New user Q: Where are the backed up files? Cant see folders and files, only P01 etc

[allDDD]

I just did my first backup to an external drive. I went to check out the files, and they are all have cryptic names and are called P01 file, P02 file etc.
I expected to be able to see the files in the format that were on the laptop I backed up (with the folders and file names).
Is this just how Paragon works, and if you want to get your files back you have to somehow restore everything? I wanted to be able to access individual files if I wanted them.

[emmrecs]

Short answer to your question re file names: Yes. Those slightly cryptic names are exactly how Paragon software chooses to store the back-ups. I suspect this is because each Paragon "file", if you look at its size, is "normally" 4GB and so may contain any number of original source files (if they are less than 4GB in their native state). If a source file is considerably larger than 4GB I would suspect that, even with the compression that the back-up software uses, it is entirely possible that any one Paragon file will NOT contain ALL the data from the original source.

As to whether it is necessary to restore a "whole" back-up, I think that will depend upon the type of back-up you created. I'm currently running HDM Advanced 16.5 and have not, so far, needed to use the Restore facility. I previously ran HDM 15 SP5 and that did allow me to restore only named, specific files.

HTH

[allDDD]

Short answer to your question re file names: Yes. Those slightly cryptic names are exactly how Paragon software chooses to store the back-ups. I suspect this is because each Paragon "file", if you look at its size, is "normally" 4GB and so may contain any number of original source files (if they are less than 4GB in their native state). If a source file is considerably larger than 4GB I would suspect that, even with the compression that the back-up software uses, it is entirely possible that any one Paragon file will NOT contain ALL the data from the original source.

As to whether it is necessary to restore a "whole" back-up, I think that will depend upon the type of back-up you created. I'm currently running HDM Advanced 16.5 and have not, so far, needed to use the Restore facility. I previously ran HDM 15 SP5 and that did allow me to restore only named, specific files.

HTH

Thanks. This gets tricky as there's no way to tell if the backup works without doing a complete restore. Most backup SW you can test by restoring a couple of files.

[emmrecs]

Thanks. This gets tricky as there's no way to tell if the backup works without doing a complete restore. Most backup SW you can test by restoring a couple of files.

Does the version of the Paragon software you have (BTW, what is the product you are using?) not offer the option to Verify the archive? Certainly, HDM 15 did and HDM 16 also does.