Only one partition in backup

Hi,

I told Paragon Backup 10 Free to backup my whole first disk which holds five drives (C: - F: and swap partition S, some 30 GB all in all.

The result: Two DVD's, the first one containing DISK.PBF (54 kB), DISK0.PBF, DISK0.000 ... DISK0.008 (512 MB each), the second one containing DISK.PBF (54 kB), DISK0.009 ... DISK0.011 (512 MB each). However, the archives seem to cover only C: - no traces whatsoever of the other drives. Nevertheless the 19 files at 512 MB each sum up to 9,5 GB, and my C: drive holds less than 2 GB. So it appears that Paragon has backed up more than C:, perhaps even the whole disk (with a 3:1 compression rate?), but Restore won't show me any files from D:, E: etc., neither from the Windows nor from the Linux Recovery program.

Any ideas for what went wrong?

TIA

 

Hello Hutz,

9.5 GB is a still too small even compressed compared to 30GB. The entire archive should be around 20-25GB compressed. I would break down the backups into smaller individual backups of each partition. The advantage of this also is when you go to restore, you can pick and choose, adjust your partitions, and essentially you don't have all your eggs in one basket.

 

Hi Tommy,

thanks a lot for your reply.

Well, that was exactly what I wanted to avoid (sigh).

But it looks as if you can't explain what has happened during this backups (I tried it twice) either - ? Has Paragon known problems with several partitions on one disk?

 

I think the issue is fairly recent with only BR10. We will try to look into this soon. Thank you for your finding and input though.

 

That is, older versions are not concerned? But they are no longer for download, right?

 

32 bit :

http://www.v3.co.uk/vnunet/downloads/2223801/paragon-drive-backup-express

64 bit:

http://download.cnet.com/Drive-Backup-Free-Edition-64-bit/3000-2242_4-10904675.html

I don't know if the registration link is still up for those.

This may be it:

http://www.paragon-software.com/registration/dbe.html

 

Hello SIW2,

thanks a lot for the links; indeed they still are working.

However, Backup 9 Free is a very stripped-down version: No exclude paths, no DVD burning... so one can't compare it to Backup 10. It's a pity that the latter fails in this manner.

 

More weird results: I tried a backup with different settings; when I want something to restore from this archive, PB asks me where to find IMG1.PBF, which it obviously forgot to put on any of the DVD's.

I wonder if I totally messed PB up by adding exclude paths, because during backup I see the following strange messages:

Building the exclude list for folder '/temp' ...
5993 files from folder '/temp' where added to the exclude list.
Building the exclude list for folder '/tmp' ...
5993 files from folder '/tmp' where added to the exclude list.
Building the exclude list for folder '/ToBurn' ...
5994 files from folder '/ToBurn' where added to the exclude list.

Those numbers are pure nonsense, i.e. ToBurn holds only one single file.

Below is an excerpt from settings.xml, something wrong in there?

<ExcludeItem>
<Mask>*.swp</Mask>
<Description/>
</ExcludeItem>
-
<ExcludeItem>
<Mask>\temp\</Mask>
<Description/>
</ExcludeItem>
-
<ExcludeItem>
<Mask>\tmp\</Mask>
<Description/>
</ExcludeItem>
-
<ExcludeItem>
<Mask>\ToBurn\</Mask>
<Description/>
</ExcludeItem>
-
<ExcludeItem>
<Mask>$NtUnin*</Mask>
<Description/>
</ExcludeItem>
</ExcludeGroup>
-
<ExcludeGroup>
<Name>Recycled</Name>
<Id>edfbec62_01f2_47b3_aad7_92360ca54b78</Id>
<Expanded>true</Expanded>
<Selected>true</Selected>
-
<ExcludeItem>
<Mask>\Recycled\*.*</Mask>
<Description/>
</ExcludeItem>
</ExcludeGroup>
-
<ExcludeGroup>
<Name>System Volume Information</Name>
<Id>71077eda_2981_42e7_9d66_fe85e6464146</Id>
<Expanded>true</Expanded>
<Selected>true</Selected>
-
<ExcludeItem>
<Mask>\System Volume Information\</Mask>
<Description/>
</ExcludeItem>

 

And here's one more strange issue:

Selecting a whole disk for backup => backup starts normally (but fails in the end, as above).

Selecting a whole disk for backup, then deselecting a single partition => Warning "Please note that HDD first tracks and MBRs cannot be saved to CD or DVD". (Maybe this is related to the missing IMG1.PBF above? Does Restore not know what Backup refuses to save?)

 

Unless your system is multi-boot, there's really no need to backup the MBR. Drive Backup reconstructs the MBR when you restore or you can do it from the recovery CD. I would select only the partitions you need to backup and skip the MBR.

For whatever reason the backup to DVD/CD is failing, if you have the space available on a local hard drive, backup the partition(s) locally with image splitting enabled. Make sure the image split is approximately the same size of the CD/DVD, and then burn the files manually. This way we know if the backup is failing or the writing to cd/dvd is the failure.

 

To clarify about the restore processes with the above mentioned method, Drive Backup will ask for the next backup file if it's not found in the default directory. So you'd swap disk when the next file is called.

 

Hi Tommy,

thanks a lot for your tips.

Unluckily, it is.

Please don't get me wrong, but you're recommending to disable more and more of the features that ought to distinguish PB from the rest of the pack <g>. My first impression was that PB stood ahead of its competitors by offering one-shot complete disk backup, integrated DVD burning, configurable exclude lists, etc. Now it appears that these features don't work reliably, which puts PB back to the level of all those other backup programs that don't even try to promise these features in the first place. It really is a pity.

You don't spot anything unusual in the exclude settings that I posted?

Best wishes,

Hutz

 

Those look correct. One thing I do want to mention is, if you plan to exclude everything in a directory, you have to add *.* or *.xyz to exclude only .xyz files.

For instance:

C:\Windows\Temp\*.*

instead of C:\Windows\temp\

 

But will this exclude all the subdirectories of Temp, too?

 

That's correct, it will exclude all sub directories and files.