backup

[Guest]

i have purchased a seagate 500gb ext hard drive and i thought it would be a
good place to to backup my laptop files so i opened backup and restore and
and did a full backup which worked fine except that every thing it backed up
was in about 20 zip files so i could not identify any files without unzipping
everything and going through all files untill i find the one i want, is this
normal or have i got some settings wrong somewere .Also the next time auto
backup was started instead of backing up new files it backed everything up
again, can someone enlighten me as to what i am doing wrong
-- thanks in advance
martyb

 

[Greg]

There are two separate methods of backing up in Vista - Back up Files and
Back up Computer. It sounds like you have used the second option to complete
your back up. When you use Back up Computer, it essentially takes an image
of the entire computer and not just the individual files. You cannot do a
file level restore using this option.

If you use the Back up Files option instead, it allows you to select the
files that you want to back up and when the time comes to restore files, you
will be able to select which files you want to restore from the backup.

 

[Guest]

hi greg ,thanks for responding ,it was a file backup i did i don't have the
option of backing up my computer in backup and restore (i think that option
is only available in vista buisness and ultimate) i am running home premium i
have a re-install partion on my hard drive and have made a boot disc when i
bought the laptop so all i want to do is back up my files on a regular basis

 

[AJR]

Marty - The file backup function backs up files in groups based upon the
extension and stores them in "zip" files. An advantage of using zip fles is
that if the restore function fails for some reason you can still restore via
an unzip utility.

I do not use the file backup utility so I am not familiar with the file
restore capabilites e.g. looking for individual files, however I image that
you can use , say, Winzip to list the contents of each zip file and extract
individual files.

"Complete PC Backup" backs up the entire computer via an image saved as a
"VHD" file (Virtual hard drive). You can view and retrieve individual files
from the complete backup by mounting the vhd.

 

[Guest]

hi AJR thanks for replying it is not possible to to do a complete pc backup
in home premium so all i can do is backup individual files eg documents ,
email , pictures ect so putting them in zip files does'nt make sense to me so
all i'm going to do is copy and paste to my ext hard drive that way i will be
able to access them quicker and see what i am restoring

 

[Greg]

You're right Marty. The complete PC backup is available in business and
ultimate. On the file restore, if you go to the Backup and Restore center
and restore files, you have the ability to browse your backups and restore
some or all of the files that were backed up. It also will give you an
opportunity to restore them to the original location or to specify a new
location.