Paragon backup recovery manual

You may backup files, volumes and disks entirely or pick one at a time. Select the OS partition and you get all the necessary boot partitions. If your operating system crashes, you can recover it easily.

Browse them like a normal disk on the computer, recovering separate files. We offer Features System requirements Resources. Community Edition is available completely free for the non-commercial purpose only. Set up automated backups quickly.

Adjust backup scenarios. Explore your copies. Mount archives by setting a drive letter. Recovery in WinPE. Select the menu option RMB.

You may get access to share folders from WinPE by setting corresponding options. In this case, only basic files and drivers such as hard disk drivers, a monitor driver, and a keyboard driver will be loaded. Please use Recovery Media Builder to prepare Paragon's recovery environments on. To automatically boot from the recovery media please make sure the on-board BIOS is set. By default the Normal Mode will be automatically initiated after a 10 second idle period. Click on the required operation to start.

Hints on the selected at the moment item will help you make the right choice. Normal Mode. Boot into the Linux normal mode.

This mode uses the full set of drivers recommended ;. Safe Mode. This mode can be used as an alternative of the Linux normal mode if it fails to work properly;. Low-Graphics Safe Mode. In this case, only the minimal set of drivers will be included, like hard disk, monitor, and keyboard drivers.

This mode has simple graphics and a simple menu;. Floppy Disk. Reboot the computer from a system floppy disk;. Find OS s on your hard disks. The program will scan hard disks of your computer to find any bootable operating system. While working with the recovery environment you might experience some inconvenience caused by possible video artifacts.

It is just a result of changing video modes and in no way will affect the program functionality. If this is the case, please wait a bit and everything will be OK. Network Configurator enables to establish a network connection under Linux ;.

If you are going to use network resources, first launch the Network Configuration Wizard to establish a network connection. Log Saver helps to collect and send the necessary log files to the Technical Support ;.

Command Line allows experienced users to execute any operation ;. It has nearly the same functionality as for the Normal mode except for the Network Configurator and Log Saver commands.

It has the same functionality and looks similar to the Safe mode but graphically simpler. Providing nearly the same level of functionality it offers an excellent hardware support and the same interface as the Windows version does. To start working with the WinPE recovery environment, please take the following steps:. Once it has been loaded, you will see the Universal Application Launcher. In general it enables to run components of the product, load drivers for undefined hardware or establish a network connection.

The WinPE based recovery environment offers excellent hardware support. Please consult the Adding specific drivers scenario to know how to tackle this issue.

This chapter explains terms and ideas that show how the program works. To understand these helps to obtain a general notion of the operation performance and makes it easier for the user to operate the program.

The data protection issue is a growing cause of worrying for more and more people today. Indeed, it is hardly to find a person who will be particularly happy when all precious information on the hard disk is irreversible lost as a result of its malfunction. So how this tragedy can be prevented? Since the advent of the computer age people were in the search of ways to guarantee data safety.

The main difference between the two lies in the way data is treated. A sector-based backup operates with an image or a snapshot of the whole disk system or its separate partitions. It not only includes the contents of all user-made files, but additionally contains the exact structure of directories, information. Thus it enables to successfully process system or encrypted partitions of any file system type, no matter what kind of information they contain.

In contrast, a file-based backup takes into account a file system structure and only functions on a file or folder level. So it is very efficient when archiving separate files or folders, but in no way will help you back up a system partition. You should understand pretty well that each of the two approaches is only good when properly chosen. In the comparison table below you can see when this or that approach will suit you at most.

It does not dependent on a particular file system. Thus it can successfully process system or encrypted partitions of any file system type, no matter what kind of information they contain. At the present moment the market is offering various types of backup imaging to meet the needs of any user.

Besides supporting them all, our program offers a unique backup type, called File Increment to a Sector Backup. A full sector-based backup image includes all contents of a partition or a hard disk at the moment of its creation. But if you want to have multiple backup archives of the same partition reflecting certain time stamps, unchanged data will inevitable be duplicated in all archives and take additional space on backup media.

To tackle this issue there has been developed a supplementary technique called Differential Sector Backup. A differential archive only contains data changed since the time of creating a full archive, which forms a base or a parental image in this case, thus considerably saving your system resources.

