Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite

I have a paid for version of Acronis 2011 True Image, a paid for version of Paragon Partition Manager™ 11 SE Personal, but only the trial version of the Hard Disk Manager, and it's the 2009 version.

Two questions :-

Will the backups made with the 2009 suite be readable if I buy the upgrade to Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite.

Secondly, I have seen on a Win7 video tutorial, that you can do a bare metal backup of the OS using Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite, with Winpe 3.0, is this possible on Vista?

It seems possible on Vista to do the bare metal back ups
Workstation-only Options : 6 Bare Metal Backup and Recovery Options
Although Paragon is not mentioned here, it would be much the same

Based upon this detail analyis of the procedure, I see no reason why it cannot be done. That being said,I do not know of anyone that has actually done it.
http://windows7forums.com/blogs/mike/247-how-perform-bare-metal-backup-recovery-video.html

Found this great article comparing the different software
http://www.top-windows-tutorials.com/backup-software-review.html#contenders

The usual practice of software manufacturer is to make a newer version, fully compatible with the older version; but not always the other way around.

Hi,

Just to add to the comments above: -

I have used Paragon 6, 9 & 10 (Not 11 though) & I can say that the backwards compatibility is not always followed by these guys. I need to have the different software versions to cover off the back-ups I have by these pieces of software.

So that said, it would not supprise me if you came across issues trying to load the other versions of back-up files.

mm interesting reading rihc, the second url that shows the Win7 bare metal backup, is one of the main reasons I am thinking of upgrading the software, I wanted to know if it would work with vista though before handing over more $$.

That being said at the moment, none of my recovery software bootable CD's seem to work for me, where as once they would find the image and restore my OS, they all seem to be deleting my OS. :huh:.