The most recent articles from Personal Computer World

How to use Windows Vista’s Shadow Copy

Matthew Andrews — 2009-03-19T16:59:00.000Z

Matthew Andrews, Personal Computer World, Thursday 19 March 2009 at 16:59:00

Take snapshots of all files and folders on your hard disk

Paragon Drive Copy & One-Click Backup 2009 disk management and backup software

Matthew Moore — 2009-03-11T09:45:00.000Z

Matthew Moore, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 11 March 2009 at 09:45:00

Drive Copy and One-Click Backup is a complete package for those who want graphical control over storage and backup management tasks.

Drive Backup 9 Professional is the Windows utility supplied with the software. It offers a good range of backup and disk management tasks and an intuitive wizard-based interface.

This version offers some useful new features: we were impressed by the ability to make sector-based backups for quick recovery, which you can supplement with incremental file-based backups to save space on backup media. You can also recover Windows Vista or 2008 Server to a new hardware configuration after replacing a failed component, and there is support for multiple OSs through the GUID Partition Table (GPT).

Drive Backup puts tasks in a pending operations list until you confirm, a useful defence against deleting or overwriting data. You can clone a hard disk, backup or restore from a PBF (Paragon Backup Format) file with a few clicks, or choose more specialised disk operations.

You can boot from the CD, too. However, used and unused hard disk space is shown in virtually the same shade of blue, and hard disks aren’t referred to consistently between Paragon Drive Backup 9, CD operation, Windows and error reporting.

Better diagnostics, error reporting and signposting would improve this product. When trying to save a 15GB boot disk image to a larger disk, Drive Backup returned an uninformative ‘I/O error on hard disk 5’, and frustratingly referred us to Checkdisk to fix a minor cluster fault with an iTunes temp file.

The ease of use and the powerful features across a range of media and operating systems make this useful for managing backups and files, especially over a small multiplatform network.

Diskeeper Undelete 2009 Pro

Paul Lester — 2009-01-05T16:35:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Monday 5 January 2009 at 16:35:00

Recover important files and Office documents with ease

If you’re concerned about losing vital files and documents from your PC, it would be wise to invest in a file recovery application such as Undelete 2009.

The ‘Pro’ edition we tested enables you to recover files across a network, so it’s ideal for those running multiple machines with a Lan at home. For half the price you can pick up the ‘Home’ edition, which offers a similar range of features without network support.

The initial installation enables you to run an instant recovery or set up the program on your system, which replaces the Windows recycle bin with Undelete’s more powerful alternative. The former is a useful option as it prevents files being copied to your computer, which could overwrite deleted content and prevent you performing an effective recovery.

Once installed you’ll find a new recycle bin with a Windows Explorer-style interface, allowing you to browse by folder layout or perform a search for specific files or types of file on your computer’s drives.

The new version improves on previous efforts by effectively eliminating the performance overheads involved in additional monitoring processes, as well as incorporating a ‘Secure Delete’ feature that uses industrial-strength algorithms to permanently delete content from a drive.

You can also perform a ‘clean wipe’ that will do the same for an entire partition, and create a dynamic recovery bin that automatically adjusts the recoverable size limit based on how much free space you have available. Another feature of note is version recovery for Microsoft Office documents, which allows you to revert to previous versions of files even if you’ve overwritten the current one.

Undelete 2009 is very easy to use and offers an extra level of security that should offer peace of mind for home users. The unobtrusive nature of the software and its low price mean that there are very few reasons not to invest in an upgrade to the recycle bin – you’ll feel more comfortable knowing it’s there.

Review: Acronis True Image 11 backup software

Paul Lester — 2008-01-28T00:00:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Monday 28 January 2008 at 00:00:00

Is Acronis still leading the line in home backup and security?

True Image 11 is the latest in a long line of backup and recovery suites from Acronis, with this version offering a range of powerful new features and support.

The most notable new addition here is the Try & Decide feature, which uses a Secure Zone (a protected partition inaccessible by conventional software) to test any alterations to your system before they’re applied to your main partition.

This works extremely well, and is a great way to reduce system crashes and helps prevent clutter slowing down your computer. The backup set has also been refined, allowing you to protect your system state including Registry and boot files. You can save the current state of specific applications for later restore and backup your emails.

