Microsoft Backup Tool

[Guest]

I initialize the tool in my Windows Vista Home Premium operating system and
insert a DVD-RW in my drive and navigate through the auto play to get back to
the tool, it prompts me for formatting, i click OK. format starts but after a
few minutes an error pops up to say "The Format Was Unsuccessful" but I can
still see DVD drive activity (learned the hard way it is still formatting)
but if I click OK or Cancel on the error window then the tool locks up, if I
leave the error window alone until I see no DVD drive activity then click OK
and try again the backup tool will again prompt for formatting but then it
realizes the DVD is formatted because I let it do it's thing until I seen no
drive activity. After this then the actual backup starts until the full
backup set is created and each DVD-RW is formatted using the same technique.
Any fix for this backup tool? This is not proper behavior.

 

[John Hanley]

When I started out with my Vista Home Premium computer, I tried
to use DVD's as my backup media; however, this was futile for me because it
took too long and used many DVD's. I bought an external 160 GB USB drive
for about $60 that I use solely for automatic backups and that has made my
computer
backup management a breeze.

 

[Guest]

Thanks John but I was able to do the backup on 3 DVD-RW's, DL would be 1.5 in
theory if I used them. I have an external 160GB but I prefer the DVD's, just
need to know if there is a fix for this out there, didn't get one on Windows
update.

 

[Don Farmer]

I initialize the tool in my Windows Vista Home Premium operating system and
insert a DVD-RW in my drive and navigate through the auto play to get back
to
the tool, it prompts me for formatting, i click OK. format starts but
after a
few minutes an error pops up to say "The Format Was Unsuccessful" but I
can
still see DVD drive activity (learned the hard way it is still formatting)
but if I click OK or Cancel on the error window then the tool locks up, if
I
leave the error window alone until I see no DVD drive activity then click
OK
and try again the backup tool will again prompt for formatting but then it
realizes the DVD is formatted because I let it do it's thing until I seen
no
drive activity. After this then the actual backup starts until the full
backup set is created and each DVD-RW is formatted using the same
technique.
Any fix for this backup tool? This is not proper behavior.

I think that if you start the Backup without a DVD in the drive, wait for
the prompt for a disk, and then let Backup do the formating that there will
be less confusion.

If you start out with a DVD in the drive, Windows will want to format it so
you can immediately drag files to it for a multisession, which you will want
to software eject so the session can be closed properly.

I have Ultimate and have found that, surprisingly, I could put a freshly
installed system on just one DVD even though it would be just about as easy
to reinstall. After putting programs and data on, it quickly went to three
DVD's. I have external drives, which are convenient but not as sure -- I
dropped one once -- but I still like DVD's. I'll admit that backing up the
backup is a bit paranoid. I did read a white paper once that estimated that
backups fail 70% of the time. I think things have improved since then. At
least I hope so.

 

[Guest]

Don I appreciate the help but there is no confusion, the format utility that
pops up is the one inside of Micrsoft Backup so another format utility is not
the problem. As I mentioned I navigated through Autoplay and made sure only
Microsoft Backup was running and acting on the blank DVD-RW.