It is realized by the exact bit-wise comparison of the previous partition's data saved in the parental image with the current data that is actually the partition itself. To restore this kind of backup you will require a full image and one of its differentials, what is very convenient. Incremental archive is a further way of optimizing the process of disk imaging. The main principal here is the shorter the interval between increments, the less data is backed up.

In general this type of backup is great except for one thing — when you restore an incremental archive there will be processed the initial full image and all increments between, which depending on the size of your backup chain, may take plenty of time. Anyway unlike backups, the restore operation is an emergency, which might not happen at all.

Its core is in introduction of a special index file. Another new thing is change of a backup format — all increments are saved in. Please note that the current version of the product has a number of limitations regarding sector-based increments:. Increments can only be created for full archives of the new type with a. Increments can only be created for full archives stored on a local mounted drive or a network share;.

Increments can only be restored under Windows if no restart is needed or WinPE;. A full file-based archive only contains files and folders. It is really efficient when backing up an e-mail database or particular documents, as no redundant data is processed.

But if you care about maintaining a files history, you can benefit from one more supplementary technique called Incremental File Backup. An incremental archive only contains data changed since the time of creating a full or incremental file-based archive. It is smaller and takes less time to create, but you will require the initial full image and all of its increments to restore the latest point of this kind of backup. File Increment to a Sector Backup is a unique technology on the market so far that bridges two principally different approaches of the data backup: the file-based backup and the sector-based backup.

With its help you can now create a sector-based backup of your system to get it back on track in minutes in case of a virus attack or a hardware malfunction and then just make file-based incremental images to the previously created sector-based backup to keep updated only information that is critical for you. Our program supports several techniques of storing backup images. You can place a backup image to a local partition.

Despite the fact that it is the most convenient way, try not to use it. You can delete your backup just by accident or lose it as a result of a hardware malfunction, or a virus attack;.

You can place a backup image to an external mounted storage to provide for a higher level of data protection and system independence;. You can place a backup image to a special secured place on the hard disk called the Backup Capsule that has an independent system layout e. You can place a backup image to a network drive to stand a better chance of success in case of a hard disk failure.

Moreover, by storing it on a special-purpose server you may be pretty sure nothing will happen to it;. Finally you can place a backup image to an FTP server to provide a new level of system and data protection. You need to check out yourself Windows Firewall or programs of this kind let our program work with the required port 21 by default. You can browse an FTP server in the passive mode only. Windows family operating systems are notorious for their excessive sensibility to hardware, especially when it turns to replacement of such a crucial device as HDD controller or motherboard — actually Windows will most likely fail to boot as a result of this operation.

Initially aimed at restore of Windows Vista or Server from a backup to a different hardware configuration, its current realization, available in the P2P Adjust OS Wizard, enables to make any Windows OS since XP bootable on dissimilar hardware by allowing automatic injection of all required drivers and the other actions crucial for this type of migration.

As you see, successful migration of a Windows system to a different hardware platform involves several actions:. Change of the Windows kernel settings according to the new configuration.

The program detects the given hardware profile and automatically installs the appropriate Windows HAL and kernel. Installation of drivers for boot critical devices. The program detects those without drivers and automatically tries to install lacking drivers from the built-in Windows repository.

In case drivers for these devices are installed, but disabled, they will be enabled. Installation of drivers for network cards. These actions guarantee a Windows system will start up on dissimilar hardware. After the startup, Windows will initiate reconfiguration of all Plug'n'Play devices.

If you need to replace failed hardware and cannot find an exact match for original system specifications. After transferring Microsoft Vista and later versions to different hardware, you will need to re-activate license of the system. Re-activation is legally justified in this case, as you transfer your system to another PC. Microsoft highly recommends that you install an operating system on a separate partition.

Please note drivers are not cached during selection. In the course of time there have been developed various methods of data processing. Despite different work concept, all of them can be divided into two principal groups: offline cold and online hot data processing techniques.

As the name infers, offline data processing can only be accomplished when the data is in consistent state the operating system and all the applications are completely shut down. Actually it is the most preferable way of image creation or data cloning, since software can obtain an exclusive right to process data that guaranties high level of operating efficiency.

