Vista Ultimate Complete Backup & Restore: Need Help!!!

[Buz Fuller]

Performed complete backup of C:/ drive to external HD. Vista message,
"Backup successful." Shut down computer. Restarted, booting from
installation DVD. Computer boots up. I select repair computer, then complete
PC backup. I expected Vista to recognize and find the external HD which
contains backup file. I get message Vista can not find any backup files. I
have tried reformatting the drive and backup again. Each time Vista says
backup successful. However same message.

Does anyone know how to work around this?

It should be noted that I have successfully done this before, using the same
drive and procedures. Now for some reason Vista does not see external HD.
BIOS sees the drive when booting. I'm using eSATA connection.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Just going through a similar problem. I can't seem to find any response
to the above post. Can someone show me how to get the wizard to
recognise the complete PC backup on my external HDD?

Best regards,

This will tell you how to restore a complete Vista backup..

http://biztechmagazine.com/article.asp?item_id=237

 

[Clark]

Thanks, Mike, for the excellent article. The challenge remains, though.
I still get the message that "no valid backup locations were found"
after each search by the complete PC backup recovery tool. Yet I can
access the backup on the external HDD in Windows Explorer (and also the
copy I made to the internal HDD as well). Need help on this one. Best
regards.

Did you make the boot medium to restore? I don't have the Vista
Ultimate, but Windows 7 restored itself fine. Stuck in the boot media
and allow it to restore. It does restore the same size partitions, so
if you have changed hard drive size, you might look into that.

Clark

 

[Frank Holman]

*I will not use the MS Complete PC Backup again.*

Keep that thought.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Hi,

You might take a look at these other free solutions - work on all
drives

'Free Drive Backup Express - disk backup software'
(http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/index.html)

and the excellent

'Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download'
(http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp)

Hope it helps

SIW2

When Acronis True Image caused me problems (e.g., rendered this computer
unbootable temporarily) I switched to the paid edition of Macrium Reflect.
I like it and recommend it. BUT be aware that I have not tried to restore
the drive from it, so that part is untested.

Thanks for pointing out the free version - I am mow about to download it
for another computer.