Paragon System Backup - 11 Instruction Manual

PARAGON Software GmbH

Heinrich-von-Stephan-Str. 5c  79100 Freiburg, Germany

Tel. +49 (0) 761 59018201  Fax +49 (0) 761 59018130

Internet www.paragon-software.com  E-mail sales@paragon-software.com

Paragon System Backup 11

User Manual

Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3

Product Components ............................................................................................................. 3

Features Overview ................................................................................................................. 3

Key Features ............................................................................................................................................... 3

Supported Media ........................................................................................................................................ 4

How Does System Backup Protect My Computer? ................................................................. 4

Getting Started ...................................................................................................................... 4

System Requirements ................................................................................................................................. 4

Installation ................................................................................................................................................. 5

First Start .................................................................................................................................................... 6

Creating Recovery CD ................................................................................................................................. 10

Contacting Paragon Software GmbH .......................................................................................................... 11

Working with System Backup .............................................................................................. 11

Checking Whether My Computer is Safe ..................................................................................................... 12

Browsing and Using Snapshot Contents ...................................................................................................... 12

Changing Settings ...................................................................................................................................... 14

Backup Strategies ................................................................................................................................................................. 15

Storage and Recovery ........................................................................................................................................................... 16

Email Settings ........................................................................................................................................................................ 16

More Control on Computer Snapshots ....................................................................................................... 17

System and Data Recovery .................................................................................................. 17

Restoring Separate Files and Folders under Windows ................................................................................. 17

Restoring System from Linux Recovery CD .................................................................................................. 19

Restoring System from WinPE Recovery CD ................................................................................................ 22

How to Buy .......................................................................................................................... 25

Unlocking the Product ......................................................................................................... 25

Troubleshooter .................................................................................................................... 27

Our company is constantly releasing new versions and updates to its software, that's why images shown in this manual may be different from what you see on your screen.

Our WinPE bootable environment is available for registered users only.

Introduction

Paragon System Backup™ 11 is an ideal solution for those who feel strongly about the system and data protection issue, but are not willing to stuff their heads with technical peculiarities. Once installed and set up (not a big challenge even for a newbie thanks to catchy hints and a highly intelligent program engine), it will take care of your computer in such a gentle way you hardly know, until a disaster strikes. And when it does strike, System Backup will be ready to get everything back on track.

In this guide you will find the answers to many of the technical questions, which might arise while using our program.

Product Components

 Windows installation package for regular system and data protection. It’s the main component of the product

that includes all the necessary tools to help you safe yourself from a system failure, hardware malfunction or a human factor.

 Linux bootable environment for disaster recovery or data retrieval. You can burn it to a CD/DVD disc with the

program’s wizard to increase your chances of success in case of a hard disk malfunction.

 WinPE 3.0 bootable environment for disaster recovery or data retrieval. You can burn it to a CD/DVD disc with

the program’s wizard. Unlike the Linux bootable environment, it can boast an excellent hardware support and the same interface as the Windows version does. However its system requirements are much tougher.

Features Overview

This chapter dwells upon key benefits and technical highlights of the product.

Key Features

Let us list some of the key features:

 True live protection for system and data volumes. Creating a snapshot of the whole disk system tackles the

problem of backing up running applications and system locked files.

 Reliable snapshot storage location. Our program will find the most appropriate place to store automatic

snapshots taking into account the amount of data stored on all local disks of your computer.

 Backup strategy planning. Our program offers a default strategy for securing a standard Windows PC, which you

can modify to provide maximum security for your personal data with minimal resources and effort:

- You can specify a backup object (all local disks or only certain volumes).

- You can define how many snapshots are allowed in the snapshot storage location.

- You can set what type of snapshots you’d like our program to make. Our program supports creation of full

and differential snapshots.

Our WinPE bootable environment is available for registered users only.

- You can specify exclude masks to automatically ignore irrelevant data (movies, music, etc.) during creation

of snapshots.

- And finally you can set a time-table for regular backup.

 Advanced notification system will keep you informed about the level of danger your system and data are in

through the color indicators (green, yellow, red) in the system tray.

 High efficiency. We don’t overload the system during backup and are really fast (approx. 1 gigabyte per minute).  Smooth system recovery. You’ve got Linux and WinPE 3.0 bootable environments to help you out in case of

emergency. You can burn them to CD/DVD any time you like with the program’s wizard.

 Selective data restore. You’ve got the option to easily extract files and folders from a snapshot without the

need to restore the whole image.

 Wizards from our flagship disaster recovery solutions, including Backup and Restore Wizards, Manage Backup

Capsule Wizard, Synthetic Backup Wizard, File Transfer Wizard, and Recovery Media Builder, can help you set up the required operation exactly according to your demands, for they offer to specify a lot of additional parameters.

Supported Media

 Large hard disks (up to 1,5 TB tested)  IDE, SCSI and SATA hard disks  CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD+R double layer and also Blu-ray discs  FireWire (i.e. IEEE1394), USB 1.0, USB 2.0 hard disks, ZIP® and Jazz® disks  PC card storage devices (all types of flash memory, etc.)

How Does System Backup Protect My Computer?

System Backup employs a snapshot technology to protect a running Windows PC from a system failure or data loss. Snapshot is a common industry term denoting the ability to record a state of a storage device at any given moment (make a snapshot), and then preserve that snapshot as a guide for restoring this storage device in case of emergency.

So a snapshot technology opens up an opportunity to make consistent point-in-time copies of the entire disk system or separate volumes even as the data is being modified, which is actually the only option to protecting running applications and system locked files with minimal impact on your current activities.

Getting Started

In this chapter you will find all the information necessary to get the product ready to use.

