Full system backup on new partion... please help!

[Paul-JC]

Now that I have my system exactly the way I like it, and everything is running perfect. I would like
to back it up so if I have a serious issue I can come back to this exact point. I have checked the
backup section and was trying to add a partition but I can only get 500MB (or around that).

How can I increase the size suitable to do this. I have 35GB used on a 140GB (the drive is supposed
to be 160 but only says 149GB). There are no other partitions on the drive.

I hope that made sense

Thanks
Paul
--

HP Pavilion DV9417ca Entertainment Laptop
AMD Turion 64x2 1.8GHz
160GB/2GB/Nvidia GeForce Go 6150
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit

 

[Don Farmer]

It makes little sense to partition your system drive and backup to it
because if you lose your hard drive you will also be losing your backup!
Unless you buy an external hard disk, you would backup to DVD's. I've done
this, and it works. Just make sure that you have or can make the bootup DVD
to run the restore program. I bought a retail version of Vista Ultimate and
can use the install disk. I think HP allows you to burn a "Recovery Disk"
that you would use to boot up the restore program. You might want to use
Windows to format the nine DVD's ahead of time before running the Complete
PC backup.

 

[Paul-JC]

If windows crashes, how it that going to effect the other backup partition? the only damage that
would happen to that area would be physical damage. So backing up to a partition would be ok if I
don't do any physical damage, right?! ... In the 9 years I've had laptops and the rest of the years
desktops, I have never physically damaged a hard drive... It's always been a software issue.

Paul

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Now that I have my system exactly the way I like it, and
everything is running perfect. I would like
to back it up so if I have a serious issue I can
come back to this exact point. I have checked the
backup section and was trying to add a partition
but I can only get 500MB (or around that).

How can I increase the size suitable to do this.
I have 35GB used on a 140GB (the drive is supposed
to be 160 but only says 149GB).

All hard drive manufacturers define 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, while
the rest of the computer world, including Windows, defines it as 2 to
the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. So a 160 billion byte drive is
actually about 149GB. Some people point out that the official
international standard defines the "G" of GB as one billion, not
1,073,741,824. Correct though they are, using the binary value of GB
is so well established in the computer world that I consider using the
decimal value of a billion to be deceptive marketing.

There are no other
partitions on the drive.

I hope that made sense

Your question makes sense, but what you plan on doing doesn't. Putting
backups on a second partition is better than no backup at all, but
just barely. It is always possible that a hard drive crash, user
error, severe power glitch, nearby lightning strike, virus attack,
even theft of the computer, can cause the loss of everything at once.

In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept
in the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the
life of your business depends on your data) you should have multiple
generations of backup, and at least one of those generations should be
stored off-site. Backup to an external drive, one that you connect
only when performing a backup, is fine.

Here's an article I wrote recently that will give you general guidance
on backing up: http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=314