Full Image software backup with Paragon?

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I have both Windows 10 and Windows 11. I have been using Paragon Backup & Recovery software for about a little over a month now. Because the new feature release is coming out soon for both Win 10 & 11. I would like to be prepared. However I have only had my laptop for about a month now and it has Win 11 Home on it. How do I take an image backup of my HD using Paragon? Does this process take a while? Do I really need to do a full image backup?

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I use Paragon and to do a “full” image backup you need to use a Paragon recovery disk.

You boot from the recovery disk, choose the backup wizard, select the drive you want to backup, select the source where you want to put the backup, then apply the changes.

I use a 64GB USB thumb drive (which is large enough to hold both the Paragon S/W and a full image backup of my system drive) plugged into a USB 3.1 port on my PC and it takes ~20 mins to complete the backup.

Of course, it’s also possible to use a “different” source for the backup image but you should make sure it’s plugged in before you boot from the Paragon recovery disk (sometimes the Paragon S/W won’t “see” the other device unless it was actually plugged in when the system powered up.)

BTW, your image backup will not be as large as the drive you’re backing up since it only backs up the “in use” sectors on the disk.

i.e. my drive is 512GB with only 95.1GB “in use” and my current image backup is 34.5GB.

One “undocumented” advantage of doing backups/restores this way is, when you restore the backup image to a disk, it only restores the “in use” sectors and they get restored “contiguously” with no gaps between them (i.e. the disk will be fully defragmented when the restore is done.)

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Thanks,

I have already created Recovery Drives using a 64GB 3.1 USB. What I would like to know. How do I create a full image backup? I have been doing files and folders only on both my Win 10 desktop and Win 11 laptop. One thing I do not know about my laptop is how to get access the boot menu. Lastly, is it recommended to do an image backup on both of my machines before the feature release that’s coming up? If I understood Susan correctly.

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You do not need to boot from the recovery USB to create a full image backup. It can be done from within Windows and will run in the background while you get on with the fun bits.

What you must do is test that you can boot from the recovery USB and can see both the backup files and the disk in your laptop.

A full image backup will allow you to recover from a disk / machine failure, malware infection, theft etc. You can also recover individual files from an image should you need.

cheers, Paul

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Rush2112 wrote:

One thing I do not know about my laptop is how to get access the boot menu.

Getting to the boot menu is a function of the BIOS on the motherboard not Windows and there’s no “default” method to do this for every PC.

Exactly which key (or keys) to press to get to the boot menu varies by manufacturer, sometimes even by specific model family from the same manufacturer, and some PC’s will display what to press “on-screen” during the boot process while others don’t.

My Asus Maximus XI Gene desktop uses F8 (not displayed during boot), my Dell laptop uses F12 (displayed at upper right during boot), and my HP laptop uses F9 (displayed at lower left during boot)

You’ll need to look in the users guide (or search on-line) to find out what to press for your particular PC.

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Paul T wrote:

You do not need to boot from the recovery USB to create a full image backup. It can be done from within Windows and will run in the background while you get on with the fun bits.

I always do it from the bootable recovery disk for 2 reasons.

• It takes significantly longer to complete if done while the disk is “in use“.

• If a sector gets modified after it’s been copied, the image won’t be completely up-to-date.

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Rush2112 wrote:

What I would like to know. How do I create a full image backup? I have been doing files and folders only on both my Win 10 desktop and Win 11 laptop.

The difference is you choose to backup a disk, not files and folders.

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A simple question: Is it possible to make a copy of my C: drive {on desktop PC’s main drive} and put it into my old C: drive which is now my F: drive. They are both SSD’s. On my old C: drive (F:) I have nothing on it at the moment. And how could I go about doing so on my desktop computer?

Another question: Is it possible to copy my current C: drive (in my laptop) as in an image backup using Paragon Backup & Recovery software onto an external HD? I already have a Recovery USB for both my desktop and laptop.

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Why do you want a copy of C? Are you thinking of using a clone to slot in if you have a show stopper on the existing?
I always make images because they are much smaller, more flexible and can be restored anywhere (I use VMs for testing).

Image backups can be saved to any location, Internal disk, USB disk, network location, cloud…

I would not use SSDs for backup / long term storage. They need to be regularly powered up to retain the data.

cheers, Paul

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Having multiple copies of your primary Windows system drive (C:) on the same PC on two different drives is a very bad idea!

Not only could it completely confuse the H/W during boot up (i.e. which drive is the real system drive it should boot) it could also cause Windows to “forget” which drive is the real system drive if you ran a part of the Windows OS from the duplicate drive.

If you really want to do this, put the old drive in an external enclosure and then clone the new drive onto it.

I did this when I upgraded my system drive (although I put the old drive in the enclosure and cloned it onto the new drive in my PC) as a “hot-swap” replacement just in case something happens to my new drive.

