EXACT IMAGE

Data backup has never been so easy and reliable. The unique Paragon Exact Image solution guides you through the sequence of well-designed, intuitively understandable wizards, while the smart Paragon Engine, qualified with more than 10 years' experience, does the job. It creates an exact hard drive backup image and protects your PC environment in the most simple and effective way, providing you with complete system and data backup.

Choose the entire hard drive or a part of it with Backup Wizard, schedule regular backups with built-in Task Editor, create the secure Backup Capsule for keeping your backup image out-of-eye, and restore at any time with Restore Wizards.

No need to study sophisticated technical issues to keep your data safe. No need to call for some specialist to arrange the backup process. No need to worry about your data security any more.

Screen Shots

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Visual Synopsis

	$39.95

What our tester has to say...

I use Drive Backup SE to back up server boot partitions. It saves me hours if not days in case of a drive failure. You can buy basically the same program for your laptop or desktop system at a bargain price.

This is not really a file backup. Therefore, you do not find any program shortcuts. Instead, Exact Image backs up your entire drive or partition. That is a lot of data, but should you ever lose your hard drive, you will pat yourself on the back for using Drive Backup. So, when disaster strikes, all you need to do is go and buy a new drive. Install it and boot the recovery CD included in the Exact Image package. Select the image to restore, and after an hour or so, your machine once again will boot Windows just the way you remember it. No looking for all the program disks. No searching for all these program keys. All the pictures are back...well, you get the idea.

Of course, if there is a need, you can restore a single or multiple file or any number of file folders. The only thing absent from my favorite tools list is the e-mail after completion. But, Paragon constantly works on updating their products, so we may see the feature next time.

Exact Image is easy to use, and even a novice can do it after reading the help file. The only situation I was a bit confused with was the creation of the backup capsule. It's a great idea and you should look into it. Basically, the capsules are in a partition by themselves safe from the viruses and spyware you download. So let me save you 5 minutes on setup time—you need to select UN-partitioned space for the capsules.

In case you opt for the download delivery, you download the ISO file, insert a new CD-R and double click the image. Before you know it, you have a bootable recovery CD. Paragon really outdid themselves and definitely gets all my stars.

Drive Backup Personal vs. Exact Image

As you may have noticed, Drive Backup has many of the same features. They both are published by Paragon. Exact Image offers the Backup Capsules while Drive Backup also lets you do cloning and some other basic partition work.

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What the vendor has to say...

Paragon Exact Image 7.0 is a unique backup product on today's market. It combines the power of Paragon Engine (famous for being used in many Paragon products) with incredible convenience and ease of use. An intuitive, wizard-driven interface allows you to perform routine backup operations without any setbacks and the necessity to study some difficult technical issues. Just follow the way Exact Image's wizards drive you to the goal that even experienced system administrators often are not able to achieve. This goal is to keep your computer always protected against any data loss.

Backup Wizard is the main feature of Exact Image solution: It will help you to create the backup of your data, choose where to keep it and protect it with a password.

Task Editor builds a schedule of regular backups for you and keeps an eye on their performance without interrupting your activity.

Backup Capsule is a unique feature of Exact Image providing you with the most secure place for keeping your backup image on your hard drive, preventing accidental deletion or unwanted access to it.

Restore Wizard, as well as Simple Restore Wizard, is intended to restore your data in the case that something unpleasant happens to them or to the whole operating system.

Paragon Exact Image also includes some very helpful features, such as Image Explorer, made to browse your backup archives for separate files and folders with possibility to extract them, and Recovery Media Builder for creating bootable CDs/DVDs to use when you are not able to start your operating system in a common way.

Here is the full list of Paragon Exact Image features:

Backup/Restore Features
Backup/Restore an entire hard disk
Backup/Restore a separate partition (primary, extended, logical)
Backup/Restore the first track of a hard disk
Backup/Restore the MBR
Backup/Restore a combination of disks, partitions etc. to/from one archive
Restore a separate partition from a backup image of the whole hard disk
Restore separate files and folders from backup archives
Save backup archives to local/network drives
Burn a backup archive to CD/DVD (or write them to ISO-image files for later burning)
Set archive names and add comments
Interrupt backup operations if necessary

Advanced Backup/Restore Features
Hot Backup of locked partitions
Reboot to the Windows Blue Screen Module (Windows NT/2000/XP) or to the DOS Module (Windows 9x) when backing up locked partitions (if Hot Backup is disabled)
Backup/Restore to/from the Backup Capsule
Create bootable archives on CD/DVD
Save backup archives to physical partitions (without drive letters assigned)
Resize while restoring partitions
Verify data when writing

Backup Settings
Disable/Enable Hot Backup (always or only when a partition is locked)
Process all sectors one by one or do not process unused sectors
Skip auxiliary files (pagefile.sys, hyberfil.sys)
Control archive integrity
Compress backup images (No/Fast/Normal/Best)
Encrypt and protect backup images by password
Split backup images (set split size)
Set burning speed (Maximum/Medium/Minimum/Automatic selection)
Set image file names automatically

Scheduling Features
Set types of scheduling (Once/At system startup/At log on/Daily/Weekly/Monthly)
Set a date and time of starting scheduled backup
Manage scheduled tasks by Tasks Editor

User Interface Features
Flexible and adjustable launcher interface
Wizards for all operations
Embedded HTML browser with navigation through toolbars and menus
Multiple means of control and navigation (pull-down menus, user-defined menus, toolbars, active icons, bookmarks)
Contextual operations
Display hard disk configuration in graphic form
Display partition types, file systems, total size, size of used and free space
Display estimated archive size
Display operation progress in graphic form and step-by-step
Display archive information

Supported HDD Interfaces
P-ATA (IDE)
S-ATA (SATA)
SCSI
IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
USB 1.0/2.0
Support large hard disks (up to 500GB tested, 2TB in theory)

Supported File Systems
NTFS (v1.2, v3.0, v3.1)
FAT16
FAT32
Ext2FS
Ext3FS
Linux Swap
Actually, any file system can be backed up and then restored, requiring just some more memory for keeping the resulting backup image.

Supported CD/DVD Formats
CD-R
CD-RW
DVD-R
DVD-RW
DVD+R
DVD+RW

What the user has to say...

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