Q. Has anyone used Avanquest's Perfect Image?

Has anyone used "Perfect Image" by Avanquest?

I am completely fed up with the lack of response from Acronis Support, though I have seen other posts that quote two to three months for a response. That is a completely absurd situation. At lease Avanquest has in person support. Please let me know if you have used their back up software.

On Feb 10th I received acknowledgment that they had received my request for help, but nary a response since that date. However, they did caution: "Please do not submit your request more than once; multiple submissions generate extra paperwork that simply slows down response times." How slow? Months?

My concern was that after wasting 3 hours on a full three partition disk image backup, ATI reported that the b/u was completed with errors. But upon inspection, the backup file was not created. Additionally, ATI reported problems with the b/u drive, however, MS chkdsk reported there were no problems with the disk. What gives? Time to move on to better software.

 

I have used it and yes they have support but long hold times and then tech's I talked to not that knowledgable. Perfect Image is a scaled down image of Paragon Drive Backup. For a couple dollars more you can get it with all of it's features and excellent support. For instance you send in a request and generally speaking next morning answer is their with a thread you can ask more questions if necessary. Several times I just could not figure out and they sent me a link and got on and went thru with me and fixed remotely. I am very pleased with them and note some of the posts in this forum say the same. Since I have Acronis I still use only to have a second backup just in case but in several instances I needed Paragon did the job and was very easy and understandable to use.

 

That is what I thought when I looked at the Avanquest web site. They have all sorts of software, but it looks like they are just a reseller.

If Paragon is the source for Perfect Disk, then it would be far smarter to buy directly from Paragon.

 

Thanks 62cwil for the suggestion. Have spent some time looking at their Drive Backup 9.0 Professional version. Have just about decided to purchase this version since they do have live tech support and the list of features far exceed that of ATI. They are more expensive than ATI, but it will be worth it to avoid the many frustrations with ATI. Paragon did refer me to CDW which carries the software for $10.00 less ($59.99), however, they are out of stock at the moment. This Pro version looks exceptional.

 

I always read the support forums before I purchase software.

They do give you a skewed view of the software as they are obviously full of people posting who want support but they usually provide a picture of potential hardware incompatibilities, the steepness of the learning curve, the actual support by the vendor (as opposed to the advertised) and lessons from other people.

 

Yes, but the Express version if fully functional for manual drive images and FREE!. That allows a real test of the software's prime function and the rescue CD.

 

The suggestion is well taken. That is precisely what was done. Did d/l the FREE Express version, and backed up three full partitions 73.5 GB in 45 minutes for a rate of 1.63 GB/minute. What an amazing program. This was done in what they call their "hot" mode, with windows currently running. Nary an error. Vast contrast to ATI which always reported b/u completed with errors in that some files could not be backed as they were in use.

Also tried a back up with their emergency repair disk. Did a data partition back up of 26 GB in 30 minutes, for a b/u rate of .87 GB/minute. That is considerably slower than the windows back up reported above. Am very impressed with this program and may consider purchasing their Drive Backup 9.0 Professional version.

 

I was also fedup with Acronis and was trying other imaging software. I bought Paragon Drive Backup. At first it looked as if all was OK. However it took only 1 disaster and then trying to recover my Vista partition to realize that moving away from Acronis was premature. Paragon restored my Windows partition with errors that I was unable to fix. Fortunatelly I still had a bit older image created with ATI so I was able to recover my Vista system. For all the shortcomings with ATI, and I used it since version 8, I never had a failed recovery of an image. One needs only 1 failure to realize that the software is not reliable.

 

I tried Paragon before I tried ATI home 2009.
Paragon was an absolute dog on my system - very unstable.
It also felt cheap and nasty, with regard to the GUI and implementation.

However, although ATI was 'usable', I still wouldn't trust it to save and
restore backups, mainly because of the scheduler and the torrent of
restore problems reported in these forums.

I'm now trying ShadowProtect, and initially liking it.
But if SP proves unreliable, I have no idea what I'll do.
There doesn't seem to be any excellent software in this area.

 

Hello Bummed,
ive had very good experiences with paragon and it has never failed me. its a shame you had problems with it. paragon drive backup pro 9.0 is execellent.

ati never worked on my pc.

shadow protect desktop is a great imaging program but i found it hard to schdule just one backup a day and it has two processes running al the time.

the other issue is the vistape cd takes around 10mins on my pc to load. with all the testing I do I dont have enough time to wait for that.

my current solution is image for windows.
I use a batch file to image my system daily using the task scheduler. I use image for windows command version. it is updated regualy and works everytime.

I think shadow protect desktop,image for windows and paragon are the leaders in this field. I completely trust all those three. trial those three and pick the one you like the best.

 

Fry's has Perfect Image and their partitioning software free after rebate on their website www.outpost.com and in at least some of their stores. It's a ood chance to try both for the cost of postage and sales tax.

Also, you can get a free trial of the program from the Avanquest web site if you don't want to get the free offer from Fry's. I downloaded it last night to take a look at it and it didn't run but the first screen that loaded said something about Paragon before disappearing. I did not try again.

I had such bad luck with Acronis and later versions of Ghost that I tried Runtime Software's Drive Image XML which is free. It has performed flawlessly.

If you use it, you have to create a BartPE boot disk which is very easy but only needed if you restore your C; drive. Others can be restored from within Windows. The plugins for Drive Image XML are also free and available on the web site. BartPE comes with a plug in already installed but it may be for an older version of Drive Image XML in which case, you would need to update the plug in. That is not too hard to do either.

 

If you are backing up windows xp, then paragon is an excellent software. The pro version comes with a bootcd that contains a "boot corrector", that alone has saved me many of times.

Currently I'm using macrium reflect free version (because of the speed). I've already done several restores with it and it is rock solid, even the scheduler works good. As long as I backup and restore xp, I always keep a paragon boot corrector cd handy it help me alot when I was using true image as my main backup software.

 

I am no expert, and cannot prescribe what is "best". I can only attest that I also had nothing but frustration with Acronis, so I moved to Paragon Drive Backup. It has worked flawlessly through many restores on two computers now, and using versions 8.51 and 9.0.
Their support team actually answers questions also.

The free version looks enticing. You could start with that to make sure it works for you. But the extra features of the Personal version seemed valuable enough to make me stick with it.

 

They offer many different levels of their drive backup software. Which one did you have problems with? I am currently considering their Drive Backup 9.0 Professional. Several other posts report favorable experiences with this software.

I did d/l their free version, Express, and have completed two backups. My three partition backups are so large, 73.5GB, which was completed by Express without any errors, that I am reluctant to try a restore without more experience with the program. I might try to find another drive to which I could try a restore just to check it out. It is my understanding, that a restore erases the original data, before completing the restore. Correct? I would hate to have the original data erased only to find that the restore failed.

 

You must have misread my posts, in that I have not had any problems with Paragon. All my problems have been with ATI, and in particular, their refusal to answer email requests for help. Tomorrow, it will have been one month since they acknowledged my request for help.

ATI took a full three hours to do a 73.5GB backup, and then stated that the backup was completed satisfactorily with errors. You can well image what a restore would be like by attempting to use a backup with errors.

Another time, ATI completed a full three partition backup by stating the same thing that there were errors. However, when I went to look at the file, it was an (0) byte file. Big help.

 

hey Bummed,
that part that is quoted was ment to be written to Antifreeze.
the rest of my post was intended for you.