In contrast, online data processing enables to create a consistent snapshot even as the data is currently modified. The point is to provide a coherent state of all open files and databases involved in a process, taking into account that applications may still keep writing to disks. As a result an online data processing cannot boast high operating speed.

Our program supports both offline and online methods of data processing. As far as online method is concerned it offers its own hot processing algorithm together with the possibility to use snapshot technologies provided by the Microsoft VSS framework. Paragon Hot Processing is not exactly a snapshot technology, though it has much in common with it.

SYS to intercept and control disk write activity of applications and the operating system. For the most part the driver is in the idle mode until it is activated with the program. While in this mode it bypasses any calls having no effect on the overall system performance, but a few kilobytes of the system memory.

It offers a reliable mechanism to create consistent point-in- time copies of data known as shadow copies. Unlike Paragon Hot Processing the VSS technology provides a unique possibility to make a synchronous snapshot of multiple volumes. This very feature can be particularly beneficial when backing up active SQL Server , Exchange or Oracle databases located on multiple volumes the way it is recommended by Microsoft to improve the level of database performance and reliability, thus providing percent data consistency.

Please note that the pVHD support has a promotional goal. In future releases pVHD will gradually take the primary role. Retention Wizard for VD Windows. What you get by using pVHD:. Incremental imaging works much faster and rock-stable in comparison with the old PBF;. Certainly there is the possibility to create logical drives within the extended partition. Such types of disks are called basic. However, these operating systems also introduce a new disk configuration type - dynamic disk - which must be understood to effectively configure and manage hard disks.

Dynamic disk is a physical disk that doesn't use partitions or logical drives. Instead, it contains only dynamic volumes. Regardless of what format you use for the file system, only Win2K computers can access dynamic volumes directly. However, computers that aren't running Win2K can access the dynamic volumes remotely when connected to the shared folders over the network. Dynamic disks can co-exist on a system with basic disks.

The only limitation is that you cannot mix Basic and Dynamic disks on the same hard drive. There are five types of dynamic volumes: simple uses free space from a single disk , spanned created from free disk space that is linked together from multiple disks , striped a volume the data of which is interleaved across two or more physical disks , mirrored a fault-tolerant volume the data of which is duplicated on two physical disks, and RAID-5 volumes a fault-tolerant volume the data of which is striped across an array of three or more disks.

With dynamic storage, you can perform disk and volume management without the need to restart Windows. Thus, the dynamic disk is a new way of looking at hard disk configuration. Dynamic disks offer you more management flexibility without the partition limitation of basic disks. Dynamic disks can contain an unlimited number of volumes, but they cannot contain partitions or logical drives.

More reliable thanks to replication and cyclic redundancy check CRC protection of the partition table;. A well defined and fully self-identifying partition format data critical to the platform operation is located in partitions, but not in un-partitioned or hidden sectors as this is the case with MBR.

Despite all uEFI advantages however, it has one quite naughty issue: a pretty standard operation with a bootable device for instance involving its connection to another SATA port results in unbootable Windows.

Microsoft provides how-to guides to tackle this type of problems, but they demand a great deal of experience from the user, involving the use of the cmd , diskpart and bcdedit tools. Paragon has a better way! Below is a list of wizards where the uEFI switch boot device option can be found:. With Boot Camp all the necessary drivers will be at your disposal. Moreover after Windows has been installed it will serve as a boot manager to choose what operating system to start up.

It is strongly recommended not to modify the hard disk configuration with Windows Disk Manager. The bulk of software today is written for a bit processor. It can meet the requirements of almost any end user. However that is not the case when dealing with servers processing large amounts of data with complex calculations of very large numbers.

That is where bit architecture comes into play. It can boast improved scalability for business applications that enables to support more customer databases and more simultaneous users on each server. Besides a bit kernel can access more system resources, such as memory allocation per user. A bit processor can handle over 4 billion times more memory addresses than a bit processor. With these resources, even a very large database can be cached in memory.

Although many business applications run without problems on bit systems, others have grown so complex that they use up the 4 GB memory limitation of a bit address space. With this large amount of data, fewer memory resources are available to meet memory needs. On a bit server, most queries are able to perform in the buffers available to the database. Some bit applications make the transition to the bit environment seamlessly others do not.