In addition to these tools, a range of disk utilities will help you securely delete data, files, folders and system activity from your hard drive. You can clone disks by copying partitions to another drive, perform boot-time restore and even continue using your computer while a restore is under way. With effective smart scheduling, along with set-and-forget backups, this latest version is the least intrusive yet, and by taking a wizard-based approach it’s also easy to use.

One thing to bear in mind is that many of the features require you to have a substantial amount of free hard drive space to take full advantage of the high level of protection, though with hard drives so cheap these days having to pay for a little extra storage isn’t something that should put you off.

Being reasonably priced, there’s really no excuse for not utilising software such as this to protect your home computer. And if you own a previous version of True Image, the powerful new tools in this release mean it’s well worth upgrading.

Review: Acronis True Image 9.1 Server backup and recovery software

Alan Stevens — 2007-07-26T00:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Thursday 26 July 2007 at 00:00:00

Powerful and flexible imaging tools for server recovery

Disk imaging specialist Acronis sells a range of products designed to protect network servers and provide for rapid recovery in the event of a hardware crash or other failure.

We tested True Image Server for Windows, which can be used to back up and recover any version of Windows Server from NT 4.0 onwards, including, in the latest release (9.1), 64-bit versions.

There’s also an implementation for use with Linux and an Enterprise suite (£519 ex Vat) that supports both platforms with centralised management. A version to protect user PCs – True Image Workstation – is also available.

Installation is very straightforward – simply run the setup program and restart. A familiar Windows console is then used to manage the software with task-driven wizards for most of the operations involved.

We found it easy and quick. We were able to take a complete backup of the 12GB boot partition on our test server in about 15 minutes.

Everything on the disk was copied in that time and we were able to further reduce the impact by using the new differential backup option to copy only changes made since the last backup was saved.

A new selective file backup tool has also been added, along with the ability to exclude specific files and verify an image once a backup has been taken.

Images can be created while the server is in use with tools to control CPU utilisation, disk writing speeds and network bandwidth to limit the impact on other business operations.

Support for the Microsoft Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS) is yet another fe ature, making it possible to back up running Exchange, SQL Server and Oracle servers.

However, VSS isn’t universally supported and other third-party applications may need to be shut down to ensure data integrity.

For our tests we created images on a network share but there are many other options. You can choose to create a special protected partition on the local server disk – the Acronis Secure Zone.

Nas and San storage can also be used, along with a wide variety of removable disk and tape devices with, in the latest release, the ability to copy images to DVD without the need for separate third-party software.

Bootable disks can be created, along with PXE and ISO disk images for use with virtual servers.

A built-in scheduler is provided to automate the backup process with command line scripting tools. The local console includes a task monitor with a group server for centralised monitoring in the enterprise suite.

Recovery from an image is equally easy with more options. As well as recovering a complete disk, it’s possible to mount the image file and selectively recover files just as you would an ordinary disk or network share.

You can even boot from an image and start using the server before the recovery process has completed, a technology Acronis calls Snap Restore.

It’s now possible to recover an image to non-identical hardware, although to do this you’ll need the optional Universal Restore add-on (£149 ex Vat).

When it comes to price, the Acronis software is far from cheap. However, it compares well with the leading backup applications, doesn’t need special backup hardware and in the event of a disaster, could pay for itself several times over.

Review: Beinsync 3 Pro synchronisation software

Emil Larsen — 2007-06-08T00:00:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Friday 8 June 2007 at 00:00:00

An easy way to share, synchronise and backup files, all for a reasonable price

Beinsync lets you synchronise your folders on various machines so you're never without your files.

The program has a Windows Explorer type layout and individual folders can be selected for sharing.

After installation you're guided through the process of setting up folder synchronisation; series of popular folders are suggested, such as My Pictures and Internet Favourites.

When you select a folder you must leave the first machine on while you sync. All file transfers are performed using a direct peer to peer method. Data goes through various ports and there shouldn't be any firewall issues. It takes a few seconds to connect and despite a slightly worrying "connected (behind nat)" message on our test machines, which any Bit Torrent user will know means crippled speeds, Beinsync went flat out transferring files as fast as our upload link could manage.

Folders can be shared via an email link, so even if your friends and family don't have a Beinsync account they can access a selection of files. Using this method, the PC where the files are hosted acts as a form of web server; everything is encrypted and browsing the shared files is a simple list or thumbnail affair.

