Vista Backup - File and Complete PC - many systems to external dri

[emcinerney]

As the resident computer guru in the family I'm required to manage multiple
systems. For backups I have an external drive that I bring to each computer
to backup to. Are there any issues with backing up multiple Vista machines
(both File and Complete PC) to the same external hard drive?

I found a good article describing the Vista backups in a bit more detail
than the limited help documentation gives,

A Guide to Windows Vista Backup Technologies
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc137798.aspx

but it too lacks any information on backing up multiple Vista systems to the
same external hard drive.

Specifically, I see that the backup creates the file "MediaID.bin" in the
root of the backup drive. Is this a system specific file that will cause
problems in this case?

What is the best method of managing historical backups? The folder created
for each individual computer supposedly contain .zip files. Is it OK to take
ownership (grant NTFS access) to myself to these folders and delete older
backups, or will this cause problems? Is it possible/OK to burn these files
to CD/DVD manually (to create multiple copies for offsite storage) or do I
have to go through the entire backup process twice with different
configurations (once to the external drive and again to burn to optical)?

 

[AJR]

You can have Complete PC backups (Note "complete" not "files") for different
computers on the same HD - make sure backup names are unique. By expereince
I used one USB HD for both Acronis and Complete PC Backups involving three
computers

"File" backups are in Zip format and can be unzipped through the restore
function or a third party unzipper. The folders can be "treated" same as
any other - regarding taking ownership would depend on assigned permissions.

Backing up files can create big files (some reallly "big") - reconsider
using removable media (CD/DVD).