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Rush2112 wrote:

Another question: Is it possible to copy my current C: drive (in my laptop) as in an image backup using Paragon Backup & Recovery software onto an external HD? I already have a Recovery USB for both my desktop and laptop.

As @Paul-T pointed out, the backup image can be placed anywhere that Paragon sees as a “valid” destination (note: don’t put it on the same drive you’re backing up as that defeats the whole reason for the backup — restoring that drive if there’s a problem.)

The reason I always put the “image” on the Paragon Recovery Disk (if it’ll fit) is that makes restoring it much simpler (i.e. you don’t need to locate whichever extra disk has the image you want and ensure it’s plugged in when you boot the recovery disk.)

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BTW, please don’t use the term “copy” for creating an “image“.

Copying a drive and making an image of a drive are two completely different, unrelated things so, using those terms interchangeably, is causing confusion as to exactly what you “mean” when asking questions.

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I am beginning to regret making this topic. OK I’ll scrap the idea of making a copy of my C: drive.

All I wanted to know from the very beginning was to know how to create an image of my SSD C: drive. I keep getting the run around. If there is no specific steps in creating an image of my C: drive. Then I’ll give up on my topic. I just want to be prepared for the next feature release and any after that, such as when I migrate my Win 10 desktop to Win 11 at some point.

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Rush2112 wrote:

All I wanted to know from the very beginning was to know how to create an image of my SSD C: drive. I keep getting the run around.

I covered the steps you need to take to create an “image” of your C: drive using Paragon in my first post #2475127 in this thread.

But you keep coming back and complicating things by asking more questions, some of which seem to be unrelated to your original question.

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Just another Forum Poster wrote:

I covered the steps you need to take to create an “image” of your C: drive using Paragon in my first post #2475127 in this thread. But you keep coming back and complicating things by asking more questions, some of which seem to be unrelated to your original question.

In all fairness, you also created confusion by stating that one could only make an image by first booting from a recovery drive, and PaulT disagreed with you. Clearly you prefer to do it that way and that’s OK, but it’s not the recommended way to make an image. Making a “live” image while Windows is running has been a reliable way to image a PC for many years now since Windows 7/8/10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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JohnW wrote:

Clearly you prefer to do it that way and that’s OK, but it’s not the recommended way to make an image.

Recommended by whom?  We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do. We don’t all have to do the same things.

There are quite legitimate and sound reasons for booting from the recovery media in order to create an image.  For one, it insures that one is able to boot from the recovery media.  Unless one is dual booting, that’s the only way one will be able to restore an image backup should it become necessary, which, it seems to me, the OP is referencing.

Rush2112 wrote:

I would like to be prepared. However I have only had my laptop for about a month now and it has Win 11 Home on it. How do I take an image backup of my HD using Paragon?

If he can’t boot from the recovery media, he is not prepared.

I can create/restore drive images from within Windows, from the other side of my dual boot, from the Windows Recovery Environment (Settings > Windows update > Advanced options > Additional options > Recovery > Advanced startup > Restart now), from my TBWinRE USB boot drive, or from my BootIt UEFI partitioning USB boot drive.

All five of those methods accomplish the same thing, just from different directions.

I must say I support @alejr in his instructions to @Rush2112, a newcomer to Paragon imaging;

Rush2112 wrote:

I have been using Paragon Backup & Recovery software for about a little over a month now.

Rush2112 wrote:

One thing I do not know about my laptop is how to get access the boot menu.

As stated earlier in this reply, If he can’t boot from the recovery media, he is not prepared.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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bbearren wrote:

Recommended by whom? We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do. We don’t all have to do the same things. There are quite legitimate and sound reasons for booting from the recovery media in order to create an image. For one, it insures that one is able to boot from the recovery media. Unless one is dual booting, that’s the only way one will be able to restore an image backup should it become necessary, which, it seems to me, the OP is referencing.

I agree that it’s absolutely essential that one can boot from their recovery media. That is still required in order to restore the disk volume, and unless that boot recovery is tested I agree that one is totally unprepared.

I have also been making images “live” from Windows since Win2000 and XP. Never had an issue doing it that way, even though I have experience with using Clonezilla and offline imaging of Linux systems.

Have always tested my recovery environment though!

But I much prefer imaging Windows from a running system. For instance that is the only way I can have my images made on autopilot every night while I’m asleep. The backup scheduler wakes up my Win10 system, makes the daily image, and then goes back to sleep without me having to supervise it. I just review the logs in the morning. 🙂

Like you said, we all have our own reasons for doing what we do. If it just works, we tend to continue to use that method.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Rush2112 wrote:

I am beginning to regret making this topic.