Beware though, any email address you insert into the Beinsync share files field is automatically set up with an account, so some people may not appreciate emails from Beinsync saying they have a password and access to a certain account.

Another feature lets you log in to your PC through any web browser to give you full access to every file and folder on your PC, whether it's been set up to share or not.

Online backup is also provided; 1GB with the free version and 5GB with the professional version. It’s simple to set up scheduled or one off backups and files are hosted by Amazon, which Beinsync claims offers a reputable service and adds piece of mind that your documents are safe.

Beinsync is priced at £30, which is not a lot to pay for such a flexible service. However, the real value lies in the free version; this has the range of features the Pro version offers, but limiting them to five shared folders (down from 15 in the Pro version).

Additionally the Pro version can have up to five computers synchronised with the same files (as opposed to two with the free edition) and can store unlimited old versions of synchronised files - useful should you make accidental changes.

Review: Orlogix Novabackup Server Edition backup software

Alan Stevens — 2007-05-11T00:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Friday 11 May 2007 at 00:00:00

At last, a server backup program that isn’t rocket science

Backup software tends to be expensive and difficult to get to grips with, especially when it comes to servers where most of the products are aimed at large companies with terabytes of data and complex applications to protect.

For those with more modest needs, however, Novabackup Server Edition is well worth considering, offering solid backup protection in a format that’s affordable and easy to use.

It’s important not to be fooled by the low price; Novabackup is a very complete solution, designed to protect servers running Windows NT or later. Moreover, backups can be taken using a variety of devices, from traditional tape drives to removable hard disks and writable CD-Roms and DVD-Rams, with target devices automatically detected and configured ready for use during installation.

With the latest v7.5 release too, it’s possible to copy and mirror files to another location rather than store them in compressed backup format. This enables users to recover lost data themselves while the file copies can be performed on demand or scheduled like regular backup jobs.

Anti-virus scanning is another useful feature, using software from Norman for which updates are provided free of charge. It’s also possible to back up and copy open files, to save having to shut down applications or log users off before backups are run. No extra software is needed as this option is implemented using the Volume Shadow Service (VSS) in Windows XP, 2003 and Vista. Unfortunately, earlier versions don’t offer it, but it’s a very useful facility for those that do.

What we liked most, however, was the simplicity of Novabackup. Advanced users can drill down to fine tune the various options if they want, but the default interface is a simple menu of wizards that makes it easy to create backup, restore, copy and disaster recovery jobs.

Each step is itemised with clear instructions when it comes to choosing what to back up or restore, the device to use and so on. You can then run a job immediately or save and run it later with all the usual options to schedule executions also available.

Job progress can be monitored on the screen with several levels of logging plus the ability to email logs to a named recipient when a job finishes.

Performance, naturally, depends on the source and target devices involved, but we found the program very quick, with facilities to compress data to further enhance both throughput and capacity. As such we were able to take full backups of a Windows 2003 Small Business Server in just a couple of hours. We were also able to include network shares on other servers and desktop PCs, although you can’t capture remote registry and other information required to recover such systems.

You do, though, get integrated disaster recovery for the host system, requiring access to a writable CD-Rom/DVD drive to create a special boot disc. This can then be used to start and recover a crashed server from a backup with no need to first reinstall the operating system or the backup software.

On the downside there’s no support for anything other than Windows and no central management console if you need to deploy the package on a number of servers. Still, if it’s a standalone server backup program you want, they don’t get much cheaper or easier than this.

Review: Paragon Hard Disk Manager disk management

Paul Lester — 2007-03-14T00:00:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 14 March 2007 at 00:00:00

An all-in-one suite for managing your hard drive and data backups

Hard disk management is something that concerns everyone at one time or another, but the majority of computer users simply utilise the rather basic but fairly capable tools provided with Windows.

Paragon’s Hard Disk Manager combines all of these and more into a single user-friendly application. The program is split into four main categories. You’ll find a selection of tools to create, format and delete hard disk partitions, along with options to manage existing partitions by merging or redistributing free space.

You can also create, schedule and manage backups, and create copies of either entire drives or selected files as well as use additional management tools to check archive integrity or build recovery discs to safeguard against worst-case situations.

It’s a pretty extensive feature set, and one of the most impressive aspects of the software from a usability point of view is the wizard-based operation and the amount of information you’re provided while you carry out a task.