For instance, systemlevel utilities and programs that provide direct hardware access are likely to fail. Our program offers a full-fledged support of the bit architecture providing fault-tolerant work for such system dependent modules as Hot Processing.

Hard drive duplication nowadays is becoming highly popular among PC users. That is due to some definite advantages it can offer. First of all, many people clone hard disks just to back up data for security reasons.

In case of a system malfunction, the user can get the system back on track in minutes. No additional configuration is required, what is very convenient. The second possible application is the upgrade of a hard disk to a new one. The capacity of a modern hard drive doubles every two years, thus opening up new possibilities for software developers. As a result programs become more complicated and require considerable amount of free space.

One day the user realizes that there is no more free space left on the hard disk and the only way out is to upgrade. Usually that means that besides purchasing a new hard disk, the user is to face a large re-installation procedure spanning several days of tedious work. But all of this can be avoided just by copying the contents of the old hard disk to a new one proportionally resizing the partitions.

And the last but not least is the copying of hard disks for cloning purposes. It may be of great use when setting up similar computers. There is no need for a system administrator to install an operating system from scratch on every one of them. It is enough just to configure one and then clone it to the others. As you probably know a hard drive is to be split into one or more partitions, since it cannot hold data until it is carved up and space is set aside for an operating system.

Until recently most PCs used to have just one partition, which filled the entire hard disk and contained an OS. The situation has changed however, thanks to new cost-effective high capacity hard drives, thus opening up numerous possibilities for PC users, such as editing video, archiving music, backing up CD images, etc.

Huge increase in space is great, but it poses a number of problems, most important of which are effective data organization and speed. Large drives are always going to take longer to search than smaller volumes, and an operating system is going to have its work cut out both finding and organizing files.

It is for this reason that many people decide to invest in multiple hard drives, but there is an easy solution — drive partitioning.

Partitioning lets you divide a single physical drive into a number of logical drives, each of which servers as a container with its own drive letter and volume label, thus enabling the operating system to process data more efficiently.

Besides partitioning makes it possible to organize data so that it is easy to find and manage. You can set aside, for instance, 40 GB of a GB hard drive for the OS, 70 GB for storing video and another 50 GB for your favorite music collections to provide transparent data storage.

It is also worth mentioning to that with a hard drive properly partitioned, such routine operations as files defragmentation or consistency check will not be that annoying and time-consuming any more.

By detaching the OS from the rest of the data you can tackle one more crucial issue — in case of a system malfunction, you can get the system back on track in minutes by recovering it from a backup image located on the other partition of the hard drive. But that is not all drive partitioning may be used for. If you are willing to play games in Windows while browsing the Internet in Linux, percent sure that no virus will attack your PC, drive partitioning is a necessity.

In order to run several OSs on a single hard drive you are to create a corresponding number of partitions to effectively delineate the boundaries of each OS. The automation of operations is particularly effective when you have to repeat a sequence of actions on a regular basis. For example, developing a specific project on a day-to-day basis and having to make a backup every evening so as not to lose the valuable data, you will really appreciate, when this kind of routine operations will be carried out automatically without your participation.

This is especially important when operations require a considerable amount of computer resources — processor time, memory and more. A number of tasks, which can decrease the performance, can be run during the night or whenever the computer has the least work-load to perform.

The program has a special tool for scheduling. You can set out a timetable for any operation and it will start at a specified time without interrupting your current activity.

It has first appeared in Windows Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate to protect contents of hard disks from offline attacks for instance, when your hard disk is stolen and connected to another computer to retrieve data it contains. Our product enables to work with volumes encrypted by BitLocker, but only when they are unlocked. You can unlock this type of volumes only through Windows-native facilities:. To know more on the subject, please consult the How to Work with Bitlocked Volumes chapter.

In the current version of our product the following operations are allowed to accomplish on volumes encrypted by BitLocker:. In the given section you can find all the information necessary to successfully work with the Windows version of the product. This chapter introduces the graphical interface of the program.

The design of the interface precludes any mistake being made on the part of the user. Most operations are performed through the system of wizards. Buttons and menus are accompanied by easy understandable icons. Nevertheless, any problems that might occur while managing the program can be tackled by reading this very chapter.

