Should I temporarily disable antivirus when making system image backup

I plan on making dual system image backups of the main C drive on my computer (which is running Windows 10) with the Windows Backup and Restore Center and Macrium Reflect Free.

It was only after (seemingly successfully) making my first system image backup with the Windows Backup and Restore Center today that the thought struck me that maybe my antivirus program (Bitdefender Total Security) might in some way cause the system image file to be defective. I do not know if this is the case or not.

Should I temporarily disable my antivirus while making system images (with either Windows or Macrium)?

First time I have seen this question asked.......

I have never experienced any problems either during the creation or restoration of images and have never disabled my security software.....

Good to see you are using Macrium; I find it has served me perfectly, never used the native windows software......

kipper said:

First time I have seen this question asked.......

I have never experienced any problems either during the creation or restoration of images and have never disabled my security software.....

Good to see you are using Macrium; I find it has served me perfectly, never used the native windows software......

I just thought it might interfere in some way. Thank you for the information.

By the way, I created a system image backup with Macrium Reflect Free, and then went to verify the image. It's been over an hour, and the "Verify Image" tab is still stuck on "Not Responding" with 0% completed. Is this normal?

No, this is not normal.....

Do you Auto Verify selected in the default settings?

kipper said:

No, this is not normal.....

Do you Auto Verify selected in the default settings?

I don't think so.

Open Other Tasks on the toolbar and select Edit Defaults..........there you will check Auto Verify Image

For now try to close Macrium and reboot your system....

Then open macrium and select Restore and a window will open with your image or images and you will see the Verify Image link.....click on it and see if it will verify the image for you now.....

I wound up having to manually turn off the external hard drive I put the backup on be able to shut my computer down. Shutting down Macrium didn't work, and my computer wouldn't shut down until I flipped the switch on the external drive. Afterwards, I started the computer (and the external drive) back up, opened Macrium, and went to verify it again. This time, it worked without a hitch, and said that it successfully verified the image.

Does the fact that I forcibly turned off the external drive with the images (1 from Windows and 1 from Macrium) on it mean that the images are now suspect, or should they be trustworthy, especially considering that Macrium verified the image?

Not sure why you had the problem with the external drive.....

If Macrium verified and said it was good, then I personally would trust it....

For you own peace of mind......I would actually do the restore with the macrium image and ensure that it works for you.....

I have Paragon HDM Suite and Norton Internet Security.

Norton didn't cause the Paragon backups to be defective. Rather, it just stopped Paragon from backing up system files, and Paragon froze. Norton must have thought Paragon was a virus or malware or something.

All I had to do was go to Norton and whitelist the entire Paragon software folder, and everything worked fine after that.

So just tell your virus scanner to trust or ignore all of your backup program's folders and files.

kipper said:

Not sure why you had the problem with the external drive.....

If Macrium verified and said it was good, then I personally would trust it....

For you own peace of mind......I would actually do the restore with the macrium image and ensure that it works for you.....

I think the problem may be due to the fact that this was the first time I ever ran that drive.

I created another Macrium image to be safe.

Eksy61 said:

I have Paragon HDM Suite and Norton Internet Security.

Norton didn't cause the Paragon backups to be defective. Rather, it just stopped Paragon from backing up system files, and Paragon froze. Norton must have thought Paragon was a virus or malware or something.

All I had to do was go to Norton and whitelist the entire Paragon software folder, and everything worked fine after that.

So just tell your virus scanner to trust or ignore all of your backup program's folders and files.

As Macrium didn't freeze up, it probably worked fine. I might set Bitdefender to ignore it, though.

Thanks to both of you for your help.