CampTune or iPartition - Recommendations Before Purchase?

[sixth]

Hello All!!

So as a usual user, I thought 40 GB would be enough space for my Windows bootcamp partition. Turns out...I need more and I need to resize it. What is the recommendation between these two apps? I am running lion on a MBA. Obviously camptune is cheaper but I want something that will work and not blow up.

Thanks!!

Jonathan

 

[johnhurley]

Hello All!!

So as a usual user, I thought 40 GB would be enough space for my Windows bootcamp partition. Turns out...I need more and I need to resize it. What is the recommendation between these two apps? I am running lion on a MBA. Obviously camptune is cheaper but I want something that will work and not blow up.

Thanks!!

Jonathan

I never heard of either one of those apps ... most people do it semi manually.

You can backup your win partition, use bootcamp assistant to delete the current one, re-create it bigger again thru bcd, and restore. Several variations of how to accomplish that ...

 

[Quad5Ny]

I used to use iDefrag from Coriolis Systems all the time (before I bought a few SSD's) and I never had any trouble with their software.

Based on that experience, I would go with iPartition.

 

[DougDingle]

Camptune worked pretty well for me resizing partitions.

The people at Paragon seem to understand disk structure and partitioning quite well.

And as a bonus, Camptune will allow backup and restore of your entire Mac physical hard drive (both Mac and Windows partitions) to an external or network drive, although you do have to have it installed on the network share machine to do a restore (no boot disk option).

 

[ECD]

Experience with CampTune 9.5

Camptune worked pretty well for me resizing partitions.

The people at Paragon seem to understand disk structure and partitioning quite well.

And as a bonus, Camptune will allow backup and restore of your entire Mac physical hard drive (both Mac and Windows partitions) to an external or network drive, although you do have to have it installed on the network share machine to do a restore (no boot disk option).

Looks like paragon has camp tune 9.5 out. Primarily it looks like a partitioning/resizing tool but it also has apparently some backup capabilities of getting both mac os x and bootcamp partitions backed up at same time.

Did some looking around for reviews of 9.5 but did not find much.

I am somewhat interested as it would be nice to have 1 tool that gets both sets of backups at one time. Currently I am doing some double duty in backups ( time machine for mac os x and win 7 system imaging for bootcamp ).

Any other relevant thoughts? Paragon seems like a reliable mac os software company ...

Thanks John

I recently purchased Paragon CampTune 9.5 This product is very similar to Acronis True Image Home 12 that I use to regularly back up and restore my Windows 7 PCs. I believe that I successfully made a full back up of my Mac Mini, HD, including both the Mac partition and the Bootcamp partition onto a Seagate External HD formatted NTFS. The backup completed successfully, but I have not tested it performing an actual restore operation. The reason is that I use my Mac Mini with its Windows 7 Bootcamp as my Media Center. It has been working perfectly for two years. The setup of the system took me a fair amount of time, and as long as it is working, I do not want to screw things up by a failed restore. If and when the mini needs to be restored, I will find out if I made a good purchase from Paragon.

I purchased my Mac Mini in January, 2010. It has the 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, has a 320GB SATA Hard Drive, and I have not updated the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Operating System. I immediately used bootcamp to install Windows 7 and set it up to to have Windows Media Center record and play back all of our TV shows, Netflix, etc., on our wide-screen TV. I use a Hapauge usb digital tuner plugged into my mini, along with a SiliconDust HDHomeRun tuner that communicates with the Mac Mini over Ethernet cable to provide a total of 3 tuners. The shows record onto the bootcamp partition and when I need more space, I transfer them to my Windows Home Server which provides 5TB of storage.

Paragon CampTune 9.5 works in the following way. You install CampTune onto your Mac OS X environment. It's only function is to allow you to burn a Boot Disk CD. This boot disk functions exactly the same way as the emergency boot disk available in Acronis True Image.

With this CampTune Boot Disk in the mini superdrive, you then reboot the system, and you see three icons on the screen: a HD symbol for Macintosh HD, a HD symbol for Windows (bootcamp), and a CD symbol that is also labeled Windows. You double click on the CD icon. The display says Windows is loading files …, and then says Starting Windows. Paragon CampTune runs in what is called a WinPE environment for performing backups and restores.

Once CampTune loads, you are presented with a nice layout offering lots of options, including Installing Windows OS, Resizing partitions, various Tools, and Backup and Restore operations.

Upon selecting Backup, a Backup Wizard lets you check boxes to backup the complete Hybrid HD, or just the Mac or Bootcamp C-drive. I chose to backup up the complete Hybrid HD. I had already moved all recorded TV off my mini, so the wizard showed that the size of objects to back up was 298 GB, and the estimated archive size was 35.6 GB.

Next, the wizard let me decide upon compression level (I chose normal), image splitting if you want to back up to DVDs ( did not split the image).

For backup destination, I chose my Segate External HD. I set up a new folder on the Segate drive, and named my backup file. I was also given a window to enter a comment describing the archive.

Next, you see a summary of the backup. Click Next, and the backup begins. The full backup took 33 minutes to complete.

Looking at the restore process, you are provided with a very clear, straightforward wizard where you can restore only the Mac HD, the Bootcamp HD, or both.

As I mentioned earlier, I did not restore the mini because I did not want to take a chance on messing up a system that is currently working perfectly. Since I have searched for comments from other users on the various Mac forums, and have not found a single review of a successful restore using CampTune, I did not have the courage to try it myself. It is shocking to me that with so many discussions on the MacRumors Forum for Windows on the Mac, there are no others confirming that CampTune reliably works.

 

[johnhurley]

The backup completed successfully, but I have not tested it performing an actual restore operation.

Using a backup strategy without having tested each and every part is living on borrowed time. Of course it is way better than having no backup strategy ...

It really does not cost much for a new hard drive.

It might be seriously worth testing it out by first shutting down and pulling out your current drive and testing your recovery on a new ( different ) drive.

That way you always have the option of going back to where you started.

Yes I did look at camp tune but thought ( as you noted already ) curious how little usage it seems to be getting. Curious that no one ( that I could find back when I looked anyway ) is reporting on it very much.

 

[DougDingle]

Using a backup strategy without having tested each and every part is living on borrowed time. Of course it is way better than having no backup strategy ...

Yes I did look at camp tune but thought ( as you noted already ) curious how little usage it seems to be getting. Curious that no one ( that I could find back when I looked anyway ) is reporting on it very much.

I have since used it on several occasions to back up and restore (clone) a bootcamp'd drive, and each time was successful, so confidence level is high, and I would recommend it.

The only caveat is, as I've said before, you must install a copy on the drive from where the restore is being done - it has no facility to make a boot disk to run it. What I did was install a copy on that machine, connected the drives to hold the restore via eSATA, and off I went.

I think its lack of boot disk, hence having to restore from a working machine, is what's kept it from being popular. Camptune is, however, the ONLY program I've found thus far able to properly image and restore a bootcamp'd drive.

 

[ECD]

Paragon CampTune 9.5 Boot Disk

I have since used it on several occasions to back up and restore (clone) a bootcamp'd drive, and each time was successful, so confidence level is high, and I would recommend it.

The only caveat is, as I've said before, you must install a copy on the drive from where the restore is being done - it has no facility to make a boot disk to run it. What I did was install a copy on that machine, connected the drives to hold the restore via eSATA, and off I went.

I think its lack of boot disk, hence having to restore from a working machine, is what's kept it from being popular. Camptune is, however, the ONLY program I've found thus far able to properly image and restore a bootcamp'd drive.

I do not understand your comment. As I explained in my posting above, my entire backup operation using Paragon CampTune 9.5 was accomplished using the bootable image on the CD originally created by CampTune. With that CD, you boot into the WinPE environment on the created CampTune boot CD by rebooting the Mac, then pressing and holding the option (alt) key while starting up the Mac, you then select the CampTune startup CD. From that point, you are working in a Windows environment. It seems to me that this created CampTune boot CD is an emergency boot disk. A restore operation is done using the same boot disk. I am a relatively inexperienced Mac user, so please explain what am I missing here? If the Mac OS were corrupted, wouldn't the Mac hardware still be able to boot up enough to be able to see the CampTune boot CD and allow for the restore?

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It might be seriously worth testing it out by first shutting down and pulling out your current drive and testing your recovery on a new ( different ) drive.

That way you always have the option of going back to where you started.

Thanks, John. I agree with your comments, but after viewing the video on how to replace the HD on my late 2009 Mac Mini, for me, the HD changeout is a bit more than I want to attempt at this time, since I do not need a larger drive, and I have a perfectly operating setup. I prefer to take my chances, and wait until I need to do a bootcamp restore. From the comment above by DougDingle, it appears that CampTune 9.5 does make a reliable backup.

 

[DougDingle]

Seems to be version dependent. The version I have (9.5 Special Edition) came bundled with some other Paragon software, and does not support making a boot CD. Your version apparently does. Now that I know, perhaps I'll buy the full version, because the software worked well for me when I needed it.

 

[ECD]

Seems to be version dependent. The version I have (9.5 Special Edition) came bundled with some other Paragon software, and does not support making a boot CD. Your version apparently does. Now that I know, perhaps I'll buy the full version, because the software worked well for me when I needed it.

Good, I am glad this confusion has been resolved. It seems to me that there is no reason at all for bootcamp users to morn the passing of Winclone. Paragon has so very much more to offer in its CampTune 9.5, the full version, in its ability to make Windows installation simpler, make it easy to re-size the bootcamp partition, and provides a simple means to back up and restore the Mac, Bootcamp, and the full hybrid system -- all at a bargain price of $19.95

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/camptune/

For anyone who would like to read a PDF copy of the CampTune user guide, it may be found at:

http://www.paragon-software.com/docs/CampTune9_eng_user_guide.pdf

This shows exactly how the product works, and all of the things it will do.

 

[jhencken]

what do you recommend...

for backing up the BootCamp partition before resizing?

I never heard of either one of those apps ... most people do it semi manually.

You can backup your win partition, use bootcamp assistant to delete the current one, re-create it bigger again thru bcd, and restore. Several variations of how to accomplish that ...

 

[ericjanota]

iPartition crashed and killed my 8TB drive

This is the first time I have used iPartition and it crashed within seconds of starting to partition an 8TB RAID5. After it crashed it came up with a message that an error had occurred and that I should not proceed. So now I have 8TB of data that I can't touch with no guarantee that it will work when they get back to me.

It didn't work for me and I am not going to trust this software. At this point I am asking for my money back. My drive is already dead and I can't imagine that I am going to trust anything about what they have to say to fix it. It seems they could only make things worse and I would never trust this drive now that it has failed using their software.