Paragon Backup & Recovery - Review & tutorial

Windows users, here's something neat for you: a review and tutorial of the free Paragon Backup & Recovery software, including 32-bit and 64-bit editions and 10.2 and 2011 versions, covering backup, recovery media creation, image restore procedure, with special focus on problems like bootloader being overwritten in multi-boot scenarios and wrong drive letter assignment that can invalidate Windows genuine status and require activation. Have fun.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/paragon-backup.html


Regards,
Mrk

 

Thanks. I own Paragon HDM, which is the full version of the scaled-back free version. I find it reliable, but very slow for my needs (and like the article pointed out, there are some inconsistencies between screens, etc.). Solid though.

 

I agree, solid but slow, at least for the free version Mrk reviewed. Nice review, btw, Mrk The free version can also be used to clone an existing software environment to a virtual disk and supports several different Virtualization apps including VMWare and Virtualbox. I've used this feature and it worked splendidly.

 

Also, if you have used an illegal activation exploit to make your windows genuine, Paragon will detect the exploit during restore and remove it, leaving your windows copy without activation. So, the activation problem might not only be due to the incorrect drive letter assignment, but the overeager exploit detection built-into Paragon that is flagging genuine windows as counterfeit.

At least, all 2010 versions of Paragon with WinPE based recovery environment do the exploit detection and removal. I am sure the Linux based environments and the 2011 versions do it too.

To Admins: Hopefully just talking about exploits does not violate Wilder's ToS.

 

Mrkvonic,

Two things I wanted to mention and if you can clarify them for me. It might be that both points are valid only for the paid Pagaron versions and are not valid for the free versions:

1) You can restore your image without using an external bootable media. All you do it is go through the restore wizard inside windows and hit execute, Paragon will inform you that the restore process can not be done online and the system needs to be rebooted, after reboot Paragon loads before windows and performs the restore process.

2) Paragon will automatically backup and restore the MBR if you backup your root partition. In that case it will restore the MBR just as it is with your custom modifications. If you backup MBR separately and restore just the MBR, then you might encounter the overwritten GRUB etc.

Can you confirm the above points? I last used version 10 of backup and recovery and they were valid in that version.

 

Hi Raza,

Don't know about the exploits, it's just something users need to be aware of.

I did not try restoring from within the program and rebooting, although I know some other programs work this way, e.g. ATI.

From what I've seen, Paragon will restore windows bootloader if you create a single archive, if you back them up separately, then you can choose to restore the bootloader, which should not be necessary if you have grub or another bootloader in place.

Regards,
Mrk

 

Running the Paragon restore wizard from within windows is more powerful. You will never have any problems like incorrect drive letter assignment etc. Paragon's Linux based recovery media is pretty basic and you should only use that if you can not boot into windows at all.

My understanding about Paragon was that you do not need to separately backup the MBR every time you make a backup, either a single archive or multiple archives, as the MBR and the first track are automatically backed up and restored with each backup. Backing up and restoring just the MBR is optional.