Never tried it.
     
  23. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    I just checked. The result is similar, but the technology is different.

    As I said Acronis use a linux PE enviroment to perform the restore.
    Paragon does it from the windows enviroment (the only program that had a similar technology was powerquest's drive image). Is similar with the offline defrag of prefectdisk,diskeeper,puran, etc.

    Panagiotis
     
  24. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    I do not know about Acronis, but paragon will do the job on reboot without using any cd or boot media. It does not even need a safe zone or a recovery environment to be present on your hard drive.
     
  25. rolarocka

    rolarocka Guest

    Im tempted to try Paragon :)
    Can i exclude folders from Backup in Paragon or only full Backups possible?
    Any services running all the time? Thx
     
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