How does one TEST backup software?

Let's say you have a fairly standard setup with a hidden, service (recovery) partition and a primary partition. You wish to try out a new backup program (Acronis, Paragon, StorageCraft, etc.). In order to completely test it out, does one have to create and restore an image, thereby risking your current working image? What is the best way to mitigate the danger that the restore wasn't good - what if, say, it won't boot into the recovery partition or at all?

Seems crazy to me- - but not as crazy as using a backup solution for months only to discover it does not work when you need it. Does that happen to any significant degree?

P.S. I am looking into Acronis, Paragon, StorageCraft.

 

You first have to take care of your PERSONAL DATA FILES, because you can't afford to lose those. That is usually a disaster.
Copy/paste them on an external harddisk, if you have one OR burn them temporarily on DVD/CD's, but make sure that the DVD/CD's work properly.
Losing Windows and Applications is annoying but not a disaster. Make sure you have all installation files of your applications on your external harddisk or DVD/CD's.

I would start with StorageCraft first, the most userfriendly, professional and reliable one at this moment.
The latest version of Acronis TI is becoming bloatware.
In the beginning restorations are always a thriller, but after awhile you get used to it.

 

The most dangerous part of the story is the restore. And the most likely cause for problems on restore is that you won't be able to access or perform I/O on your disks within the recovery environment.

If you can backup successfully within the recovery environment then you're probably in good shape as far as device access and I/O go, so a restore from the recovery environment is likely to succeed. Conversely, if you can't successfully backup from within the recovery environment, then you have little to no hope of a successful restore within the recovery environment.

So, at a minimum, you need to ensure that you have proper device (hard disk) access in the recovery environment before you start experimenting with other features. Also, keep in mind that some storage adapter drivers have bugs where they will appear to work for a minute or two and then crash. Amazingly this includes some WHQL-certified storage controller drivers. If you can perform a full backup, however, you've generally exercised the driver enough to determine if it's stable within the recovery environment.

 

Another way would be to use a 2nd hard drive. It doesn't have to be anything expensive, just big enough to hold the contents of the drive you're restoring. If you have your data and operating system separated, system backups are fairly small. I picked up a used 10gb for $10 at a local computer store.

Ideally, you should consider keeping your backup images on another drive or external media anyway. If they're on the same drive as your OS and data, and it fails, you lose all of it anyway.

The first time I tried using Acronis, I put the backup image on a couple of CDRWs, then restored it to a slightly larger hard drive than it was made from. The original drive was never put at risk that way.
Rick

 

A virtual test environment would be perfect for evaluations like this.
There are free solutions available, like virtualbox and Virtual PC.
You would be able to create several virtual disks, reboot as much as you like, boot from ISO (no CD needed, just an ISO). And you would be able to verify that any restore to the virtual disk is reliable.

 

optigrab, I'll offer some ideas re testing a disk-image, but first let me just point something out. If your hidden system restore partition is the one that came with your PC (as from Dell, HP, etc) it's probably worthless (unless you would be content restoring your drive to it's initial configuration). So I suggest deleting that hidden patition and puting that disk-space to better use.

That said, the most important purpose of a disk-image is to ensure your ability to fully recover your system in the event of a disk-crash or some other disaster. The only way to truly test the imaging product's ability to do that is to perform an actual restore, but I wouldn't suggest doing that with your primary partition.

The best way would be to restore the image to a spare hard drive and then, making that your boot drive, boot it up and put it through its paces. If you don't have a spare drive, you can try restoring the image to a virtual machine (as wilbertni suggests). If this sounds like something you would be interested in pursuing, here are some links that may be useful...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

http://www.kbalertz.com/Feedback_912826.aspx

Hth, pv

 

The most important thing I learnt is that it gives much more peace of mind to image outside of Windows whatever program you are using, and restoring the image to test, (with FDR as backup) as Peter says. Can be quite exciting really..........

 

Unfortunately for us but not imaging vendors , Microsoft O/S's are woefully vulnerable to not only discovered/developed exploits but more pronouncely and IMO more common, those out-of-the-blue sudden failures that defy explaination or immediate origin, some of which leave the user staring at nothing but an error has occured crap on the screen. How rude
For most if not everyone this designed (not overlooked ) limitation stretches back to Windows 98/Me/Nt first release and likely before even then.
I admit i'm one of those who used to exhibit a footloose and fancy free attitude that i could depend on the O/S to self-correct by typing a few commands and everything would continue as-was. Pretty soon, and in my case on about the third failure i took a more serious interest in imaging or even Copy/Paste my important files/docs to a more secure location but then you still have all that lost downtime in reinstalling apps regardless that you have an install Windows CD. I learned the hard way but it gave me a whole new prospective while at the same time opened up a new confidence which replaced just taking things for granted and on face value from $M, which is not very wise by any stretch as we all have experienced at one time or another.

Testing to an alternate drive should prove safe but also
Virtual Machines is another alternative as already pointed out by wilbertnl.

Personally, Norton Ghost and Acronis failed me continually no matter what i tried but then i was also very novice at the time so i can't completely place fault to those programs but i did finally latch onto a user-friendly and error-free alternative in PARAGON and have never looked back. PARAGON is served me very well and done everything expected of it without issue or other serious problem. Still continues to this very day.

I can't help but feel envious though of all those glowing results pouring in from the ShadowProtect camp though.

 

but i did finally latch onto a user-friendly and error-free alternative in PARAGON and have never looked back. PARAGON is served me very well and done everything expected of it without issue or other serious problem. Still continues to this very day.

I can't help but feel envious though of all those glowing results pouring in from the ShadowProtect camp though. [/QUOTE]
what recovery environment is paragon based on?
winpe or bartpe? or something else?
lodore

 

what recovery environment is paragon based on?
winpe or bartpe? or something else?
lodore[/QUOTE]
The Paragon Recovery CD boots into a RAM based linux enviroment. And their Hard Disk Manager Pro is my trouble-free tested imaging solution.
While I stick to Acronis MigrateEasy for cloning. AME also has never failed me also & I test every clone. See my sig. Course it's easy with 2 HDD removal drawers in the 5 1/4" slots of my computer case.
2 primary solutions.

 

My first imaging experiences were to DVD using Image for DOS. And my first restore was a "white knuckler" (I did as Erik suggested and backed up my data first.) But after a while, I realized how solid IFD was to DVD. In fact, my confidence is high enough with IFD that I no longer verify every image I make.

When I moved to ShadowProtect, I already had good images from IFD, so the first restore from SP was more of a matter of curiosity than concern. And now, after running SP for a few weeks, I don't think about it anymore either.

 

The Paragon Recovery CD boots into a RAM based linux enviroment. And their Hard Disk Manager Pro is my trouble-free tested imaging solution.
While I stick to Acronis MigrateEasy for cloning. AME also has never failed me also & I test every clone. See my sig. Course it's easy with 2 HDD removal drawers in the 5 1/4" slots of my computer case.
2 primary solutions. [/QUOTE]
thanks Zapjb
i was thinking of having a second internet drive in my new pc and placing it in a caddy. so e.g. stick the caddy drive in once a week do the backup turn off the pc and take out the drive.
so the drive is only there while im doing backups.
lodore

 

Test it b4 putting it away.

 

Bare metal test answers every doubt. Either your solution works or doesn't.

Both of mine work. Proven, real world.

Each user & setup differs.