I have used Drive Backup 9 Pro for years on an XP system to backup and occasionally restore partitions (and occasionally individual files) without problems. I use the Linux based Boot CD to do this, with the backups on an external USB drive.

I now have a new Win 7 Pro 64 bit machine and have tested the above system and find it is far from satisfactory. The backups get made OK but restoring them is a nightmare. When I try to restore the small system drive partition and the main OS partition (using Restore from image, both over the existing undeleted partitions and to 'free space' after deleting the partitions and with or without updating the MBR):

(1) whatever I do, the restore happens as 'Copying files...' not 'Data writing...' and is painfully slow. Instead of seeing the backup image files being processed, each individual files is copied across. I am used to transfer rates of about 1GB/min, say 20 mins for a 20GB of data partition (and this is roughly what I got during the backup) but the restore (approx 20GB of data) takes 2hours 30min.

(2) sometimes it just freezes and I have to start all over again (no bad sectors reported by the way, and it is a new system)

(3) after doing the restore, the system won't boot to Win 7. I get cryptic error messages and an invitation to use a Windows Installation Disk to 'Repair Your Computer'. Luckily I had a repair disk and that did repair the system - again little to say what happened, but it did something to the boot sectors/records?

This renders Paragon unusable: the point is safe and reliable backup and restore, and it ain't happening. Before I make a move to another backup and restore system I wanted to ask, as Paragon has served me well in the past:

(a) how can I get back to fast (and reliable) 'Data writing...'

(b) what should I do to get a bootable PC at the end of the restore process?

Many thanks

lostInTrans