Formatting, repartitioning or backing up data always requires a great deal of care to prevent unwanted data loss, and the way Hard Disk Manager keeps you informed at each stage of the process is one of its biggest strengths.

You’re given examples on the state of your computer in ‘before’ and ‘after’ views and provided with warnings or further information to qualify the state of your system throughout the change. In addition you can undo the majority of actions extremely easily, so there’s distinct peace of mind – something new users and beginners will particularly appreciate.

The full version of the personal edition is available for around £30, which is extremely reasonable considering the wide range of tools on offer. You can also download a demo from our site to check out the advantages of the package for yourself before you buy.

There’s plenty of tuning software around that serves as little more than a different interface to tools already present in Windows. But, Hard Disk Manager combines plenty of new tools as well as offering a user-friendly and informative interface for managing your PC.

This version isn’t compatible with Vista, however a free upgrade to version 8.5, which will include Vista compatibility, will be available on release. See Paragon’s Vista site for more information.

Review: Lexar Image Rescue 3 data recovery

Karl Foster — 2007-03-13T00:00:00.000Z

Karl Foster, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 13 March 2007 at 00:00:00

Recover your accidentally deleted photos with ease

Digital camera menus are such that it’s common to find Delete Frame sat next to Delete All Frames, or Format Card, hence catastrophic data loss is often a button-press away.

There are plenty of data recovery utilities on the market, many aimed at rescuing the content of scuppered hard drives, but Lexar’s Image Rescue specialises in recovering media files from flash memory.

This latest version not only tracks down deleted Jpeg, Tiff and Raw files, but it also extends to wayward Wav, mp3 and movie files, making it of interest to those with card-loaded portable media players as well as to photographers.

Image Rescue takes about 10 minutes to disgorge the hidden content of a 2GB Compactflash card - which in our tests was a much-abused, formatted and re-formatted Lexar Professional 80x card.

The results were surprising. Files long overwritten were hauled from the card’s cells. In fact, we’d forgotten about some of the images that the program rustled up for saving to disk or for burning, such was their antiquity.

The wizard-based approach of the Image Recovery section makes the procedure simple and it’s a revelation to see the extent of what can be reconstituted.

The obvious next step in our testing was to head for the Advanced Tools to format the card and then see if Image Recovery could find anything. Which it did - everything from the initial recovery, in fact.

Thankfully, for those aiming to keep files from prying eyes, there’s the means to securely erase the card.

Image Rescue also works with Secure Digital cards. And, should you buy certain Pro and Premium SD/CF cards, including the latest 300x Professional UDMA CF, it’s free. Not a bad price for such impressive software.

If it could be pointed at hard drives and other devices, rather than just cards, and be configured to recover any file, Lexar would have something inordinately tasty on offer. As it is, Image Rescue 3 is a great buy for anyone relying on flash-memory storage of photo, audio and movie files.

Review: Laplink PCmover PC maintenance migration software

Paul Lester — 2007-03-02T00:00:00.000Z

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Friday 2 March 2007 at 00:00:00

Laplink is back with an all-new PC cloning tool

Unless you’re new to the world of PCs you’ll remember Laplink’s data transfer software, one of the earliest and most straightforward ways to transfer data and files directly between two machines.

PCmover is Laplink’s modern day Vista-compatible equivalent, intended to completely transfer programs, files and settings from a source machine to any number of destination terminals.

It’s a fairly straightforward piece of software supplied with a Laplink USB2 cable.

It’s worth noting that once you set up the software and register, you tie up the PC as the sole source machine.

You can set up copies on as many destination machines as you want though, and we see it most likely being in a network environment to set up a range of similarly configured PCs.

If you follow the instructions carefully it’s straightforward to install the software and get the cloning process underway, although we were disappointed at how little control you have over what’s transferred.

There are a few settings for more advanced users and you can choose which drives to copy across, but you don’t have much control over individual files or folders, or which elements of your Windows environment you want moved.

With the process underway we transferred around 40GB of data in two hours through via USB2. This isn’t a bad time, especially considering you’d often be copying a lot less.

Once the transfer is complete, you’d expect to simply restart the new machine and then be looking at a clone of your source machine. However, there were a number of issues with our freshly cloned PC.

To start with it’s more of a merge than a clone. Start Menu and Desktop items were present from both machines.

The biggest problem was that most of the applications that are now ‘installed’ from the old PC wouldn’t work, complaining about invalid installations or registry entries and requesting a reinstall.

