Can't backup whole drive but can individual partitions

I am trying Backup and Recovery Home and have encountered the following problem. If I select Basic MBR Hard Disk 0 (in order to backup the whole drive) the backup fails with the message VSS: Can't read volume data. However, if I select each partition separately - First Hard Disk Track, SYSTEM, Local Disk (C) and SAMSUNG_REC - and back up each one separately then the back ups succeed. The drive is an SSD. Would the fact that I have four separate backups for the drive cause a problem if I wanted to do a full restore if there were a total failure? Any help appreciated.

 

Interestingly a full disk backup succeeded when performed by booting from the recovery disk.

 

If you are using the CD from the Free version it is Linux and doesn't have VSS and I doubt very much if the WinPE incorporates VSS. WinPE runs from the CD so your HD is not being used as part of the OS. Because your HD is static the program doesn't even need a snapshot to freeze the state of the drive for live-imaging. This is why some people prefer booting up the CD to make the image, it is a bit safer although in reality there seems to be very few reports of bad images because they were created live.

 

Isn't it strange, though, that individual partitions backup ok but that a full disk image fails when I try from within windows?

 

I agree it is strange. You might try raising a support call with Paragon; they don't seem to monitor this forum at all.

 

A full disk backup succeeds with the Paragon Hotcore driver. Still curious as to why a disk backup fails with VSS yet partition backups succeed.

 

Full SSD drive backups certainly should work with Microsoft's current VSS. However, device class filter installations like Paragon's "Hotcore" service driver (and many others) can have some strange effects on the operating system's own hardware abstraction layer (OS HAL) and its normal handling of storage devices.

If you want to experiment to see if that's the issue in this case, you could try running a full VSS backup of your SSD drive without Paragon's "Hotcore" device class filter installed. It really shouldn't be necessary where VSS is available, but if you don't want to mess up your primary installation, you could try it in a custom-made WinPE set-up. I can give you a script for Winbuilder (http://reboot.pro/ ) if you need one.

 

The initial VSS failure occured without the Paragon Hotcore driver installed as I hadn't installed it originally. The WinPE script would be interesting to try, however.

 

Sorry, Nick, I misunderstood. Thought you had "Hotcore" installed when the VSS backup of your SSD drive failed. Did you ever have it or any other device class filters (e.g., Acronis, EaseUS, etc.) installed at any time? If so, they seldom, if ever, remove themselves cleanly and completely when the main application is uninstalled. You'd need to check the UpperFilters and LowerFilters values for the DiskDrive and Volume classes in your registry's CurrentControlSet branch.

Anyhow, you're entirely welcome to download my script from my site at http://virtech.org/tools/_files/Paragon-BR2012.7z and try including it in your own Winbuilder PE build if you wish.

It's for Paragon's Backup and Recover 2012, but I have others if that's not the one you want. You'll probably need to modify the script's "Path to Paragon BR2012 files:" entry in any case. I've tested it with the Winbuilder Win7PE project (both 32-bit and 64-bit builds of the SE release) which is availabe at http://reboot.pro/12427/ along with some general PE building instructions. My script's option for "Install Universal Image Mounter" is a bit shaky at this early authoring stage (recommend leaving it unchecked for now) but everything else seems to work fine.

Have fun. And good luck with the experimenting.

 

Yes, I have Acronis 2011 installed so I guess that may spoil the VSS but as the Hotcore is fine that's ok with me. I know that Acronis 2012 can be a real pain so I steered clear of that.

The Paragon I have is Backup and Recovery 11 Home and wonder what I'll need to change in your script. I do like the idea of have a complete WinPE option.

 

Basically, Nick, once you hand over storage device control to any such HAL bypass arrangement, capabilites and cooperative functionality with the OS are determined idiosyncratically by each filter service driver. And yes, the new drivers Acronis introduced in TIH 2012 are total crap, barely capable of handling some USB-connected drives, much less anything more "exotic." Obviously, the "Hotcore" driver is at least more capable than that.

Personally, I prefer relying on my operating system to do the job unobstructed by any device class filter, let alone two of them at once -- a major reason why I'm here BTW. But, as I said, getting rid of them and their weird effects once they're in there isn't always easy. Manual registry editing isn't a job for the faint of heart.

Since I am new here, I'm not familiar with previous Paragon software versions. So I'm afraid I can't really advise you on specific Winbuilder script changes that might be needed to handle BR11. My BR2012 script might be "backward compatible", but just by accident not by design. I can only suggest that you try it and see for yourself.

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P.S.: I've updated and re-uploaded my script today to make its "Install Universal Image Mounter" option work more solidly with both X86 and X64 Winbuilder PE builds. So you might want to re-download if you want to enable and use that option. See also http://reboot.pro/16187/