When you start the program, the first component that is displayed is called the Launcher. It enables to run wizards and dialogs, to specify program settings, to visualize the operating environment and the hard disk configuration. A number of panels offer similar functionality with a synchronized layout. The program enables to conceal some of them to simplify the interface management. It makes almost all the product capabilities available to the user in a single place.

A Ribbon Tab is an area on the panel that contains buttons organized in groups by functionality. Each button corresponds to a certain program wizard or dialog. You can adjust the working environment by choosing one of two predefined views: general and legacy.

This division is quite logical, allowing the user to filter out legacy wizards and dialogs that have to do with the old PBF backup format.

Please note that the legacy mode is not active by default. The program supports previewing the resulting layout of hard disks before actually executing operations so-called virtual mode of execution. In fact, when the virtual mode is enabled, the program does not accomplish operations immediately, but places them on the List of Pending Operations for later execution.

Virtual mode is an effective way of protection from any troubles, since no operations will be executed until clicking the Apply button for confirmation, thus giving a second chance to weigh all pros and cons of this or that particular operation.

The program politely reminds the user that there are unsaved changes by showing the following window:. By clicking on this button the user can switch to the express mode of operation at any time. As the name infers, the Disk Map displays the layout of physical and logical disks. Physical disks are represented with rectangle bars that contain small-sized bars. These small-sized bars represent logical disks.

Their color depends on the file system of the appropriate partition. Small-sized bars display the following information about logical disks and blocks of free space:. Thus by selecting a disk on the map, the two will automatically display detailed information on it. To know more on the subject, please consult the Viewing Disk Properties chapter. Since the Disk Map and the Disk and Partitions List have the same purpose, the user is allowed to extend only one at the moment by using a corresponding arrow button.

The Disk and Partitions List is another helpful tool that helps to get a clear-cut picture on the current state of the system hard disks and partitions. All objects disks, partitions, or blocks of free space on the list are sorted according to their starting position. For every item there is the possibility to call a context-sensitive popup menu with available operations. The Disk and Partitions List provides detailed information on all hard disks and partitions found in the system including the following properties:.

Thus by selecting a disk on the list, the two will automatically display detailed information on it. The Context-sensitive Menu shows a list of operations available for an object disk, partition, or block of free space selected either on the Disk Map or the Disk and Partitions List.

If you click a corresponding record the appropriate wizard or dialog will be started. If there too many items on the list, type in the first word of the required command in the Search commands field to filter the list.

The Properties Panel provides information on the object disk, partition, or block of free space selected either on the Disk Map or the Disk and Partitions List. Information on geometry of the disk amount of sectors per track, heads and cylinders. Besides you can modify practically any partition property by clicking on the required value. This is the bottom part of the main window. The Status Bar displays menu hints, for each item the cursor points to.

To call the Settings dialog, please click Tool Button , then select Settings. All the settings are grouped into several sections, which functions are described in the following paragraphs. The list of sections is placed on the left side of the dialog. By selecting a section from the list, you can open a set of options. To get a detailed description to any setting, control, or field of the program just click the hint button and then the object you need.

By default, the program does not create ISO compliant burning sessions, as it processes data on-the-fly and can only estimate the resulted session size. To tackle the issue, mark the checkbox to make the program create a standard Disk-at-Once session. Recording speed. Bootable ISO image. However, the user is free to use any bootable ISO image. Folder where the ISO image is to be placed. Use SFTP connection. Mark the option to connect to the desired SFTP server if necessary;.

Anonymous login. Mark the option to set up anonymous connection. Mark the option if your provider requires this type of authentication;. If your provider requires this type of authentication, mark the option to specify public and private keys and a passphrase;. Enter a password. Click Remember password to save it next time you back up to this location;.

By default, the program uses the provided address as the connection name, which can be modified however. By clicking the Connect button the provided location will be checked. Allow virtual mode. Mark the checkbox to enable the virtual mode. It is an effective way of protection from any troubles, since no operation will be executed until confirmation, thus giving you a second chance to weigh all pros and cons of this or that particular operation.

Close progress dialog automatically. Mark the checkbox to automatically close the progress dialog after accomplishing operations. Control archive integrity.

Mark the checkbox to guarantee that all backup images created with the program are percent flawless. Set image file names automatically.

