Author Topic: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Special Edition For Free! (Read 45,988 times)

MH-Andy · « **Reply #25 on:** April 04, 2009, 10:21 PM »

Very good program

MilesAhead · « **Reply #26 on:** April 04, 2009, 10:46 PM »

Quote from: Curt on April 04, 2009, 09:45 PM

On another matter:
Do 'we' know for how long this beta offer has been active? Before joining I would of course like to get an idea about how dangerous it may be to test it.
:tellme

This may be a bit ironic, but if you don't have a backup imaging program now, I would get the Paragon Drive Backup Express free version and make a backup image to an external USB drive. The Express edition is the same as Backup 9.0 Personal with a few features removed. I can attest that the restore actually works. I've restored with Paragon Backup at least 5 or 6 times over the last year and never had a problem. But where this one is a beta I'd have the backup using the tested and proven one in reserve. The Express edition, same as Personal 9.0 has an image of a bootable CD for the restore. If your drive gets hosed to where you can't get into Windows, hook up the external drive you used to back up, insert the CD and boot it. Restore from external drive.

I just did a restore last week aamof after playing around too much with custom Vista themes got my system hosed. The backup/restore of v. 9.0 does work.

Curt · « **Reply #27 on:** April 05, 2009, 06:38 AM »

- thanks, MilesAhead. However, I have both R-Drive Image and Backup4all Pro 4, but don't really like any of them. I have tested many backup'ers but have not yet found the one to love. So I want to test Paragon 10, because MAYBE this is the one!

MilesAhead · « **Reply #28 on:** April 05, 2009, 08:25 PM »

Quote from: Curt on April 05, 2009, 06:38 AM

- thanks, MilesAhead. However, I have both R-Drive Image and Backup4all Pro 4, but don't really like any of them. I have tested many backup'ers but have not yet found the one to love. So I want to test Paragon 10, because MAYBE this is the one!

The thing about Paragon that drives me nuts is it seems as soon as I shell out some money they come out with a newer version that's cheaper and has more features. Would be nice if they extended upgrades.. since they don't tend to do many minor updates. For example, I bought Drive Backup 8.5 Personal for $50. Got maybe one minor update. Now they come out with 9.0 Personal with folder exclusion features for $40. No discount for me with version 8.5 so since it's a pita to move stuff to external before backing up to keep the backup small, I shell out the $40 to get folder exclusion. I mean, the software has saved my ass a few times so it does work. Just wish they'd give a discount on the same software instead of emailing discounts on other stuff I don't need.

The main thing I find now is I wish I had a faster interface to external drives. Laying the image back on from an external USB @25 MB/sec is a bit like watching paint dry.

Curt · « **Reply #29 on:** April 05, 2009, 09:11 PM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on April 05, 2009, 08:25 PM

... I wish I had a faster interface to external drives. Laying the image back on from an external USB @25 MB/sec is a bit like watching paint dry.

- I know what you mean; I once watched 40 GB video files changing their address at 5 MBps!
Why is it that USB cable packages are stamped with "480 MB/s"???

MilesAhead · « **Reply #30 on:** April 05, 2009, 09:31 PM »

I just added a Gigabit wired card to my old PC(I have a 2 PC network with belkin kvma switch) so now I've come up with a scheme to tie up the PC the least amount of time doing image backups. I back up over the network to the other PC's HD. Later on, I just copy in the background to the external USB. Takes longer to get there but at least I can use both machines during the file background copy.

You would think these days stuff would be so cheap they'd give you an esata connection on the tower. Don't understand why they don't.

Shades · « **Reply #31 on:** April 05, 2009, 09:32 PM »

That would be the difference between bit and byte (by definition: 1 byte consists of 8 bits).

Most people interpret xxxMB/sec as xxxMbyte/sec. While in case of the USB cable packages the 480MB/sec means 480Mbit/sec.

So: 480Mbit/sec is a theoretical 60MByte/sec (not taking any kind of system overhead, cable quality or signal interference into account).

MerleOne · « **Reply #32 on:** April 08, 2009, 12:09 PM »

GiveAwayOfTheDay is offering DB9 Personal today (2009-04-08). Even better than the special edition.

tomos · « **Reply #33 on:** April 08, 2009, 12:38 PM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on April 05, 2009, 08:25 PM

I bought Drive Backup 8.5 Personal for $50. Got maybe one minor update. Now they come out with 9.0 Personal with folder exclusion features for $40. No discount for me with version 8.5

wow, that sounds really bad - no upgrade pricing

surely there are other friendlier companies out there making decent imaging software ... (although I know what it's like when you have something that just works)

Curt · « **Reply #34 on:** April 08, 2009, 01:15 PM »

Quote from: MerleOne on April 08, 2009, 12:09 PM

GiveAwayOfTheDay is offering DB9 Personal today

Quote from: giveawayoftheday forum comment

I installed this program [DB9] today and right away it gave me my second Blue Screen of Death ever!!