In fact the only thing that did seem to be okay was the file structure, and you can handle this yourself by straight copying files and folders.

Based on our experience with Windows, we’d expect, over time, to encounter other problems with improperly transferred contents.

While the transition appeared to be fairly smooth, the end result certainly gives you this impression.

Not wanting to spend the next few days reinstalling applications, we attempted to run the ‘roll-back’ routine supplied with the software, only to see our machine reboot to what was apparently exactly the same state.

Running it again seemed to get things back to normal but overall it was a frustrating experience.

There is an additional synchronisation tool on the disc, and while this appeared to work in our tests, we wouldn’t like to rely on it based on the behaviour of the main application.

We came to the conclusion that while it may take a little more effort, it’s far safer to just install Windows and whatever applications you need from scratch, as you would usually do, rather than rely on PCmover.

While the software may be a tad more stable with a less cluttered system than the one we used, we still wouldn’t advocate using it over the small amount of extra legwork required to perform the process manually.

Also consider:

Group Test: Drive imaging software

We check out the best migration software available

O&O Disk Image

Keep complete copies of hard drives to prevent against data loss

Orlogix Replace MyPC Suite

Transfer data from one PC to another, while securely erasing files from your old hard drive

All backup tool reviews

Review: Bullguard Backup software

Emil Larsen — 2007-02-19T00:00:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Monday 19 February 2007 at 00:00:00

3GB online backup with scheduling

Bullguard Backup aims to cater for all your backup needs by either archiving files locally (i.e. on a CD or external hard drive) or on Bullguard's remote servers.

After installing the software, you get access to the key feature: 3GB of online storage. If you already have Bullguard Antivirus, this backup service will integrate seamlessly within the same interface.

The software lets you quickly upload a popular selection of files (eg My Documents, My Photos, My Music, Desktop, Outlook and Outlook express emails) as well as your own selection of folders. Regular backups can also be scheduled.

Bullguard limits upload speeds to 110kbytes/sec. Although this isn't such a problem for home users since it's more than most UK broadband connections can manage, office users with much faster connections will find it creates an annoying bottleneck.

128-bit SSL encryption ensures data is uploaded securely and, although the software doesn't advertise it, you can access your online drive from other Windows PCs by directing an internet browser to https://backup.bullguard.com. This requires Internet Explorer 5.5 and above, and won't doesn't work with Firefox.

The price of this product will put many off. The initial outlay of £19.99 gets you a one-year 3GB subscription. It's then £10 per year extra for every subsequent gigabyte, which is expensive compared to Mozy's 2GB of free storage, BT's 1GB and Xdrive's 5GB, which also comes with scheduling.

For those with larger storage requirements, 50GB of storage is typically available from several different providers for around $5 per month.

Bullguard's software is very easy to use, but at this price we'd expect around 10GB of storage.

Also consider:

Diino online storage

2GB of free online storage

Logmein Backup

Perform simple backups by spreading your data around multiple PCs

Databarracks Buddybackup

Fed up with the cost and hassle associated with traditional backup tools? Try this free alternative

All online storage reviews

Group test: Drive-imaging software

Terry Relph-Knight — 2007-02-02T00:00:00.000Z

Terry Relph-Knight, Personal Computer World, Friday 2 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Disk-imaging applications can help protect data - we take a look at five

Your personal data, and the digital working environment it occupies, can easily become the most valuable aspect of your system.

In the past the software tools for preserving these assets were split into backup utilities and environment migration utilities.

Now a new generation of disk-imaging software is emerging that combines elements of both, along with enhanced usability. In this group test we review five of these disk-imaging programs.

Many PCs are now sold with the operating system and applications pre-installed as a compressed hidden partition on the hard disk.

In the event of a serious corruption or deletion of the OS, or applications that are installed on the main working partition, providing there is no hardware fault, the system can be restored to its original condition from the hidden partition. However, this doesn’t protect your work files and is ineffective if there is a permanent hard disk failure.

Backup has always been a foreign concept for the average home PC user, at least in part because of the extra work, time, cost and complexity involved.

Probably the only way this situation will ever really change is if backup is built in to the operating system and hardware and by default happens automatically and transparently to the end user. At least some versions of Windows Vista will include a basic imaging utility that uses the VHD (Microsoft virtual hard disk) file format.

For some time the only suitable media for low-cost backup with suitable speed and capacity has been an auxiliary hard disk.

