Stand Alone Backup

It's been my experience that a restore from a complete system backup made while Windows is running sometimes don't work. An older version of Paragon had an option to download a stand-alone version which never failed whenever I tested (or needed it).

Is stand-alone backup still an option? Which product do I need?

 

clonezilla

 

You are probably referring to the WinPE recovery environment which is based on Windows. I think all of the paid Paragon Products have it available as a separate download. It is a .exe file you run and it creates the WinPE version on either a CD or a flash drive.

If you have the free product and your PC doesn't have any issues with it then you can boot it up and make the backup without Windows running. It is Linux and sometimes the drivers aren't a good fit which is why the Windows-based WinPE is available. You can also add special drivers you might need to the WinPE version.

Usually most recovery problems in which the Linux version doesn't work isn't because of a badly created archive using the live-imaging with Windows running but a problem with doing the actual restore. Even if you start the restore in Windows, the PC will reboot and load the recovery environment since the normal Windows cannot be running when the active partition is restored. Having said that, given the large numbers of various Windows applications, hardware and configurations, it isn't impossible that the live-imaging may encounter a problem on some systems.

 

The price is right, but I couldn't possibly recommend it to most users. They need a much more user friendly interface.

 

You're right, although I didn't know it WinPE is exactly what I was looking for. I just bought the latest version of Hard Disk Manager and find the WinPE environment much easier to use the the Linux based one in my older version.

Thanks!

 

clonezilla is actually quite easy if you take just a little time to learn it
doesn't take long