Backing up Vista.

[ceed]

Hi,

What's the best simple (i do not mind to pay for it) total back-up
solution available for Vista? I want something that backs up
everything, so if something goes wrong I can load the back-up and be
up and run with everything installed. Often these kinds of solutions
are slow to run, but maybe someone here knows about something that is
foolproof, complete and fast? I have a USB drive the same size ad my
laptop drive I will back up to.

//ceed

 

[Chad Harris]

Hi Creed--

I recommend Acronis.


If you use software like Acronis, you can back up a disk image to media, and
if you have enough space (quite common now with the size of HDs and external
HDs readily available) you can choose where to put the backup of the HD
image. You can also make a fast restoring disaster recovery partition
called Acronis Secure Zone and the Acronis CD is bootable. You can specify
the location of the backup; and also can do incremental and differential
backups with a frequency of your choosing.

Acronis Free Trial:
http://www.acronis.com/download/

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/

Vista has Backup as well:

A Guide to Windows Vista Backup Technologies
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/09/Backup/default.aspx

Vista Backup
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/backup.mspx

Good luck,

CH

 

[MICHAEL]

* ceed:

Hi,

What's the best simple (i do not mind to pay for it) total back-up
solution available for Vista? I want something that backs up
everything, so if something goes wrong I can load the back-up and be
up and run with everything installed. Often these kinds of solutions
are slow to run, but maybe someone here knows about something that is
foolproof, complete and fast? I have a USB drive the same size ad my
laptop drive I will back up to.

//ceed

Like Chad said, Acronis True Image.


-Michael

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Acronis True Image is the imaging software I use.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

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[RJ]

Vista backup restore works for me. Done a few backup restores for screwups
so far.

 

[Its Personal]

I have used the VISTA backup successfully several times.

 

[Sam]

I tried Acronis for a while but ran into an issue with restoring. My disk
from Dell has 4 partitions, the Dell Utility, a Vista Recovery, the Vista
System (C) and a files/games (D) one I setup.

Using the Acronis boot CD I made a backup of all 4 partitions to a file.
To test a recover, I restored all 4 to a different SATA drive.
When I tried to boot off the new drive, windows was unbootable
Using a Dell Recovery CD and Vista's System Recovery tools I got it to
boot.
However I lost the boot menu options to start the Utilities or System
Restore from the additional partitions.
The boot menu at that point only recognized the Vista System (C) as a
boot option.

I was however once able to sucessfully restore a backup of the Vista System
(C) onto the same disk. However trying to restore to a new blank HD
(simulating a restore after a full disk failure) the Acronis backup
apparently didn't properly restore something about the boot information.