The availability of low-cost external drives, with USB2 and/or Firewire interfaces, is beginning to make personal backup a more palatable proposition. Now let’s look at the best tools for the actual job of getting the data onto these drives.

This article is part of a group test of drive-imaging software.

See also:

Acronis True Image 10 Home

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8

R-Tools R-Drive Image 3.0

Runtime Software Drive Image XML

Symantec Norton Save & Restore

Graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf download above.

Editor's choice and recommended buy is on the next page.

Working with disk images

With hard disks today commonly offering between 80 and 500GB, disk images are large awkward things to manage.

Some of the imaging software in this group test offers an almost bewildering range of options, so it helps if you have a clear idea of the various features available in your chosen imaging software and a clear strategy for your approach to image backups.

The other half of the solution

The big stumbling block for many people when backing up or imaging a system is that the software is only half the solution.

Image storage, in the form of a Firewire or USB plug-in drive, or a network server with dedicated imaging space, is also required.

Even with image compression, this will need to be close to the size of the source data set. Luckily the price of large internal hard drives is now reasonable, and even external drives (pictured) are dropping rapidly in price: these are much more convenient as they can be removed and stored in a safe place away from your PC. You can even make your own external drive by buying a DIY enclosure for around £20 or so.

Different types of backup

Image backups of many gigabytes can take a long time so many new imaging applications allow incremental and/or differential backup after the initial full image is saved.

Incremental backups save space and time, since a chain of incremental files, each file containing only the changes made since the previous file, is created. This continues until a specified number of files are reached and then the process starts again. Incremental backups are vulnerable to breaks in this chain of files.

Differential backups also start with a full backup, but then record only the differences between this and the current state, in a single differential file. Incremental or differential backup, plus compression, can save a lot of time and backup disk space.

Incremental backups allow multiple recovery points, so that your working disk can be restored to the state it was in at different points in time. The number of recovery points can often be specified and the process scheduled, so for example you can choose to save images for each week of your last four weeks worth of work, with an image increment saved every Friday at 6pm.

Rather than using a timed schedule you can also set events as triggers. So for example an incremental backup could be triggered whenever a user logs off, or when a new application is installed.

Image browsing

The huge drawback with the early backup solutions was that the backup files and their contents were, at best, only identified by a log and could not be read or searched for contents.

Modern imaging software includes a browser that allows the contents of an image to be viewed just like an ordinary hard drive or directory, and even allow individual files to be selected and restored.

Editor's choice and recommended buy

Once a very niche category, some of these disk-imaging products are now taking over more of the functions of traditional backup software.

This means your choice will be determined very much by your specific needs for a feature or mix of features.

For example, only the Paragon product runs under Windows 95. If you need to back up Windows 95 PCs, Paragon is your only choice in this group. Or if you want to back up your Outlook files separately, only Acronis True Image 10 Home offers a specific option to do this.

Also, for the four programs that do have built-in CD and DVD burning, each one varies in its list of supported CD and DVD writers – be sure to check before you buy.

R-Tools’ R-Drive Image 3.0 is low cost, very easy to use and has a very reasonable selection of features. On cost grounds, Runtime’s Drive Image XML is unbeatable, because it’s freeware.

It’s also very easy to use, but has limited features and no built-in facility to burn to CD or DVD. In an emergency when you don’t have access to other backup software and need to image a partition, Drive Image XML will get you out of trouble at no cost.

Apart from a few rough spots in the interface, Symantec’s Save & Restore 2006 is easy to use, with reasonable features, but it’s one of the more expensive products and it only runs on Windows XP.

As our overall scores show, the pros and cons of each program balance out to give all five products very similar overall scores, which is good news for buyers and a reflection of the maturity of this software category.

However, it’s our task to choose winners here and, based on its outstanding imaging flexibility we’ve given our Editor’s Choice award to Acronis True Image 10 Home. It’s feature-rich, reasonably priced and offers unsurpassed flexibility.

Although we thought the menu system was a little fussy, the various dedicated wizards make any backup or restore task extremely easy.

If you don’t mind paying a bit more and want extra partition maintenance and recovery tools, Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 Personal is our Recommended choice. Its ‘virtual mode’ default setting could confuse novice users, but its extra features justify the higher cost if you prefer an all-in-one approach.

