I am lost

I purchased Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Home this morning. I was given two files to download. One is called "Unpack & Burn Wizard" and I don't have a clue what to do with it. I am thinking I might have made a mistake here. I downloaded the manual and many things are pretty hazy there too. I have sent two requests to tech support since this morning and not one answer. That's pretty scary. Between Acronis and Paragon, I finally chose Paragon because they are supposed to be so great in the support department.

Can anyone help me?

 

If you're looking to create a boot media, go to Tools > Recovery Media Builder from the main interface.

 

"Unpack & Burn Wizard" is special self-burning package for WinPE-based Recovery media creation.
For all payable product Paragon offers 2 types of Recovery CD images:
* Linux\DOS based recovery CD which could be created directly from the installed program and
* WinPE-based Recovery CD which is placed in separate file and available for download from My Account any time.

What is the purpose of separate WinPE CD self-burning image? If something happened with your PC and you don't have already created Linux\DOS Recovery CD or your system required additional drivers for Recovery CD, then you can burn WinPE CD from another PC not installing the main program and recover your PC.

 

Why is Paragon taking so long to do a disk image backup?

I'm doing my first backup right now. Is it supposed to be this slow? I wish I would have looked at the time when it started, but I'm estimating this process is going to take at least 2 hours. It only took about 30-40 minutes with Acronis so I'm wondering if this is right or if I've done something wrong.

Almost sounds to me from what I've read that taking a snapshot (cloning) would be faster and actually more accurate all the way around. Right now my computer's HD is 320GB, and my external is also 320GB, so I a not able to copy the disk. If anyone has input about this I'd enjoy hearing from you.

 

Re: Why is Paragon taking so long to do a disk image backup?

You may have set it up to backup all sectors (raw) you only need to back up used sectors.

 

Would you explain? You can see what I selected in the attachment.

I have the one item circled because I wanted to ask someone why it shows FAT16 instead of NTFS.

 

Tick "Change Backup Settings"

 

Please see my second attachment. I didn't think this program did incremental backups so I'm wondering what this "Perform incremental copy" means.

Would you comment on doing a clone rather than an image backup?

 

You could copy the drive to another if you prefer.

An image has the advantage of being usable again.

Your product may not have an incremental backup option - but it looks like it has an incremental copy option.

The idea is to make a full copy of the drive to another first.

Then at some time in the future, you can run the incremental copy and only changes will be copied .It has to compare the current drive to the one you copied earler - The comparison might take a while.

 

If I were to buy a 2tb external, could I copy my 320gb hard drive to it and still use it for other things too?

If I had a copy of my HD on the external, could I make a newer copy and just delete the older one?

 

Not sure why but I have a Dell also and it's the same way.

 

It is the partition Dell uses to run diagnostics. It shows as a FAT partition because it is a FAT partition, not an NTFS one. There isn´t any problem with this. The partition can be copied, imaged, etc.

 

Thank you for the commets on the FAT16. Would anyone care to comment on the quote above about cloning?

 

If by "copy" you mean archive compressed copy, yes. You can store that on your internal drive providing you have the space. I do that with a external USB drive all the time and delete old ones every so often.

A clone or RAW copy is a sector by sector copy that may take hours to complete. My 750GB internal to the external 750GB USB 2.0 takes 12 hours. You may not want to use something like that for any other use.

I have two 750GB HD which I swap out in a docking station.

 

This is one of my problems -- not understading what the terms used are referring to. I didn't even know what a docking station was until a few minutes ago. I quickly Googled it and now have a vague idea.

In this case, what I was asking about is a clone or raw copy. From what you've explained, I guess I could use the 320gb external I have now to clone my 320gb internal, and then purchase another external for other things. So guess we can leave this in the dust for now.

Thanks for everyone's help with answering my questions.

 

A docking station is just an enclosure where the HD itself can be swapped as compared to an enclosure built around a single HD.

A clone or RAW copy is most often used if you want to increase the size of your internal drive. Say clone your 320GB to a 1T, etc. You clone your 320GB to the 1T and then swap them out in your PC. Since it's a exact copy but on a bigger drive it should boot with no issues.

 

Thank you for your clarification.

It seems every time I try to check something out I'm lost all over again. I was just checking things out in the program, going to help files, etc. When I click "About" it shows (see attach. version1).

When I go online to My Downloads it shows (see attach. version2).

Does this mean there is already an update for my program? Is there no auto update setting within the program?

Also, under My Downloads it would appear to show an update for the WinPE. Is this right, and does it mean then that I have to reburn a CD?

Sorry. I think I have a program that is too much for me.

 

Versions and builds are confusing, I noticed. Look at the release date. It's last year, so there's nothing new to download.

 

Thank you. Seems to me like a paying customer should receive some kind of a notification if there are updates of any kind -- or at the very least be able to click on a "Check for updates" button within the program.

I'm thankful for the help I've gotten here. Maybe through all of you I will finally "get it."