Paragon B&R 12 - Compact Edition

My son downloaded Paragon B&R 12 Compact Edition (as it was free) and now he is asking me if he should rely on it to back up his Windows 7 x64 partition plus the 100MB boot partition.

I've never used any Paragon product, but as a Wilders member I thought I would ask for feedback on this forum and pass the info on to my son.

Thanks in advance,
Cruise

 

It likely will work but I only "rely" on any, and I mean any, backup program that I have tested on the PC I'm going to use it on. The best test is to backup the PC with the program and then do a restore and confirm it works.

It is best to do this with a spare HD in case it fails on the restore leaving you with nothing. Next best thing is to do a backup with a program you know works before using the new program which also provides you with a means to go back if necessary.

Having said that, the Paragon program should work. A typical problem is usually the Linux recovery environment that is used to restore an image. Sometimes the drivers aren't a good fit for the hardware and the restore is slow or fails altogether. For people who haven't tested the restore on their PC this is where they can have a problem - they have been happily making backups under Windows and when the time comes for a restore they find the Linux recovery environment doesn't work right on their machine. The newest hardware is more likely to have the problem than older hardware because the drivers or some other needed function may not be incorporated into the recovery media (yet).

A way to do a bit of a test on the Linux stuff is to boot up the recovery media and create the archive with it. This gives some confidence the Linux stuff sees the hardware and can access it. Paragon is not the only product to use Linux on its free offerings but the paid version allows you to create with a bit of work a WinPE recovery medium which uses Windows and has better driver support wth the additional ability of being able to add drivers if necessary.

To gain a bit more confidence the restore will work without actually doing a test restore is to verify the archive after creation using the Paragon Verify feature from the recovery medium. This shows the program can open the archive, read it into memory and successfully recreate the checksums stored in the archive when it was created - meaning it is reading the archive properly.

 

I have relied on Paragon Backup and Restore Free Advanced(2010-2011-2012) and the Compact Editions (2011-2012) for over 3 years now and have not found any reason to stop using it.
My usage of the program is limited to the most basic purpose that is backup and then restore at later date, which it performed flawlessly till now.

i used Macrium free a few months ago to create an image of my system drive
but was unable to restore the same image due to a possible glitch in their Live CD. So its back to Paragon for me.

Its a solid little product, but as always please check its compatibility with your system by Creating and restoring an Image with it rather than taking my word for it. Because what may run flawlessly on my PC may not function on yours (and it is entirely possible).

 

Hey guys, thanks very much; I'll be sure to pass-on your feedback to my son. Btw, can this app backup Win 7's small boot partition at the very same time it backs up the larger system partition?

Cruise

 

Yes, when making an image you can select the partitions you want to include. The 100MB System Reserved Partition and the MBR/Track0 are also selectable. I always include them everytime I do C because they are very small in comparison so take very little space and time.

 

With the disk-imagers that I have used, the MBR/GPT is always backed-up when you select partitions to image, but must be intentionally selected when restoring. Is that not the case here?

Cruise

 

The SRP should be included in some backups not because it is small, but because it contains the information needed to boot the system. If the SRP becomes corrupted or if the system must be restored to a new disk, it is necessary to restore it to boot the system.

 

Yes, you are correct that you do need them but I probably have numerous copies of the same MBR and System Reserved partition from saved backups of the same disk/structure. If they were large I possibly might think about leaving them out.

I don't know what Paragon does but there are some programs that will construct a vanilla MBR setup if one is not present. If the boot is dual or has some other complexity then the MBR is very important.

The implication in Paragon is the MBR is not autmatically backed up like it is in some other programs.

 

Paragon can also build a vanilla MBR. The MBR and Track0 are not automatically backed up, unless the whole disk is backed up.

 

Thanks, good to know for sure.

Seems like Paragon's behaviour is similar to that of earlier versions of Acronis True Image - MBR automatically backed up only if a whole disk image selected; they later changed it to do it if the active partition was included in the selection.

 

Are you absolutely sure, Robin? Can I not trust the screen as shown in the attached image?

Regards, John

 

In my experience, using Hard Disk Manager, you can select only the C: partition to backup. In this case, the program includes neither the First Track nor the MBR.

You can also manually select the First Track (includes the MBR) or the MBR (the program selects also the First Track), as shown in the image. But this is a manual option, they are not automatically selected when C: is chosen.

 

Oh, the word automatically was the clue! I now understand we have the same understanding: If you select the whole disk, every item is chosen. If you select only a portion of the disk, you have to select each of the items you want.

I find this solution to be logical. BTW, this screen (identical in HDM12 and B&R12) is one of the best GUI solutions in Paragon; it clearly tells you what you are going to back up.

 

I´d like to see the options available when the boot disk is a GPT disk. Could someone post one image of this case?

 

Just built new win7 machine and want to image it. I had quite a few problems maybe a year ago when I had both winXP and win7 on one hard drive with win7 on a vhd. Imaging with drivesnapshot would not restore the bootstore correctly and I had to manually use a win7 startup disc to fix it. But now the new machine is win7 only so if I use Paragon for example can I image it, then instantly restore it to a new hard drive, ....now this is the important part..., shutdown, remove data cable off of C drive, reboot with just the imaged drive in the machine and have everything come back as if nothing happened? I ask this because back when I was having the problems people mentioned the GUID which is hard drive specific, so if my new imaged HD has a different GUID from the original I bet it won't boot. True or false?? If it does boot then is the imaging program replacing the GUID of the new one with what it sees in the image??

 

I know little about this new-fangled stuff but I thought the GUID defined the partition type and was not concerned about the disk itself.

If you have a spare disk already there is one way to find out if it works and in fact, even if somebody says it works, you should be doing a test to make sure everything works on your machine anyway.

 

Paragon will automatically create the correct bcd entries during the restore process.