How to back up to an internal hard drive with Vista ?

[Amoranemix]

On Windows XP I used WinRAR for my backups because the OS lacked a decent
backup system. To my surprise with Vista I still use WinRAR for my backups as
that OS doesn't seem to have a decent backup system either ! (MacOS does.)

I want to backup files from internal drive C to a physically separate
internal drive D. Drive D won't show up. The help gives some 'reasons' why.
What comes closest seems to be ''The location is either the system disk (the
disk that Windows is installed on—also called the C drive) or the boot disk
(the disk that Windows uses to start your computer—also called the startup
disk).'' as Windows XP is installed on drive D.

Is there a convenient way to back up on drive D and if so how ?

 

[DL]

D has to be partitioned/formated before it can be used, this can be done via
Disk Management

 

[Mick Murphy]

XP is installed on D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No-one reads posts here!

 

[Charlie Tame]

XP is installed on D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No-one reads posts here!

Well as long as there is space on D Acronis should be able to use it for
backups.

The problem is that if the boot sector gets trashed then neither XP nor
Vista may boot (Assuming it is set up to dual boot) so having some kind
of CD based software like Acronis would be really helpful. Might be
worth spending the money.

As for RAR I don't know, if you have no OS at all could you recover
anything? With Acronis you can effectively "Image" the drive to a file.

 

[DL]

And the o/s doesnt see D

XP is installed on D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No-one reads posts here!

 

[Charlie Tame]

Well go to "Manage" and see if the drive appears there at all.

Two reasons I can think of for a drive not showing up if it has the old
FAT format and just possibly that you have different login and
password on the two systems and so you don't have "Permission" to see
it. When you right click computer and go manage, disk drives then you
may see it as there but having no name or something. As to what will
happen if you change anything I think that is anybody's guess.

I am not sure about any of this, just hoping to come up with a clue, so
please wait for other advice if you get to see it there.

 

[AJR]

Okay - here goes - regarding "...I want to backup files from internal drive
C to a physically separate internal drive D. Drive D won't show up...." -
evidently D does not show as a destination for the backup - recognized by
the system otherwise.

About "...that OS doesn't seem to have a decent backup system either ..." -
not so "Complete Backup and File backup" quite good.

Backup programs/utilities (those that I know) do not permit backing up to
system/boot partitions/drives.
Both the C and D drives are system/boot drives (Vista and XP).

Solution - another internal drive, external drive or removeable media
(DVD/CD)

 

[AJR]

This may be a duplicate post - if so I apologize.

Okay - here goes - regarding "...I want to backup files from internal drive
C to a physically separate internal drive D. Drive D won't show up...." -
evidently D does not show as a destination for the backup - recognized by
the system otherwise.

About "...that OS doesn't seem to have a decent backup system either ..." -
not so "Complete Backup and File backup" quite good.

Backup programs/utilities (those that I know) do not permit backing up to
system/boot partitions/drives.
Both the C and D drives are system/boot drives (Vista and XP).

Solution - another internal drive, external drive or removeable media
(DVD/CD)

 

[Amoranemix]

Thanks for your responses.

You can purchase it from NewEgg for $30, free shipping.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832200004

I
live in Europe.

As for RAR I don't know, if you have no OS at all could
you recover
anything? With Acronis you can effectively "Image" the drive to a
file.

As long as the data are intact I don't see why not.

And the o/s doesnt see D

It's only Back-up Centre that
doesn't see D. So far Imake a compressed copy of data with WinRAR and move it
to D. That's what I did with my old XP computer (which also had two drives
and XP on both) and continued doing after the new OS again could not provide
a better alternative.

About "...that OS doesn't seem to have a decent backup system
either ..." -
not so "Complete Backup and File backup" quite good.

How can I find
it. Windows Help and Search don't refer to it.

Backup programs/utilities (those that I know) do not permit
backing up to
system/boot partitions/drives.
Both the C and D drives are system/boot drives (Vista and
XP).

Arconis is in principle able to back-up on D.

I tried the 15-day trial version of Arconis True Image 11. Three backup
attempts of data to D failed. There was no reliable estimate of remaining
time and computer became very slow so I aborted and had to restart the
computer each time to make it responsive again. I also tried a small (260MB)
and tiny (775kB) backup and recovery as test. The tiny one worked. The small
one had an error during recovery and only about 75% of the data was restored.
I think WinRAR works better.

Maybe I should look of other commercial backup software.