Hi, i installed B&R 2013 free edition on a windows 7 machine, and i made a backup of the system OS disk on a network Nas disk. Yesterday i had a problem with some updates, and decided to roll back using the recovery disk of B&R 2013. the problem is: it restores the backupped image, but when i try to start windows 7 it stays locked on boot, with a message of "unable to startup the computer, checking the system for possible problems" and there is a blue bar advancing. it says it requires more than an hour, and i gave it time... the problem is that when it finishes it says that registry is corrupt and it couldn't start windows... now what i can do? the backup i did with B&R was useless and i lost all my data? thanks for your time.
sometimes, when there is a message about "registry is corrupt", helps to load "Last Known Good Configuration" (F my version - you made the image of the already damaged OS
... at the time of the image the system was able to boot. the problem happened 2 days later... as an additional check i did a "check archive integrity" and it said the integrity is ok... At the time before applying the recover, i was able to boot, the only problem i had was related with an error with a system update which was giving graphical problems and forced me to boot in safe mode once, and was giving graphical glitches in normal boot mode. i thought the fastest method was using my new shining backup to rollback the updates so i could avoid doing them and troubleshoot the system. but if paragon is not able to restore my system to the time i backuped it, how possibly can i trust my other backups i did for other computers i own? at this time, if i can't make good use of the backup i did, i need to do a clean new install, which is vanifying the purpose of doing backups altogether.
When you check the "archive integrity" you are not checking the integrity of the Windows installation, but the integrity of the image (which is a file) and of the hardware you are using. It´s possible to create a backup image of a corrupted or compromised system, and the validity check will finish successfully.
wait a second, if i create a mirror of my system, i should get a mirror with the same problems not with new ones... like a corrupt registry... if i didn't restore the image by now i would be trouble shooting in safe mode, now i can't even access safe mode... it's like it disappeared..
Normal backup archive - this is not an exact copy of the disk, not 100% mirror. For example the content of auxilary files (such as pagefile.sys, etc) is not saved. And file system errors may be even in the unused space. If you want the mirror, an exact copy of partition, need select sector-by-sector backup (raw), then the backup will be the size of a partition.
I only create an image when everything seems to be working well. And even in these cases, I do some basic checks, like these: I open Device Manager and check that it doesn´t show problems. I open a program that uses .NET FW, and also the Task Scheduler. I check the Windows events log. I run a malware scan with MBAM. I clean the system with CCleaner and the Windows cleaner. And sometimes I boot in Safe Mode (if it´s not possible, it means there are problems). In your case, I would try to restore an earlier image (if available), check it and if necessary go further back in time. Also, I would "update" the MBR (because of the Safe Mode problem).
i deleted my previous backup (done with the basic win7 backup feature) because i trusted the one i did with paragon would work... (also because it weighted over 300 gb). there is some way to know if the backup will work? i did the same backup to 2 other computers but now i feel like i'm not having any backup. before doing the backup i did clean all hard disks, ccleaner, defrag. i need to do a simple 100% working backup, even if the pc has some problems, a backup that will bring me back to the situation of when i run the backup software. i need it to have high compression... what settings should i use to make that? p.s.: i made the backup using the windows software, it's better to run it via the backup recovery cd? p.s.: i have to use "raw processing" ?
