Easeus Todo ?

[The Howling Wolves]

I am running Vista Home Premium and I do a weekly backup on MYBook external HD.
My question is do I need to perform and Image along with the backup and if so is Easeus Todo(free) ok to use and can I/should I save the image to MyBook External HD?
I am new to this and would appreciate help if you have time. There is no rush as my system has been cleaned inside the box and inside the HD. No more bugs!

 

[SIW2]

It is a great idea to make regular backup images of your Vista partition regularly on an external drive. Any serious trouble - just restore the image. With any image app. it is safest to run off it's boot cd first - boot it up and make sure it works on your machine ( it almost certainly will - better to check).

Todo is ok . Not very efficient and very few functions . Much better freebies are available.

If you are quick , you can get this - it is only going to be free till the end of Tuesday 19th jan 2010 UK time .

Paragon Backup & Recovery Compact Free registration

Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Compact [32-bit]

Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Compact [64-bit]

If you miss that , this is always available free:

Backup & Recovery 10 Free

B&R10 Free Registration

Another good one - not as many features as the Paragon apps. - but can go very fast.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

Hope it helps.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

It took some time to backup but it was a PBD file. How do I open a PBD file? Is there a file association that I have to download from the web?

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

If you used Paragon - it's .PBF

That is Paragon Backup Format.

You can restore it, or examine it , or copy individual files and folders out of it using the Paragon program .

Open Paragon program and select File Transfer Wizard, or Volume Explorer, or click the Archive Tab. Then dble click the .pbf, then dble click the partition - you will see the files and you can copy back just one or two.

Otherwise, to restore the image as a whole, select Restore -from the menu.

All that can also be done from the boot cd. Suggest you run it off - click Tools >Recovery media builder.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have a PBD file - then sounds like you used Easeus. Todo works , but it is not very quick, is heavy on resources, and has very few functions.

You need to Open the Todo program ( or boot the Todo cd you ran off from within the program ) , and select the restore function.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

I downloaded Paragon like you suggested and I wasn't paying attention but really screwed up! I copied this to my main drive "C" and not to my external drive MY BOOKS. My C drive is now almost full. Now what do I do? In C drive it list a bunch or arc files dated 1-19-2010 is it safe to remove them? Stuck on stupid!!!

Or can I drop and drag to K where the external drive is?

 

[SIW2]

Yes, just move the arc folders to the external - will take a while if they are large.

You will still be able to use them to restore - just browse to them with Paragon when needed.

You might run checkdisk on the external before you do that - specially if you haven't done it for a while - you don't want to be saving your backups on a drive with any filesystem corruptions.

Go to Computer - rt click drive K-select Properties>Tools >Check Now , Automatically fix file system errors. [The second option for bad sectors takes a long time - probably don't need it ]

 

[The Howling Wolves]

In the windows folder under C there are some dated 1-19-2010 should I drag them too?
In fact, I will look at all folders and if they are dated 1-19-2010 I drop and drag them too!

 

[SIW2]

You probably only need the arc folders .

 

[The Howling Wolves]

I got you initial message this morning about Paragon vs. Easeus Todo so I downloaded Paragon and registered it for free. So without hesitation I started the backup and it took almost 4 hours. So after looking at MY Books EH and seeing nothing transfered it all went to the C drive I contacted you.
I started to drop and drag and saw it was going to take along time, which I don't have so I deleted everything dated 1-19-2010 making the C drive lean and mean again. Does it normally take 4hrs to do a back up?
So, if you have time, take me step by step to make an image of C on my external drive K starting with Smart Backup and which box to make a check mark in.
If you don't have time I will understand.
Thanks for you patience!

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

On an average desktop, Paragon will backup about 1.5gb used space per minute. The image ( on normal compression level) will be 50-60% the size of the used space.

It appears you have a laptop - you will have a much less powerful processor - it will take longer, obviously.

You can help the process.

1. Delete all shadow copies (restore points ) except, possibly, the last one.

System Restore

System Restore - disk space

2. Run extended disk clean. Type: cleanmgr /sageset:1
in start search. When it pops up - tick ALL the boxes, except set up log files, OK.

Then type in start search box, cleanmgr /sagerun:1

That will clean a lot of junk safely.

Will post how to do the backup in a mo.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

Don't have a laptop and my C drive shows 80GB used out of 400. I will start doing steps 1 and 2 now and will post back when both of us are ready for the next step.
Thanks again for hanging in there with me.

 

[SIW2]

You won't need to do all these steps every time - it will remember the options you set up.

Select Backup Disk or Partition.Tick C drive, Tick change Options, click Next.



Untick archive integrity, Untick split image , select Normal compression.



Under the Exclude Options - make sure nothing is ticked.



Select Local drive as the destination



Highlight the partition you want to save the image to (In your case , highlight K )



Backup Now



Confirm the options



Click Finish , then click Apply.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

Just got finished in 56 minutes. Can't thank you enough for walking me thru it and the advice of going with Paragon (free) this morning. You are the BEST!!!

 

[The Howling Wolves]

Hi,

If you used Paragon - it's .PBF

That is Paragon Backup Format.

You can restore it, or examine it , or copy individual files and folders out of it using the Paragon program .

Open Paragon program and select File Transfer Wizard, or Volume Explorer, or click the Archive Tab. Then dble click the .pbf, then dble click the partition - you will see the files and you can copy back just one or two.

Otherwise, to restore the image as a whole, select Restore -from the menu.

All that can also be done from the boot cd. Suggest you run it off - click Tools >Recovery media builder.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have a PBD file - then sounds like you used Easeus. Todo works , but it is not very quick, is heavy on resources, and has very few functions.

You need to Open the Todo program ( or boot the Todo cd you ran off from within the program ) , and select the restore function.

Because the files are .pbf and I double click it then sends me to the web to search for pbf file extensions or associations. Do I need to download something else to open these pbf files?
On my original back up dated 01-17-2010 I would click on a certain # and it would open to ;ie MS Office

 

[SIW2]

Don't click directly on the .pbf files in windows Explorer - do it from within Paragon.

To restore the entire image - select the Restore Wizard .

To restore ( copy back ) individual files from an image - select File Transfer Wizard:



Browse to the arc - click the + next to it, dble click the .pbf and keep expanding the folders - just like in windows. When you see one you want to copy back - click the green arrow to copy it to the Paragon clipboard, click Next and select where to copy it back to.







Another way is under the Archives Tab - again , click the +, dble click the .pbf, dble click the partition - find what you want , rt click and select Export.



btw - 56 mins is not bad.

 

[SIW2]

I recommend creating separate partitions with your o/s and installed programs on one partition - they are probably on C. Make at least one more partition to store your data e.g. pictures, music , videos - whatever you have a lot of.

The reason for that is it is much quicker and easier to back up and restore smaller partitions. Also general housekeeping, e.g. defrag, running checkdisk etc. is easier and quicker.

Most importantly, if you do need to reinstall, or restore an image of the operating system - the data on the other partitions remains untouched.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

Let me get to know Paragon and all the little tricks before I venture doing Partitioning.
You are a great teacher and I thank you again.

 

[SIW2]

You're welcome.