- Joined
- May 25, 2009
- Messages
- 6,652
- Thread Author
-
- #1
Hi
I thought that some people might be interested in this.
Yesterday I upgraded my Paragon backup software to the 2014 edition.
I was surprised to see that there is quite a change from the one I used previously.
Instead of asking you to choose a location the save a backup file to (you can still do it that way) it offers to create a bootable backup partition, much like you would get on a new laptop.
After installing the software I clicked go to advanced options, and got the familiar interface instead of the Windows 8 big colored blocks.
Then I selected Backup.
The first thing it did was lead me through the process of setting up the Recovery Capsule, or recovery partition.
I made the mistake of letting it use it's default setting and later discovered that it wasn't big enough to hold my C:\ drive but it will let you come back later and change it by using a simple slider.
It does this by restarting your computer and booting into what I assume is Linux and then reboots back into Windows when it's finished. I did this twice because of the adjustment.
But you should look at the size of the partition you want to back up at the time you set it up the first time.
Make it as big as the data on your C:\ drive and you won't have a problem since it will be compressed.
Note that if you chose to have the recovery partition on a drive other than the drive that Windows is on, it will warn you that the partition won't be bootable.
My Drive contained 2 partitions, C:\Windows 8 and D:\Games, the recovery capsule became a 3rd hidden partition, it doesn't have a drive letter or show in Windows Explorer.
Once I had gotten it adjusted to the correct size and seen that I now had enough space to backup my boot drive, I backed out, and cleaned up the drive.moving several games from C:\ to D:\ notably The Elder Scrolls Online and The Secret World which totaled 70 Gigabytes of disk space between them.
That got the size of my C:\ drive down to about 175 Gigs.
Next I ran every scan that I have, AVG, SuperAntiSpyware, CCleaner, and Malwarebytes.
Last I completely defragged the drive so it was 100% fragment free.
Now I reopened Paragon and selected backup again.
It asked what did I want to back up, and I selected 3 items, the boot sector, the reserved partition and Drive C\
I unchecked drive D:\ so it wouldn't back it up as well.
I made sure that I selected the correct drive.
My other hard drive has all my software and data spread over 2 partitions.
Then I clicked on Next and it asked me where I wanted to create the backup?
It is set to recovery capsule by default but you can select other options if you want.
You might do this if you were backing up your data drive to DVDs, or and External Hard Drive.
I showed me a summary of what it was going to do and I said go ahead and it's doing it right now.
Right now it say 20 minutes to go.
I thought that I'd come and type this in here before I forgot what I had done, (I'm 75) and it's doing the backup as I speak, (or type).
I'll add a PS when the process completes.
Mike
Note that one thing I didn't do that I should have was to move some of the space from my C:\ partition where I don't need the space to my D:\ partition where I could use it.
Now the backup is complete and in addition I ran Verify on the backup.
Now that, that is done I'm going to read the manual and see if I did it right.
I'll add the final notes after I figure out how to restore it.
I thought that some people might be interested in this.
Yesterday I upgraded my Paragon backup software to the 2014 edition.
I was surprised to see that there is quite a change from the one I used previously.
Instead of asking you to choose a location the save a backup file to (you can still do it that way) it offers to create a bootable backup partition, much like you would get on a new laptop.
After installing the software I clicked go to advanced options, and got the familiar interface instead of the Windows 8 big colored blocks.
Then I selected Backup.
The first thing it did was lead me through the process of setting up the Recovery Capsule, or recovery partition.
I made the mistake of letting it use it's default setting and later discovered that it wasn't big enough to hold my C:\ drive but it will let you come back later and change it by using a simple slider.
It does this by restarting your computer and booting into what I assume is Linux and then reboots back into Windows when it's finished. I did this twice because of the adjustment.
But you should look at the size of the partition you want to back up at the time you set it up the first time.
Make it as big as the data on your C:\ drive and you won't have a problem since it will be compressed.
Note that if you chose to have the recovery partition on a drive other than the drive that Windows is on, it will warn you that the partition won't be bootable.
My Drive contained 2 partitions, C:\Windows 8 and D:\Games, the recovery capsule became a 3rd hidden partition, it doesn't have a drive letter or show in Windows Explorer.
Once I had gotten it adjusted to the correct size and seen that I now had enough space to backup my boot drive, I backed out, and cleaned up the drive.moving several games from C:\ to D:\ notably The Elder Scrolls Online and The Secret World which totaled 70 Gigabytes of disk space between them.
That got the size of my C:\ drive down to about 175 Gigs.
Next I ran every scan that I have, AVG, SuperAntiSpyware, CCleaner, and Malwarebytes.
Last I completely defragged the drive so it was 100% fragment free.
Now I reopened Paragon and selected backup again.
It asked what did I want to back up, and I selected 3 items, the boot sector, the reserved partition and Drive C\
I unchecked drive D:\ so it wouldn't back it up as well.
I made sure that I selected the correct drive.
My other hard drive has all my software and data spread over 2 partitions.
Then I clicked on Next and it asked me where I wanted to create the backup?
It is set to recovery capsule by default but you can select other options if you want.
You might do this if you were backing up your data drive to DVDs, or and External Hard Drive.
I showed me a summary of what it was going to do and I said go ahead and it's doing it right now.
Right now it say 20 minutes to go.
I thought that I'd come and type this in here before I forgot what I had done, (I'm 75) and it's doing the backup as I speak, (or type).
I'll add a PS when the process completes.
Mike
Note that one thing I didn't do that I should have was to move some of the space from my C:\ partition where I don't need the space to my D:\ partition where I could use it.
Now the backup is complete and in addition I ran Verify on the backup.
Now that, that is done I'm going to read the manual and see if I did it right.
I'll add the final notes after I figure out how to restore it.
Last edited: