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Paragon System Backup 2010 Release Candidate (free)

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MilesAhead:
The only real test that matters is booting off the recovery CD and seeing if it can access your HD.  On the MBR thing if the partition table is what's messed up, a lot of the "repair" programs won't fix it because they deliberately leave that section of the MBR alone.  Best thing is a utility that simply copies a healthy MBR someplace, then copies it back to the HD.  Of course if you alter your partition setup you should store another copy.

As example, the Macrium Reflect 4.2 I used creates a Linux based recovery CD that can see my HD.  But to use the WinPE based recovery I had to learn how to store my HD driver with the .inf file so WinPE could load it.  With these HD schemes changing so fast now it seems like image restore utilities are often one step behind. All I'm saying is make sure the recovery CD works before you have to depend on it.  I got lucky that I could do my restore at the super slow speed.  At least it let me put my Vista image back on(I tried W7 64 bit and it didn't work out well.)

Carol Haynes:
In VMWare you can boot from a recovery CD - you can also mess up the VM MBR to your hearts content and see if it restores correctly.

mrainey:
BootIt NG is an imager, partition manager, and boot manager.  One nice thing about BootIt is that if you have problems (which I haven't yet), you can get quick help from the developer.

BootIt NG costs $34.95.  I've been using it for at least four years and have never been charged for an update (there have been many). 


http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation.htm

MilesAhead:
In VMWare you can boot from a recovery CD - you can also mess up the VM MBR to your hearts content and see if it restores correctly.
-Carol Haynes (July 26, 2009, 05:29 AM)
--- End quote ---

That may be but I'm assuming once Windows is loaded, there's a Windows driver loaded for the physical HD.  When you boot for real off the BIOS there isn't any Windows driver unless it's on the CD.  If you are talking disaster recovery, I don't trust it unless I test it like it would be if I couldn't boot the machine.  It does me no good if the simulation works if I can't boot up in reality.  Most of these imaging programs work pretty well, if they can see your hardware.  That's why one person says brand x is great and the other says no it sucks.  They have different drives.  It's no fun to have to restore in "compatibility mode."  For one thing, if you have battery backup that can cover you for 5 minutes then the odds of getting through a 45 minute or hour restore are great.  Not so great if it has to run for 9 hours.

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