System Requirements

For the Windows installation package

 Operating systems: Windows 2000 Professional and later, except for server editions, both 32- and 64-bit  Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher

 Intel Pentium CPU or its equivalent, with 300 MHz processor clock speed  128 MB of RAM (256+ recommended)  Hard disk drive with 100 MB of available space  SVGA video adapter and monitor  Mouse

For the Linux bootable environment

 IBM AT compatible computer with i486 or higher CPU  256 MB of RAM  SVGA-compatible monitor  Mouse (recommended)

For the WinPE bootable environment

 Intel Pentium III CPU or its equivalent, with 1000 MHz processor clock speed  At least 512 MB of RAM  SVGA-compatible monitor  Mouse (recommended)

Additional requirements

 External USB hard drive to store backup data  Recordable CD/DVD drive to prepare our bootable environments  Network card to send/retrieve data to/from a network computer.

Installation

To install System Backup, please do the following:

1. Click on the supplied setup file to initiate the installation

2. The Welcome page will inform that the application is being installed. Click Next to continue.

3. Please Read Paragon License Agreement carefully and then select the appropriate option to accept. Otherwise

you won’t be able to proceed with the installation. By clicking the Print button, the license agreement may also be printed out.

4. On the next page, click Change to install the program to a different location (by default C:\Program Files\

Paragon Software\System Backup 11\). Otherwise click Next to continue.

5. On the Ready to Install the Program page click Install to start the installation or Back to return to any of the

previous pages and modify the installation settings.

6. The Final page reports the end of the setup process. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

7. Once the installation procedure is over you need to restart the system to activate a system driver that will

enable to make hard disk snapshots in the background.

First Start

After the system restart, System Backup will prompt you to go through its configuration wizard. Picking only the most relevant parameters from several wizards and dialogs, it will help you initiate protection of your computer with minimal time and effort. That’s why we strongly recommend you to complete it, because it’s available for one time only.

The first start wizard will guide you through the following steps:

1. On the first page it will dwell on the upcoming operation. It’s just for a get-to-know goal. By clicking on available

hyperlinks you can get additional information on technical terms and notions used in our program.

2. Before analyzing your disk system for a purpose of establishing a reliable snapshot storage location (this is

where all automatic snapshots will be placed to), it will prompt you to plug in an external storage device, if you’ve got one of course.

3. The wizard will sum up the amount of data stored on all local disks of your computer and then attempt to find a

location enough in capacity to hold at least one snapshot of all on-disk data, giving particular preference to external storages, for they can provide a higher level of data protection. When the analysis is over, it will either suggest a place it considers the best to create the snapshot storage location or state that you don’t have any, offering to purchase a storage device of certain capacity. In our case it picks our USB hard drive as the best location.

Anyway you’re free to choose from all suitable locations (if several found) by clicking on the appropriate link.

All resized partitions will be automatically checked for the file system integrity during the next computer’s restart. Please don’t worry, it’s done on purpose.

As you see, the wizard can even shrink partitions to release space for the snapshot storage location, which might require the computer’s restart. Please take it for granted.

4. When done with the snapshot storage location, it will prompt you to plan a backup strategy by modifying our

default strategy for a standard Windows PC (if you need it of course).

By clicking on the corresponding hyperlinks, you can:  Specify a backup object (all local disks or only certain volumes). By default, our program will protect data on

all local disks, which you can change according to your needs. Anyway we strongly recommend you to protect the system partition in any case, for it can help you in most emergency situations. Please note that Windows 7 may have MSR (Microsoft System Reserved), a special hidden partition that contains boot critical files, so to make Windows 7 start up after restore, don’t forget to additionally back up this partition as well.

 Define how many snapshots are allowed in the snapshot storage location (from 1 to 4) to let our program

automatically delete obsolete snapshots to release space for new ones. Keeping several snapshots however

No matter what your time-table for regular backup is, an initial snapshot will be automatically made once the snapshot storage location is ready to use.

enables to reflect different time stamps of your OS and data, which can be your only remedy when, for instance, you accidentally deleted files somewhere in the past and they had already been overwritten by the time you found it out. So we strongly recommend you to keep as many time stamps as possible just in case.

 Set what type of snapshots you’d like System Backup to make. Our program supports creation of full and

differential snapshots:

- A full snapshot includes all contents of a backup object at the moment of its creation. If you roll back

your system to the initial state on a regular basis, that’s exactly what you’re looking for. But if you want to have several snapshots that reflect certain time stamps, unchanged data will inevitable be duplicated in all archives and take additional space on the snapshot storage location.

- A differential snapshot tackles this problem for it only contains data changed since the time of creating a

full snapshot, which forms a base (or a parental image) in this case, thus considerably saving your system resources in case of keeping several time stamps. To restore this type of snapshot a full snapshot and one of its differentials are needed.

 Specify exclude masks to automatically ignore irrelevant data (movies, music, etc.) during creation of

snapshots, thus additionally saving space on the snapshot storage location.

 And finally set a time-table for regular backup. For each standard periodical value (Daily, Weekly, Monthly)

you can additional define a more precise schedule. Despite the fact that you’re free to disable the automatic

snapshot creation at all by choosing the Don’t Back up Automatically option, we strongly not recommend you to do that.

5. As the last step the wizard will configure the snapshot storage location. Depending on your system, it will either

create a folder (for an external storage device) or a special hidden partition (for a local disk) that will stay operable should the active file system be damaged.

When the first start wizard is over, System Backup will inform you through the system tray that everything’s ready to initiate protection of your computer, and as the first action it’s about to make an initial snapshot of backup objects

specified in the backup strategy.

You can open the console at the moment of creating the snapshot to see the statistics or cancel the operation. By clicking on available hyperlinks you can also get additional information on the subject.

+ 19 hidden pages

Paragon System Backup - 11 Instruction Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual