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Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac OS X Lite Public Beta Testing

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Anatoly

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Sep 7, 2007
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Dear Forum Visitors,

During last months Paragon has been working on backup/restore software for Mac OS X – Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac OS X Lite. This version will be free and allow Mac users to prevent data loss in case of system crash by recovering vital data to another destination such as a removable drive or network share. It's also intended to backup and restore user's data. Please note, that all popular file systems are supported, even NTFS.

Now the product is in state of Beta 0 and we want to offer you its Public Beta version. It's the second time when we do public beta testing on this forum. There is one big reason for that: we do want to make Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac OS X Lite a useful tool for every Mac user. That's why we need your opinion about it.

What we expect from you:
1. Bug reports (though we hope that there won’t be many). If you find a bug, describe in details the way it can be reproduced. We need every detail, every step. Write your OS version and CPU architecture.

2. Usability issues. We want to make the product as easy to use as possible. Write us what is to be improved or changed. Make your suggestions detailed and reasonable. This will help us to understand them and implement in a right way.

3. New feature suggestions. In fact we don't have much time before the release date to implement new features. Though if a suggested feature is easy to implement or requested by many people, then we will do it.

To download the public beta version, please fill out our web form – http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-mac/beta-test.html

Meantime you can look at our Short Product Description. There is not much text ;)
http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/RK_for_Mac/Short_Product_Description_RK_for_Mac.pdf

Also, please read carefully "Known issues" – http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/RK_for_Mac/Known_Issues_Paragon_RK_for_Mac.pdf
We will do our best to fix them as soon as possible.

We will read your feedback in this thread very carefully. We also excuse in advance about lack of replies. We won’t be able to reply all your posts, but we will do "summary" replies once or twice a day in this thread.

P.S. The most active beta testers will receive all upgrades of this product for free and opportunity to get our latest software solutions with discounts.

Thank you in advance and best regards,
Paragon Mac OS X team.
 
Dear Forum Visitors,

Please help us to build really useful software for Mac uses. Please note, this version will be free and allow to perform unique, easy-to-use backup/restore operations to keep your data safe from disasters.

I am looking forward to receiving your feedback and thank you in advance.

Dear Endeavour,

At the present moment Rescue Kit for Mac OS X does not support Apple Partitioning Map but we can add this feature if this request will be made by many people.

Thanks.

Best regards,
Anatoly.
 
Anatoly,

I've downloaded the beta0.iso, but it appears to be the wrong files, there's no .app or .dmg or anything to install that I could figure out. there is a dos.img, but that appears to be a dos boot disk. There's an .exe in there, which is obviously useless on a Mac.
 
Dear shokunin,

Rescue Kit for Mac OS X is a universal Linux-based bootable image that you can use on both Macs and PCs. Before using this recovery solution you have to burn it to any CD/DVD.
How to burn:
1. Go to the Disk Utility application;
2. Press the Burn button at the top menu;
3. Select the ISO image to burn (Rescue Kit in our case);
4. Burn it to any recordable CD/DVD.

After burning this image you can boot your Mac or PC from this CD/DVD to perform backup/restore operations. Please note, this is our first beta version, so, it's not recommended to perform backup/restore operations with your vital data.

Thank you.
Best regards,
Anatoly.
 
Not to be a grammar troll, but the title of the software, "Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac(R) OS X Lite" feels a bit ambiguous as it seems to imply there is a "Lite" version of MacOS X. A hyphen, colon, or some sort of separator may help, such as, ""Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac(R) OS X - Lite". Sorry if that comes off kinda intrusive, it just felt a little misdirecting. Could count it as me beta testing the name?

Off the name topic, the software seems like a good idea!
 
Dear iPoodOverZune,

This version of the product will be free. Thus, we just would like to release a really useful backup/restore solution for Mac users. Please test it and let me know your opinion.

Dear alaceo,

Thank you for your idea, I think we will add a hyphen.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Anatoly.
 
Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac OS X...

Anatoly said:
Dear shokunin,

Rescue Kit for Mac OS X is a universal Linux-based bootable image that you can use on both Macs and PCs. Before using this recovery solution you have to burn it to any CD/DVD.
How to burn:
1. Go to the Disk Utility application;
2. Press the Burn button at the top menu;
3. Select the ISO image to burn (Rescue Kit in our case);
4. Burn it to any recordable CD/DVD.

After burning this image you can boot your Mac or PC from this CD/DVD to perform backup/restore operations. Please note, this is our first beta version, so, it's not recommended to perform backup/restore operations with your vital data.

Thank you.
Best regards,
Anatoly.
Click to expand...

Greetings, Anatoly...

Followed the above instructions to no avail...

The burned CD:

PARAGON Info
Kind: Volume
Format: ISO 9660 (Rockridge)
Capacity: 41.9 MB
Available: Zero KB
Used: 41.9 MB on disk (43,945,984 bytes)

fails to show up on Startup Disk selector... and... will not boot...

My Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac G5
Model Identifier: PowerMac8,1
Processor Name: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Processor Speed: 1.8 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 1
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 600 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.2.2f4
Serial Number: CK53905RTCK

My Software: Mac OS X Version 10.5.2

Over to you...

Brenda...
 
Some initial observations

The initial boot takes some time with nothing but a black screen. The average user may think something is not working properly. Visual feedback may be useful.

During startup there is only a progress bar. Since the startup takes so long perhaps there should be more "feedback" to the user.

I only tried the file copy routine on my first run. It is painfully slow! It took 340 seconds to copy a 45.5 MByte file from one volume to another. Roughly 8.4 MBytes/minute. I would consider that unacceptable for this particular usage. This should be fixed as a priority item.

My Mac Pro requires the use of an eject key on the keyboard to eject a CD or DVD. The key is not recognized by the running Linux program hence I cannot eject the CD/DVD or the method for doing it is not obvious. This should be fixed.

Although I can understand why the program is a Linux program for cross-platform compatibility, the overall appearance and user experience is definitely NOT Mac-like. It has more the look and feel of a Windows' program. I would seriously consider making a Mac-only version written natively for the Mac with a standard Mac GUI. Based on my initial use of the program I would think twice before paying to purchase it. Especially given the unfamiliar interface and terminology. This seems more a program for the geek than the average Mac user.
 
no startup

I burned a disk with the downloaded file and could not startup from the rescue disk. iMac G5 running sys 10.4.11
 
Anatoly - Hi - thanks: most interesting utility.

a) Your above link to the "Known_Issues" *.pdf gave a 404 - The requested URL /RK_for_Mac/Known_Issues_Paragon_RK_for_Mac.pdf was not found on this server - so forgive any mentions here of issues you are already dealing with.
b) Agree with 'skapplin' about lack of feedback during boot of beta0 - this took 120 seconds in a Macbook Pro 4.1: suggest you give the user some line like: Linux kernel booting, please wait . . .
c) Same applies during reboot - this took 90 seconds with no application response/user information.
d) Function using NTFS satisfacory: backed up the beta0.iso from a HFS+ volume to a USB-interface NTFS volume - took a second or so. Then backed up a 7.2GB *.iso [a DVD9 image] from this USB-attached NTFS volume to my NTFS Boot Camp volume - backup took 6:48, which is a perfectly acceptable 16MB/s or so. Tested both images & they appear identical to source.
e) [Issue] After these operations, the mousepad became very unresponsive - pointer moved slowly & 'stickily' & the trackpad button didn't function [k/b still OK].
 
Additional tools

Hello,

thanks for a wonderful tool!

It would be very useful if you could eventually add some tools that would help fix boot sectors, allow one to set active partitions, maybe even install a Darwin boot loader for people experimenting with running osx86 ...

Many thanks in advance!
 
So far, so good ...

I've been able to burn a CD and boot from it (but I'd rather boot from a USB key).

I haven't actually tried any functions yet, but the GUI is WAY too Windows-like for my taste.

If this product is going to take off in the Mac market, not only does it need to work but it also needs to look good doing so. That's what we're used to.
 
The link
http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/RK_for_Mac/Short_Product_Description_RK_for_Mac.pdf
as well as the next one in the introductory posting in this thread failed with error 404 for me.

I was quite astounded to discover that the cd included a driver for my Apiotek eSATAII Express Card Adapter. Backup was smooth as silk, and I backed up 62G consisting of many small files in about 2 hours on my MacBook Pro 17" Core Duo, 2G memory. I plan to make a fresh backup and try the restore step asap. Thanks.
 
finding the .iso file

Anatoly

Downloading your file in 10.5 produces a virtual volume called "Paragon" on the desktop; the .iso file is hidden in the download folder. I think this will confuse people who are not use to this behavior in 10.5. Perhaps you could put a note in the e-mail you send or on the web site. I'm looking forward to trying the product.
 
This seems more like the old style, Norton Ghost on steroids

The old style, boot from a floppy, Norton Ghost has been one of my must have utilities for a long time. Symantec has bloated the program up to require a DVD to install, reduced the features that I use and made Ghost much more complicated to use over the years.

You seem to have taken the old Ghost, added multi OS/file system support, file recovery support, network support, kept the size reasonable and kept the system simple to use. I haven't tried fire-wire drives yet. It will be nice if you got them working as well. So far so good.
 
I think that this is intel only

brendalana said:
Greetings, Anatoly...

Followed the above instructions to no avail...

The burned CD:

PARAGON Info
Kind: Volume
Format: ISO 9660 (Rockridge)
Capacity: 41.9 MB
Available: Zero KB
Used: 41.9 MB on disk (43,945,984 bytes)

fails to show up on Startup Disk selector... and... will not boot...

My Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac G5
Model Identifier: PowerMac8,1
Processor Name: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Processor Speed: 1.8 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 1
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 600 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.2.2f4
Serial Number: CK53905RTCK

My Software: Mac OS X Version 10.5.2

Over to you...

Brenda...
Click to expand...

While they do state in the manual under hardware required "intel cpu," you do have to be one of those small minority of oddballs that read manuals from cover to cover to find that information. After retiring from the military, I had reading the manual driven into my head so many times that I do it automatically.

Paragon, please make it clear to people that don't wade through every line of fine print that this only works on i86 (intel CPUs) only. Having said that, it seems to work just fine on i86 AMD CPUs as well.

Sam
 
I backed up my Leopard internal boot volume and attempted to restore to another external disk. Both operations appeared to proceed smoothly. However, the restored volume was not bootable, and the repair button was not available in Disk Utility when the restored volume was selected. Several characteristics of the restored volume were quite unusual, which I discovered by trying to work with the volume, first in Disk Utility, then using Disk Warrior. Disk Warrior's repair was not able to properly rebuild the disk's directory (many files and folders were put into the rescued items folder). I performed these actions using my MacBook Pro 17" Core Duo (May, 2006). I was restoring to the external drive through my Firewire 800 port. I suspect that there may be a problem with Rescue Kit's ability to correctly access that port. I may try again, this time executing the restore to the same drive while it is connected through my ExpressCard eSATA adapter (that's the way I created the backup). I can't boot from a drive connected that way, because the Mac's ability to access the device depends on a third party driver which loads during startup, but I can hopefully determine whether the restore process might be more successful when using the eSATA adapter.
 
File browser

As a suggestion for improving the "file transfer wizard": it would be much more intuitive and user-friendly if there were a browser with two independant panes that can navigate to different partitions and directories, and buttons for copying files in one direction or the other, or deleting or renaming them. (Rather than the "clipboard" method now used.)

It would also be very useful if it displayed the sizes and modification dates of the files.
 
OK: made 2x backups of the same [NTFS] BootCamp volume to a) a USB2-attached HFS+ [GUID] external HDD & b) a USB2-attached NTFS external HDD.

HFS+ target took 25 minutes to write 10.5GB backup [in 5x 2GB files]; NTFS target took 12 minutes for the same backup.

Looks like the HFS driver may need a little work . . . . 8.xMB/s is really a bit slow nowadays . . & since Mac users are *much* more likely to have HFS external storage this is a real user-issue.

Also noted [again] 'sticky' touchpad & non-functioning touchpad button after leaving Paragon beta0's backup screen, making reboot/shutdown commands potentially unnerving for less experienced users. This is on a Penryn Macbook Pro.
 
Mac Compatibility

To all those veteran Mac users who never read the manuals (GRIN) - Paragon's PDF Manual for Rescue Kit clearly states on Page 5, under System Requirements: "X86-compatible processor". That quite clearly means INTEL. Question to Paragon Development Team: Do you plan to add support for PPC Processor Macs? There are still a LOT of them in use out there, and your product would best be able to compete in the Mac "Repair Utility" marketplace if it offered dual-platform support (your competition does). Thanks for your excellent efforts, and I look forward to seeing you implement many of the improvements suggested by us "Beta Testers" in your final release product.
 
mikeguru said:
Paragon's PDF Manual for Rescue Kit clearly states on Page 5
Click to expand...
Where did you get the manual? It didn't seem to be included in the download disk image. The link for information at the top of this forum thread is broken. Oh, I found it at the bottom of the signup page. I still wish the info link at the top of this forum thread worked.
 
Although both backup and restore processes seemed to flow smoothly for me as I described previously in this thread, the restored volume was not usable. Has anyone else been able to successfully backup and restore an HFS+ boot volume to a GUID partitioned hard drive for an Intel Mac? My problem seemed not to be related to the system version involved. The problem is that although the volume created by the restore process seemed at first to be viable, I soon discovered that its file system was irretrievably corrupted. One factor that may be involved is that my source volume for the backup was not as large as the single existing volume occupying the entire available space of my restore destination disk, which resulted in the apparent necessity for Rescue Kit to repartition the destination drive, resulting in a restore target volume of the same size as the backup's source volume, leaving the rest of the device's available space uninitialized (unallocated). i was unable to view the partitioning of the target device in Disk Utility after I had restored to it, which was the first clue that something was wrong.
 
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