Comment by Curt — April 8th, 2009 at 9:07 am

tomos · « **Reply #35 on:** April 08, 2009, 01:22 PM »

Quote from: Curt on April 08, 2009, 01:15 PM

Quote from: giveawayoftheday forum comment
I installed this program [DB9] today and right away it gave me my second Blue Screen of Death ever!!

Comment by Curt — April 8th, 2009 at 9:07 am

Was that you Curt, or some other lucky Curt that's only ever had two BSOD's

MerleOne · « **Reply #36 on:** April 08, 2009, 03:10 PM »

Hmm, too bad since I have already recommended it to several friends and colleagues (not the same persons!). I guess I'll know pretty soon those who have installed it...

Regarding the BSOD (Blue Screen Of the Day - reminds me my Win98 time), I remember that with paragon software, it is sometimes advised to change or add a parameter regarding IRPStackSize. Don't ask me why...
see http://www.howtonetworking.com/winissues/irpstacksize.htm

Actually it depends on how many other imaging tools you may have already installed that rely on a "filter driver". Such as Macrium Reflect, Acronis TI, etc.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #37 on:** April 08, 2009, 05:35 PM »

Quote from: tomos on April 08, 2009, 01:22 PM

Quote from: Curt on April 08, 2009, 01:15 PM
Quote from: giveawayoftheday forum comment
I installed this program [DB9] today and right away it gave me my second Blue Screen of Death ever!!

Comment by Curt — April 8th, 2009 at 9:07 am

Was that you Curt, or some other lucky Curt that's only ever had two BSOD's

Since now they are likely to be much more frequent, at least he has a database to track them.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #38 on:** April 08, 2009, 10:11 PM »

I have installed 3 times - no problems, no BSODS.

Curt · « **Reply #39 on:** April 08, 2009, 11:46 PM »

Within the last ten years I have experienced several black screens at startup, but only twice have I seen the BSOD. Do 'rememeber' that this only is my fifth private personal computer. All the other computers were owned by companies, so I was never allowed to do anything but my job. This goes all back to when a computer in Danish was called an "edb" machine ~ translates into 'electronic data handling' ~ and Yes, back then I saw many blue screens, due to power fall-outs etcetera, but that was long before Windows NT,, which I didn't care to explain on GOTD.

marlau · « **Reply #40 on:** April 14, 2009, 09:29 PM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on March 11, 2009, 08:51 PM

But if you do a lot of video it's convenient to just exclude folders with huge files to make the backup set smaller without the copy off work-around.

Was able to download Paragon 9 as a freebie but have not used it yet. Many image programs do not allow for exclusions so I wondered if you could briefly describe how to exclude folders from an image of the C drive as I have many .avi files.

TIA

MerleOne · « **Reply #41 on:** April 14, 2009, 10:21 PM »

You can find this description on page 39 of http://download.paragon-software.com/doc/manual_db9per_eng.pdf

marlau · « **Reply #42 on:** April 14, 2009, 11:06 PM »

Thanks MerleOne for the prompt and very useful post.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #43 on:** April 14, 2009, 11:35 PM »

@marlau in the last week I found out a few more things.

1) If you have a large tree of files to exclude, Paragon lists them individually. As example, I tried out W7 beta and did a "Custom" install. This gives me a Windows.old folder with a lot of the Vista junk in it. Well, I tried excluding it from the backup. The recitation of the exclusion list was going to take days I think!! Way longer than just backing up. I copied the stuff off with RichCopy utility. Turns out I had 206,000 files/folders in that tree!! What happened to the days of an OS on a disc you could lift?

2)If you have a RAID setup that needs a Windows driver, the Linux based Rescue CD isn't going to help much. I did a restore and it took overnight for it to lay the image back on. On my older system it would have taken 45 minutes to an hour. There may be a BIOS setting that might help but I wasn't it the mood to mess with it because I think everything on this machine is set up in a SCSI emulation and I have no idea why they set up RAID on a machine with One HD. Anyway, some of the backup programs are coming with WinPE that lets you load Windows drivers. If you have 32 bit OS you may be able to make your own BartPE based rescue, but 64 bit you are kind of stuck.

So my advice before even doing a backup is see what kind of HD configuration you have. Burn the Rescue CD and boot it. Go into the restore program. If when you select Normal Mode(the top menu choice) if the screen goes funky and it hangs, then you probably want to find a different program.

On my Dual Core PC running 32 bit Vista the Rescue CD works great. It's all a matter of hardware compatibility. It's better to find out before you're really stuck though. If it doesn't work out for you then you might try one of the others. I'm looking at Macrium Reflect that has a WinPE on the paid version but I'm trying to find out if there's a hardware list of tested disk controllers so I don't get stuck again.

If you have plain Vanilla Sata drive though, it should work for you.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #44 on:** April 15, 2009, 04:02 PM »

Just FYI, I tried the Macrium Reflect paid version. It accessed my HD no problem. I did a full C: partition image and restore. The Rescue CD is a newer version than the Macrium free. Just thought I'd pass it on in case somebody is running an HP m9515y with Raid Ready.