Computer Backup to 2nd hard drive

[Guest]

I have two 250 GB Sata hard drives on my Vista system. I'm trying to use the
"Backup Computer" utility to backup my computer to my 2nd hard drive (D. It
only allows the backup to go to my DVD drive.

When I installed Vista Ultimate on this clean system, I had the Vista
install process format both drives as NTFS, and then had it install Vista on
the 1st hard drive (C.

At this point, there is nothing on my 2nd hard drive (D except for 1 file
(bootsect.bak). The 2nd hard drive (D is listed in Disk Management as NTFS
(System, Active, Primary Partition).

Note: As a side issue, Disk Management also won't allow me to re-format that
2nd hard drive, though it "appears" that I can do so from "My Computer" and
right-click on the D: drive. I've yet to go through with that format, though
I may do so after posting this message.

In any event, at this point, I've not found how to get Backup Computer to
allow me to make the change to the target D: drive that I want.

Anyone have the solution?

Thanks!

 

[Carl G]

Hi Gig
I have found that when installing Vista HP that if you have more then 1 hard
drive formatted , that Vista puts the boot files on the second drive.
This has happened to me twice. Both times I I did a reinstall and left the
second drive with out a partition to get the boot files on the Vista drive.
Hope you get some use out of this.

 

[Guest]

Howdy Carl G,

Thanks for the response! Sure enough, when I opened a command prompt and ran
"Dir /ah" on the 2nd hard drive, it showed the bootmgr and the boot directory
over there.

I don't remember seeing or hearing about this during the Vista Beta, but
perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention. *g*

Anyways, the re-install is out since I'm testing some new stuff and I need
to do the backup before I put the new stuff on.

Reinstallation would defeat the purpose of the backup which is to save me
from having to do all that installation again. *g*

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Vista puts the boot files on whatever volume you have made active (indicated
as being the system drive), and the system files on whatever volume (the
boot volume) you choose during setup. Vista doesn't choose the active
volume, the user does when setting up a system.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Use disk manager to set the other drive active, then boot with the Vista
disk and do a startup repair to move the boot files. Then you should be able
to backup C: to D:. You won't be able to as long as it (D is indicated as
being the system drive.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com