Hard Drive Imaging Freeware

Nobody, in their right mind, should use the Acronis scure Zone.

Backup ONLY to external drives.

A more important difference between Acronis TI and Paragon DB is that TI has real incremental image backup.

There is no reason I can think of for anymore using any form of file backup.

 

You have the facility to do selective backups/restores or exclude items from your backup. This facility is present in the free version too.

 

Why not? I use Paragon as a replacement for system restore, so I have to backup to a different partition of the same drive. I need to be able to restore my laptop's OS partition wherever I am.

Of course, if you are backing up to protect yourself in case of hard disk failure, then it makes perfect sense to backup to a external drive.

 

No service runs in the background other than the built-in windows task scheduler. Paragon schedules its scheduled jobs using the windows scheduler.

 

That's interesting. Do you have any other details re how it works?

The paid version of Macrium doesn't require media either, but it does trigger a boot menu after a restart (when a restore is begun from a previous Windows session).

 

Yes, backing up to internal drives exposes you to at least the following risks:

1. A power glich can toast the drives used for backup. With external drives, you at least can easily swap them.

2. If using internal drives, unless the partitions are isolated on separate drives, the disk is subject to the usual wear and tear of a running system. External drives get less wear and tear.

3. For a laptop, either one carries an external drive, or uses a USB stick.

4, Having the backup partition on the same physical drive is just asking for trouble,

 

What I meant was that Paragon does not require a separate, special partition to be able to do a restore on reboot.

 

All valid points. But if you take the hard drive failure out of the equation, then it is okay to backup to the same drive. I find it convenient and I do not need to carry an external hard drive around. Since it is only a replacement for system restore and it is only my OS partition and not my personal data, so I can take the risk.

 

Please give some more info.

My scenario is this: my Windows OS wont boot. I have no rescue CD/DVD.
I have few backups created by Macrium on HDD's. How to access rescue console?

 

Simple: You can't.

 

First, I NEVER have, and NEVER will, use System Restore.
Proper use of an image backip program is more reliable and gicves one proper control over the timing of backups.

Second, hard drive failure is THE main poiny. If I had to travel with a notebook, I'd use a USB drive, thumb or not. The alternative, if a drive fails, is to sit in the hotel room watching TV, sports, porn. or whatever is one's pleasure.

 

That's what I meant mate.

Luckily I have that rescue CD available.



These are the basics:

1. You must have working rescue media - CD/DVD/USB HDD etc.
you must be able to boot/start rescue console from these medias

2. Your backup software should be able restore your files/image/partition without any problems

3. You can not trust rescue/recovery consoles/capsules which are only installed on your operating system HDD etc. You must have SEPARATE rescue media (HDD/CD/DVD etc.)

All these stories about Paragon/Macrium/Acronis working without SEPARATE rescue media 100% are false.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Neither does Acronis.

 

Oh! Which media do they use?

 

Whichever has the archive containg the partition(s) you wish to restore.

 

How do you access these archives?

My scenario is: your system wont boot and you do not have SEPARATE rescue media.

 

You can't with the free version, no doubt. However, the paid version has an option whereby MR System Recovery can be added at boot time. Thus, you simply choose whether to boot into Windows or the recovery environment.

Admittedly, I don't have the paid version of Macrium, just the free version. If I'm in error here, perhaps someone with the paid version can point out any inaccurate information.

As a side bar, if the boot failure is due to the failure of the HDD itself, then I can't see how a restore is possible using *any* imaging s/w without some form of recovery media (e.g. CD, DVD, USB stick).

 

The same way that you'll access them in the following scenario:
your system wont boot, you have a separate rescue media but the rescue media went bad or you lost it....

Panagiotis

 

You guys are going around in circles here.

It is self evident that if your only backup image is on the same drive your OS is on, you run risk of losing everything. Optical media is the only answer when you are considering 'safe keeping' or 'failure proof'. USB drives you can also consider safe, but unless you 'write protect' it, I would not consider it failure proof.

That being said, why should one not use thier hdd to store images? It is much faster and more convenient. I personally have many images on my secondary internal hdd. But, I also have my important images on DVD as well.

Regarding how you can restore your image, it is of no great trouble to look into winPE or bartPE. Macrium gives you a plugin for them. I have a boot.ini option to load bartPE from my c: drive. If that fails, I boot it from dvd. Either way allows me to access the macrium restore program. I believe that the paid macrium uses a similar approach by making winPE boot up on a reboot.

There is no need worry about how you can restore an image, it has been very well documented on many websites. Bootland and MSFN are chock full of them, as well as many others.

Maybe a trip to those places and seeing their sticky threads will help you develop your own plan, but rest assured, it can all be done. At least with macrium. Some of the others will also run from a PE environment, which is my favorite way to do it.

Sul.

 

I tried macrium free and the backup worked. Good
The problem is the restore. Booting into the linux cd wont let me chose the both partitions at the same time. The one with 100mb "System Reserved and "C". You can only choose one of the two.

 

I also tried Paragon backup and Restore. To be honest i dont know what to think of it. The GUI looks like an Partition Manager. It ask me for a backup name but the it sets a weird name by itself in an folder. Excluding things isnt very intuitive. Also if you start the backup it seems that nothing happens. Its a bit slow taking snapshots it seems?

 

rolarocka,

Have you considered removing the System Reserved Partition? It isn't essential and not having the partition makes life easier.

 

I am slightly confused. Wasn't this thread meant for imaging programs that were freeware? So why are we comparing software capabilities of a free version of one company with a paid version of another. Take example of Acronis. Does Acronis even offer a free version of their imaging software? It is getting all very confusing.

 

Welcome to the wilders fora.

Panagiotis

edit: It happens all the time in this community, you'll get used to it. It's confusing but won't let you get bored.

 

Even vendors want to confuse you it seems. See here:

Backup & Recovery 10

Backup & Recovery 10

One is a paid ware from Acronis. The other is a freeware from Paragon. Go figure