Mark the checkbox to make the program automatically set a file name for every volume of a complex backup image. Otherwise you will need to do it manually during the backup operation. Compression level. From the pull-down list you can select the desired compression level for backup images that will be used by default. Enable image splitting. Mark the checkbox to automatically split every backup image to volumes of a particular size.

Splitting images enables to tackle problems caused by a maximum file size limitation of some file systems. Maximum split size. With the spinner control you can specify a maximum size for backup volumes. This section contains a set of options that will be taken into account during copy and backup operations:.

HDD raw processing. This can help to avoid problems with hidden data created by certain applications or the system administrator. However, it will take more time to accomplish the operation. Partition raw processing. Mark the checkbox to copy a partition in the sector-by-sector mode to successfully process unknown file systems. However it is not recommended to enable this option when working with supported file systems as it takes more time to accomplish the operation. Skip OS auxiliary files.

Mark the checkbox to skip OS auxiliary files like pagefile. Skip archive files stored in archive library. Mark the checkbox to skip backup images registered in the archive database, thus reducing the operation time and the resulted size of the backup image. Automatic BCD Update. Enable hot processing. Mark the checkbox to enable the so called hot data processing mode that is specially designed to process data without restarting your operating system.

Hot processing technology. From the pull-down list you can select the required hot processing technology. Always use hot processing. Select the option to process partitions without making them locked. Thus you will be able to keep working with them as usual. Use hot processing only when partition is locked. Select the option to use the hot processing only when partitions are locked and cannot be processed without restarting the computer. Please keep in mind, that once you start any operation on a partition in this mode, it will automatically be locked by the program, thus you won't be able to keep working with it as usual.

Hot processing temporary drive. Here you can select a disk drive that will be used to store the temporary hot backup data by default — C:. Attempts to start VSS. Here you can set how many attempts to start Microsoft VSS the program is to do before automatically rebooting the system and accomplishing the operation in a special boot-up mode. Timeout between attempts in seconds. Here you can set a time period between different attempts to start Microsoft VSS.

Switch between hot processing technologies. Mark the checkbox to automatically switch between Paragon Hot Processing and Microsoft VSS if one of them is unavailable at the moment. By clicking the link at the bottom of the window you can jump to the Run during backup options. In this section you can specify external applications to execute at various phases of the backup process.

The point is to provide a coherent state of all open files and databases involved in a backup, taking into account that applications may still keep writing to disks. Actually the backup process consists of two phases: the preparation phase snapshot and the data-copying phase.

Execute at the beginning of the backup process before taking a snapshot. Here you can specify an executable file that will help you to prepare running applications for taking a snapshot.

Everything depends on the used applications. Execute after taking a snapshot. Here you can specify an executable file that will run just after taking a snapshot. Execute after finishing the backup process. Here you can specify an executable file that will run after the backup process has been accomplished. By clicking the link at the bottom of the window you can jump to the Hot processing options. By clicking the Browse button you can get into the browser-like window to choose an executable file.

The program provides the ability to work with three types of executable files. It is up to the user to write batch files to safely prepare applications for backup. There are some certain general requirements for that:. All programs and commands must execute sequentially and finish before the. The wait option will help to start an application and wait until it completes its work. The program enables to set parameters for an executable file directly from the line. However, if the file path contains word gaps it is necessary to enclose it in quotes in order to make the program distinguish between the path and the used parameters.

This section contains options that will be taken into account when creating virtual containers:. Unknown partitions policy. Here you can define behavior for processing unknown or unformatted partitions skip from backup, process in the sector-by-sector mode, or ask the user each time this type of partition has been found.

Virtual container type. Please note that the use of pVHD enables to get full backup images several times smaller than the original objects, while incremental updates — dozens of times smaller when comparing to VHD, VHDX or VMDK, which have some fixed size of blocks, not dynamic. Besides encryption and password protection are only available for pVHD. This section contains a set of options that will be taken into account during partitioning operations:.

Request confirmation before partition deletion. Mark the checkbox to activate an additional security mechanism. Thus when going to delete a partition you will be automatically requested to enter its label. There are a number of situations when this kind of conversion is the only way out to accomplish the operation.

For instance, you are going to migrate your system to a larger hard disk with the proportional resize of existing partitions, what is very convenient. Thus without conversion to FAT32, this operation will in no way be possible to accomplish.