I feel I should apologize for the direction your topic has taken!

As a new user of Paragon Backup & Recovery, you created it to ask how to make an image backup using that S/W and, as a long time Paragon user myself, I provided instructions for the method I use that I know works.

I can understand your frustration and confusion because, from that point, this thread has veered off course into the merits of various different ways to make an image backup with none of them actually providing any further help in answering your “original” question.

At this point, I’d suggest you download the Paragon manual and use it for the instructions you need.

Note: the manual at that link is for their “full featured” Paragon Hard Disk Manger because they don’t actually provide a separate manual for Backup & Recovery (it’s part of that product.)

Although some of the features in it won’t be available to you and the screenshots won’t “exactly” match your product, the sections dealing with backup/recovery still apply.

Page 17 shows the two different screens available from the Paragon Recovery Disk (I use the Linux version because I find it easier to navigate the menu options vs the WinPE version.)

Pages 19 – 23 cover all the different options available for making a backup; you should already be familiar with the Files/Folders option.

To make an “image” of your drive, follow the instructions for creating a Disk/Volumes backup instead.

Good luck!

1 user thanked author for this post.

JohnW

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I have learned how to access the boot menu on both my desktop and laptop.

I have created an image of my desktop computer if by creating a disk/volume backup is an acceptable method. Though it may not be the preferred method. I am learning.

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As long as you selected the “disk” like this and not just certain volumes (i.e. partitions) on it…

Then it’ll be an image of all the “used sectors” on the whole drive.

To restore it, boot from the Recovery disk containing that image and select the restore disk/volumes option.

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I did just that as displayed in your image.

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I have an additional question regarding my backups. With Paragon, do I need to perform both files/folders backup and disk drives backup on either of my Win 10 and Win 11 machines? Or does the disk drives backup combine what is already in my files and folders upon backing up?

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Disk backup is to allow recovery in the case of catastrophic failure. It is large and relatively slow.

File backup is to allow you to retrieve an old file, either because you deleted it or changed something and need the original. You run these more often, only backup modified files and have multiple backups of your files. They are also a lot smaller and faster than a disk backup.

cheers, Paul

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So in other words, I should continue to do a weekly backup of both the disk backup and file/folders within Paragon’s software? Or is the disk backup not as important just as long as I have it in case I need it?

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Monthly is more than enough for a disk / image backup.

Make a file backup after making changes you don’t want to lose.
I perform a file backup every day but I have a NAS so it’s no effort.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks, I had been wondering about that. I don’t know what a NAS is or even know if I have one. I do use my Win 11 laptop daily and my Win 10 desktop occasionally. I probably should get in the habit of doing a file backup more often since it doesn’t take too long on my laptop or desktop for that matter.

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Make your backups a regular thing. Set a timetable or schedule — once a day (my preference) or once a week, but something. Your backups stand between you and disaster.

Your backup process doesn’t need to be fancy and it can be manual. Get one of your backup hard drives, plug it into your computer, start the backup software, when finished unplug the backup hard drive.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
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NAS = Network Attached Storage = a cloud store at home / office

You could save the files from your laptop to the desktop, then backup the desktop occasionally.
Then you only need to make an image of the laptop once every few months / after a major update or software install.

cheers, Paul

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For years I’ve used Paragon 12 and know it inside out. I’ve only gotten a Win10 laptop this week and it’s a real shock from Win7. 12 won’t install on Win10 so I upgraded, and have spent hours reading the manual and trying different things. My one question is this: After I make a full disc backup of the drive that has the C drive on it…is that backup fully bootable after a restore? If it is, I’m gold. (And I understand that by “bootable”, unless it was copied to a ssd, that I can swap into the laptop, I’ll still need a bootable usb, which was the first thing I made.) Thanks in advance.

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A full disk image, when restored, is bootable. But you must boot from the bootable rescue USB and point at the image on an external drive to do the restore.

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That is something in which I know nothing about, sorry.

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He means “Take your ‘first thing I made’ bootable USB, boot from it (by changing the boot order in your BIOS on restart), then use Windows File Explorer to locate the drive you saved your backup to.” Select the correct date of the desired backup and restore to whichever disk you choose. Remember, sometimes the letters of disks are changed during this process, so disks should be labeled, e.g., “System,””Data,””Backup,”etc.

Zig

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From Paragon support How to create USB recovery media

This article is valid for all 15 versions of Paragon Software.

To restore a backup image, boot from the Recovery USB, select Restore backup and follow the prompts to select the specific backup you want to restore.

Note: if the backup is located on an “external drive“, it must be plugged in when you boot from the Recovery USB or Paragon won’t see it.

In my case, I used a 256GB Kingston USB stick for my Recovery USB specifically so a full image backup would easily fit on the same USB stick I boot from to restore it.

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