My backup disk is full - now what?

[Guest]

I've been using Vista Ultimate's Backup and Restore Center to back up
my laptop to an external 500GB drive weekly since April. I am now out
of space on the external drive and I can't seem to find any way of
eliminating the redundancy of the file backups. I did the recommended
disk image backup and then set it up to backup files. I never dreamed
I'd run out of space so soon. Is there any way to trim down the file
backups to just the latest version or two? I tried the disk cleanup
program, but it said nothing about backup versions that I could see on
either the C: drive or the G: drive where the backups are.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[John Hanley]

When you Open your G: drive what do you see? You should see some folders
containing the backups corresponding to the various dates on which you did
the particular backup. Are you saying you cannot delete the older/oldest
backup folders?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for replying John.

Yes, I see the backup sets and catalogs with the various directories of
backup files beneath them. I don't know why I seem to have two backup sets,
one from 4/23/07 and another from 6/2/07. I didn't overtly create a second
set.

The way these things have worked in my experience is that there is a full
backup of all files made and then subsequent backups only include changed or
added files (and maybe some indication that a file has been deleted and when
in the catalogs). If you just delete the oldest backups you lose files that
have been changed. If you delete the ones inbetween you may lose files that
have been added.

It is typically necessary to run some sort of utility to compress the
multiple backups to the extent you want. There might be some options to like
keep only the latest copy of a file and discard all previous ones or to keep
the latest copy of deleted files (the one just before they were deleted).

Based on the reaction I'm getting I'm guessing that such doesn't exist for
the Microsoft Vista backup solution?

 

[John Hanley]

I found good advice about the backup regimes at:

http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/pages/file-backup-in-windows-vista-faq.aspx

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Wi...50-fe33-41a0-b7f6-233d7fe4460a1033.mspx#ESAAC

From this I have surmised that from time to time, Vista will institute a
'full backup' as opposed to continuously and forever doing incremental
backups; I think that each time you see a 'backup set' you are seeing a new
full backup; within that set there will be incremental backups. I have
already had to delete some of my backup sets that were earlier than the
latest backup set date. I should think that your backup set from 4/23/2007
can be safely deleted, leaving your 6/2/2007 set as your current and active
backup. I have only tried restoring one file out of the backup, and that
was just a test to prove I could search for and restore a particular folder;
but I feel confident that I am satisfactorily backed up. Good luck!

 

[Guest]

my Vista says to delete your oldest restore stuff, and look for lots of
uninstall programs and backup copies that need to be cleaned out. System
Mechanic Pro 7 is MADE for cleaning the computer easily without needing to be
a rocket scientist to figure it out.