Group test: Acronis True Image 10 Home

Terry Relph-Knight — 2007-02-02T00:00:00.000Z

Terry Relph-Knight, Personal Computer World, Friday 2 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Quality disk-imaging software from Acronis

Acronis is gaining a growing reputation in the field of disk imaging software. Acronis True Image 10 Home is the simplest of its product range, and the company also makes four other imaging products aimed at the corporate market.

The installation splash screen offers you three choices; install the product, access the user guide or access the technical support via the Acronis website. Installation is straightforward, requiring only the entry of a 25-character unlock code and a system reboot.

Although the user interface is fairly easy to follow, Acronis provides rather a surfeit of routes to achieve the same objective.

The main window has a toolbar with five tool icons. Access to these same tools is duplicated, not only in a vertical menu box along the left edge of the Acronis window, but access to three of these tools is also duplicated in the main area of the window. There is even a dropdown menu, accessed from a text menu along the very top of the Acronis window, which duplicates access to these tools all over again.

This gratuitous repetition is unnecessary, inefficient and just makes the user interface look much more complex and busy than it really needs to be. The main area of the window is split into three; Pick a task, Manage a task or Pick a tool. There are only two tasks shown; backup or recovery. Selecting backup opens the ‘Create backup’ wizard.

The opening step of the backup wizard provides a choice of imaging the entire disk, imaging a partition, or only backing up specific folders or files. This flexibility demonstrates the strength of the Acronis product, as some disk-imaging software is limited to only saving images of an entire disk, or only saving a partition. For example Runtime Software’s Drive Image XML only saves images of partitions.

The Acronis backup options allow even finer detail as, on step two of the wizard, it is possible to choose to back up classes of data based on file extension, or even on file type, such as all video or all audio files.

You can also choose to back up your application settings or your Microsoft Outlook messages, settings, accounts and address book. Acronis True Image 10 Home is the only product, out of the five reviewed here, to allow this level of detail.

The third step of the wizard varies according to your choice of data type to back up, but in all cases it allows specific data selection. On step four you specify a destination for your backup. Acronis True Image 10 Home is the only product in this group test that can create a true hidden partition on the source hard disk as a backup destination. Although this is certainly convenient, it is the least secure backup method because it is the most vulnerable to hardware failure.

Step five allows a choice of full, incremental or differential backup. In step six you can set backup options. In the final steps, you can add a text comment, and see a summary of the proposed backup as well as the ‘Proceed’ button.

As the above description of just the backup procedure shows, Acronis True Image Home is a powerful, feature-rich product. It’s the only product of the five reviewed to already include Microsoft Vista support and it uses Windows Explorer to browse its images to give you a familiar look and feel.

This article is part of a group test drive-imaging software.

See also:

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8

R-Tools R-Drive Image 3.0

Runtime Software Drive Image XML

Symantec Norton Save & Restore

Graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf download above.

Group test: Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 Personal

Terry Relph-Knight — 2007-02-02T00:00:00.000Z

Terry Relph-Knight, Personal Computer World, Friday 2 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Some useful extras in this drive-imaging software make it a good all-in-one package

Paragon, founded in 1994, is an international software company that specialises in disk management and storage management utilities. Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 Personal is its newly released home and small-business product.

As the name implies, this Paragon product is rather more than just a disk-imaging and backup utility. In addition it provides a toolkit for hard disk repair and maintenance. Tools include a Master Boot Record (MBR) updater, a sector editor, a disk defragmenter, filesystem conversion, a disk surface test and more.

Paragon uses the standard Installshield wizard for the installation and once installed, following a reboot, the product is ready to use. For online purchases you receive a key via email that allows download of the full program. Rather than include the ability to generate a recovery CD image from within the main application, Paragon provides its recovery CD as a separate downloadable Iso image which will need to be burnt to a blank CD using a third-party CD burner.

Some disk-imaging products here, such as Symantec Norton Save & Restore or R-Tools R-Drive Image, go to some lengths to make the backup and restore process as simple as possible by using wizards and limiting the information on screen at any time.

Although Paragon also uses wizards to guide you through the backup or restore processes, it will suit those who like to see a little bit more information on the screen. The start screen is particularly informative about the status of the hard disks in a system. For example, it shows the type and version of filing system used on each disk, the disk serial number, the partition IDs and the partition type.