Paragon and other imaging programs are not diagnostic and repair programs; they assume the PC is working properly. Normally, many problems that are not caused by some more serious internal problem are not cause for concern. It just depends where the problem lies. From what I see in your situation is that the image was created and it was restored but the PC is now reporting other problems. The fact the image restored indicates that the image itself was consistent - the process was able to read the archive and successfully recreate the numerous checksums included when the archive was created. However, if something went wrong with collecting the data to be included in the archive and the checksum was based on the faulty data it would not show up as an error. In this situation, making a raw backup of the partition or using the recovery CD version would be preferred. The raw backup copies every sector whether used or not by the filesystem into the archive. For large partitions this takes a lot of time and creates a larger archive. You could eliminate any of the installed Windows' faults by making the archive with the recovery CD because it is dealing with a static disk not the live imaging technology. Some people prefer to use this method for their imaging but as a rule, the live imaging technology with Windows running is not a problem. If your PC has a slower processor, you may find that using high-compression takes longer to create the archive for very little extra reduction in the archive size. While I understand your desire to delete a 300GB backup, in doing so you violated one of the cardinal rules - never only have one backup and ideally never only have one backup storage device. Until you have restored a backup which gives you confidence that it works, you have only done half the job. Ideally, restoring to a spare HD is the best test that all is well since it will allow you to boot up the recovered image. Next best test is to create and verify the image using the recovery CD version since this is the one that has to run to restore your disk. Normally, the problems uncovered by testing are primarily that the archive can't be seen on the device or it was seen to be corrupt. Sometimes these problems are caused by poor driver support in the Linux recovery environment. Using a WinPE recovery environment, available via the paid version or you can try to create your own, will correct driver problems because Windows has a better driver selection. In your case this was not the problem and your situation would have only been seen if you had done a test restore to a spare HD. Paragon is a very reliable backup program and your problem is not a typical problem. Did you attempt a second recovery just in case there was some transient glitch that upset things. This isn't too likely but stranger things have happened. I'm at a bit of a loss to explain what happened. From what I understand from your posts is that the system was working fine when you cleaned it up with CCleaner, defrag, etc. You then made an image and the system was OK for a couple of days until a Windows Update gave you graphical problems. Restoring the image to roll-back the OS then gave you other problems. Is it possible your problem was not caused by Windows Update but perhaps by some other issue such as hardware, perhaps some RAM locations gone bad?
Hi again, and just to be clear, thanks EVERYONE for your answers. if i appear angry is not with any of you, but just frustrated by the loss of data i explain my steps: i had a raw windows backup, but it was taking too much space, it wasted 25% of my mirrored nas and it was unacceptable as i had to backup 2 other pcs in that nas for security reasons, and use the nas as my normal file storage server at the same time (i'm trying to avoid saving anything important in local hdd). i acquired this nas recently so i wanted to migrate my important data on the nas. i had a glitchy system (but still booting up), it was just slow and cumbersome. made a backup with windows basic functions, but as i said it took over 500 gb (i probably enabled too many options and some datas were in double copy). so i downloaded paragon, installed it on my machines. did a thorough cleaning of the system, transferring all important data (my images, works, etc) on the nas. did a ccleaner step to remove unnecessary system files. did an additional cleanup of windows winsxs folder through console commands provided by microsoft knowledge base. till this step everything was booting fine, and i decided the system was ready to be backuped (it was slimmed down from over 270 gb to a 50 gb total size). so i run a backup and it weighted around 30gb. i run a second backup with best compression and i reached around 22 gb. i felt i was "secure", and deleted the 500 gb over fatty windows backup. 2 days later i run some updates which i believed weren't critical nor affecting my system (iTunes and Avira) and at the next startup i was receiving bsods related to ati vga sym files. i entered windows safe mode with network, and something fixed up automatically, as at the next start up i was able to run windows normally, but i was receiving some weird graphical glitch. then i did run the recovery cd trying to roll back, and well, that erased my data and couldnt even enter windows anymore. now my only concern is to find a way to have an exact working copy that brings me at the exact time i run the backup, and i understand it's related to keeping hybernation files and pagefiles. i will try to do again all my backups using the raw , i hope sincerely they won't weight 300 gb because it won't be a solution for me as i don't have 1k gb to assign to system backups...
I personally cut down my backup problems by making a separate partition for data & another for the OS. That's my suggestion going on from here. This makes backing up so much easier.
i'm doing a backup right now of a clean new install... raw partition... best compression... it's not compressing anything... i wonder why should i use paragon software instead of windows backup one if it's taking the same exact size of my hdd... and that for having a reliable working backup...
after 1 hour of backup i aborted it, now i'm doing a : best compression, disabled the skip of pagefile-hybridation, over network. will run a full backup from windows too for double security, than i will try to restore the image created by paragon, hoping it doesn't fail again...
Good news, the backup i made was successfully restored . now, if i want to test in the other 2 pcs i backuped what method i can use? the problem is they are notebooks (and a little old ones) and they don't have Usb boot option in case i wanted to boot from an usb hdd... there is any alternative i didn't come up to?
