Not Ready for Primetime!!!!

I have been attempting to use the latest version, Drive Backup 10. In short, the product doesn't work.

Installing the product and creating an image was the easy part. The problems will begin the minute you need to restore. First of all, no USB hard drive I own is detected by the boot disk, therefore, backing up an image is useless if it isn't on an internal IDE or SATA drive as those drives can only be seen. Next is that I've never been able to run in Normal Mode in any of my testing. Also, the bootable environment seems pretty sparse for a server product. Just to add, my guess is that most of your issues with the boot disk could be avoided if it wasn't built in Linux and instead used the WinPE environment, which is superior. As a note, Acronis also has a junk product called True Image that also uses the Linux-based boot disks, and similar problems arise, it doesn't work. Take a page from Symantec; spend the money and build your bootable media with WinPE.

My goal in using this trial was to find a suitable, second-string product to cover me in the event that my mainstay, Backup Exec System Recovery had issues, which has rarily happened. Unfortunately, I was incorrect in assuming that this product would be of the same quality as Paragon Partition Manager 10.0 series, which I do use at work when partitioning tasks come up. So in short, I haven't been able to restore the image I created and don't have the time to troubleshoot so early in the Evaluation process, but in short, this is a very troublesome product, stay clear until the product is more mature like BESR, which is the industry leading product for imaging. When trying other products out there, it's clear why their product is the easy winner.

I hope to see Paragon get this product working and good luck...........
CAT

 

Hi

OUCH!

Terry

 

and BESR is ?

 

There is an option to build a WinPE Recovery CD in the Paragon Product. It is a seperate download from their site . I have been disappointed with some problems associated with NAS and the complete absence of any support.

 

Hello Ioniancat21,

It's unfortunate that the Linux/DOS CD did not detect your hardware. With our professional and server editions of Drive Backup, the WinPE Recovery CD is standard and available to you as a separate download. We cannot supply the WinPE CD to our trial users as it is a licensed products of Microsoft.

Please read more about the product here:

http://www.paragon-software.com/exp...ocs/DB10_Corporate_Versions_Features_List.pdf

and here for more information about WinPE:

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/db-server/features.html

"Comprehensive Recovery Environments Three types to choose from, based on the latest Linux, DOS, and new WinPE 2.1, available on CD/DVD/Blu-ray, thumb drives, and Backup Capsule"

If somehow the Linux, DOS, or WinPE 2.1 is not sufficient, we'd be happy to assist you create a BartPE CD. Here is the tutorial:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=257771

Finally, if the provided Linux/DOS does not support your hardware, or the "Load Drivers" feature of WinPE is inadequate, or the BartPE is not customizable enough, Microsoft provides a Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) to build your own WinPE.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en

For any pre-sales or technical questions, feel free to submit a ticket here:

http://www.paragon-software.com/support/

Or call to speak with a live technician or sales rep: 1-888-347-5462

For self-help, please use our knowledge base to your advantage:

http://kb.paragon-software.com/paragon/templ/302.jsp?catId=2124

Hope the above information was helpful. Keep us posted!

 

I usually build the Restore CD (and Flash in 10) as soon as I install the product.... and then see if it will boot correctly on the intended computer. Certainly does 90% of the time..... a problem only on the odd setup.

Really what is the point of doing a Backup in the first place if you can't restore it? Let me go a little further and say I have always trusted a "backup" done with the Linux backup/restore utility more than a "live" backup in Windows. Biggest reason I do so many backups in Windows is Windows itself

Your post is really not very fair to Paragon -- even if I have had my share of problems with backup/restore utilities.

 

Just to add, the machines I used for testing where pretty mundane. In my lab I have a Dell Optiplex 210L, a GX270, and a Dell Dimension 4600. All of these machines have IDE drives by the way and not that new cutting edge SATA or RAID-based setups. Anyway, long story short as I said. Booting the CD in Normal Mode on any of these machines seemed an impossible task. Secondly, my USB HD was never detected in any of tests on any hardware, which is pretty bad. Imagine, if I can't restore an image back to the same computer, which happens to be almost 6 years old on average, how am I supposed to then restore when things get more complex like SATA or RAID, or even a server computer? If this product can't detect hardware here, how do I have a chance in hell of restoring?

On a positive note, thanks to Paragon_Tommy, who provided many links to assist me. I found the link interesting regarding building in WinPE, unfortunately, much manual intervention is needed to get there. Like I said in my initial post; my goal is to have a backup product for Symantec's BESR, which is no doubt, the best imaging product on the market currently. While many take offense to this comment, the reality is that Symantec makes Ghost, the industry standard, most known imaging product today. Other companies like Acronis, Paragon and others have joined this market almost a decade after the fact, so it's expected that their product will be less mature than Symantec's.

Paragon shouldn't feel so bad, their competitor Acronis, who makes the True Image line of products has been plagued by major problems for far longer than Paragon. Actually, my belief is that Paragon's niche in the market is with their partitioning tools, which are in my opinion superior to others I have used and consider Paragon's Partition Manager "the standard", so I was truly hoping they would come thru on this and not blindly hating the product or think of myself as a Symantec pumper, as they have issues in other areas.

I hope to see version 11 more up to snuff and will give it a try if I still haven't found a reliable 2nd backup product!!!

 

No offense taken; I have a good sense of humor.

Most known? Very likely. Symantec AV is also likely the most known AV.
The best ? Just read the reviews from Ghost users at amazon.com or newegg.com.

And let me not forget their "customer support". I have dealt once with them (customer support Netherlands). Got an answer after 7 (seven) weeks !

Never again symantec in my digital life.

 

Agreed..............Symantec is not the crown jewel of computing. I also have and Endpoint Protection setup at one of my clients that wreaked havoc on them with their initial build so it's not all fun and games with all their products, but I'll tell you, check out a demo of Symantec's Backup Exec System Recovery, you'll be extremely pleased!!

I recently restored a failed DC from a backup and didn't need to do anything but restore and reboot. Just to add, I restored the image to an entirely different server with a RAID5 setup and no hardware or AD issues have occured. I also do lots of imaging and have had an overall great experience with the product, which is why I wanted something as a fallback option, in the event my lucky BESR streak comes to an end.


Getting back to Paragon's product however, I really hope they fix these issues, which in my opinion center around the bootable recovery media's weakness in detecting hardware. With that said, my opinion is that if Paragon followed these actions, they would quickly fix many of their issues:

-Build the default bootable media using the WinPE setup instead, I'd imagine many of the hardware detection issues would go away such as the issues with video cards and Normal Mode, or the lack of USB hard drive support as none worked for me.
-Second, the bootable media itself is kind of barebones in my opinion. While other vendors offer additional tools to help you in these restore scenarios, Paragon's media seems old, tired and lacking. As a note, Ghost 2003's bootable floppy media seems mature next to this boot disk, which doesn't have issue with video cards or USB drives like Paragon's fare, when I used it almost 8 years ago on similar hardware to my test lab Dell's.

So in close, Paragon should burn their bootable media and create something worthy of being called an Enterprise product. If their server product line came in at less than $100, my complaints here would be minimal, as that would be almost $500 cheaper than the competition, but their pricing is in line with their competitors, so Paragon needs to step up their game.

 

Hi,

The default bootable media with the paid products is an already built WinPe 2.1 .iso

Unfortunately, it is not supplied with the free or trial products, as Paragon Tommy pointed out - that is because they pay a license fee for it.