Clicking on the Back Up icon at the extreme left of the top toolbar brings up the Back Up Wizard. Using seven successive screens, this allows you to specify the data to back up, alter backup settings, select the data destination, schedule the backup and check your selections.

On the penultimate screen the wizard displays the message ‘Press Next to start the backup process’. Clicking ‘Next’ reveals a final screen where you click on ‘Finish’ to close the wizard. At this point, if you chose immediate, rather than scheduled backup, you might expect the specified image backup to start. In practice it is necessary to click on the Apply changes icon in the top toolbar before any commands are processed.

This slightly confusing behaviour occurs because, by default, the software runs in ‘virtual mode’, which allows rollback of any command choices before they are committed. This option can be turned off by selecting – Tools – Settings – Virtual mode option. The ‘Allow virtual mode’ box can then be unchecked to allow an immediate response to backup commands. The simple addition of an explanatory message to the appropriate wizard screen would clear up this confusion.

As purely a disk-imaging product and compared to the other four products in this group test, the higher cost and slightly below average backup speed of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 Personal, combined with the slight confusion caused by the Virtual mode option, would result in a low overall score for this software. But the undeniably useful extra features make this an excellent all-in-one package.

This article is part of a group test drive-imaging software.

See also:

Acronis True Image 10 Home

R-Tools R-Drive Image 3.0

Runtime Software Drive Image XML

Symantec Norton Save & Restore

Graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf download above.

Group test: R-Tools R-Drive Image 3.0

Terry Relph-Knight — 2007-02-02T00:00:00.000Z

Terry Relph-Knight, Personal Computer World, Friday 2 February 2007 at 00:00:00

A functional and uncomplicated solution from R-Tools

We previously reviewed Canadian company R-Tools’ R-Studio, a good but complex data recovery tool, in 2006.

By contrast, R-Drive Image is a bit of a welcome surprise, since it is unexpectedly simple and very easy to use. The software features a graphical boot mode that makes it possible to restart directly from Windows to restore data to the system and other locked partitions, in many cases eliminating the need to use a restore CD.

The program does have the ability to generate restore disks, either by burning directly to a CD or DVD, as an Iso image for burning to a CD using a third-party burning software, or even to a couple of 3.5in floppy disks if you wish.

Installation using the R-Tools install wizard is simple and very fast, but does require a reboot. The full downloaded program can be used for 15 days for evaluation purposes. Paying customers receive a registration key by email to unlock the software.

From the start-up screen you are offered eight possible task choices; Create an image, Restore from an image, Copy a disk to a disk, Connect an image as a virtual logical disk, Create start-up disks, Check an image file, Schedule/create a script and Disconnect virtual logical disks.

There is no menu toolbar and all operations are wizard- rather than console-based, so for example clicking the Disk Image icon on the opening screen leads to a series of further screens, as each step of the backup setup unfolds. Images and files are stored with the .arc file extension, a well-established archive file format. Unfortunately R-Drive Image doesn’t provide a log file and, although a progress bar is displayed during a backup, there is no record of time taken to complete a task.

R-Drive Image can create images of single or multiple partitions, a logical disk, or an entire hard drive. It doesn’t provide individual folder or file backup but you can choose to restore individual folders or files from a backup image. The ‘Copy a disk to disk’ option does exactly that, allowing you to make a clone rather than creating an image file. Image verification is a separate step, accessed via the ‘Check an image’ icon. This is a process that can take some time, but it’s certainly advisable, particularly before archiving an image.

All R-Drive Image actions can be scripted, by recording while stepping through the necessary wizard. The script is saved as a command line and can be included and run with other commands in a command-line batch file.

To explore and access the files in an R-Tools image you have to mount it as a virtual disk, by assigning it a logical drive letter using the Connect an image wizard. The image will then appear on the host system as a logical disk and can be explored via Windows Explorer.

R-Tools says that its technical support is available 24/7 and that the average email response time is less than four hours. Telephone support is available from 9am-6pm (Eastern Time), Monday through Friday, but since it’s a Canadian operation, this may limit its appeal to UK residents.

Although it’s not as full featured as some disk-imaging tools there’s something very appealing about R-Drive Image, it looks good and the user interface is easy to use, with no loose ends, or confusing multiple paths.

This article is part of a group test drive-imaging software.

See also:

Acronis True Image 10 Home

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8

Runtime Software Drive Image XML

Symantec Norton Save & Restore

Graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf download above.