Vista Complete PC Backup question

Gopher_By_Fende · 23 Jan 2007 at 14:45

Hi,

i've just installed a fresh copy of Vista business and Office Enterprise 07, and i wanted to create a backup using vistas complete pc backup. the problem is that when i go through the options, to the page where it asks which drives i want to back up, it has the vista drive selected, but also my xp partition is selected and i cant deselect it. i only want to backup the vista drive, mainly because the vista drive alone needs 13.5 gig but with the xp drive it goes upto 37 gig.

does anyone know if it is possible to stop it automatically selecting the xp partition? i would just take the drive out, but they are both on different partitions on the same drive

Energize · 23 Jan 2007 at 14:49

I'd reccomend using a proper ghosting program like acronis or norton ghost, I can seriously imagine the vista backup being absolute crap, programs microsoft throw in with their os usually are.

Gopher_By_Fende · 23 Jan 2007 at 16:37

ok, i managed to clear enough space on one of my storage drives to do a backup of both OS drives. it took about 15 minutes, and i ended up with a folder with a load of xml files and 2 .VHD files (one for my XP drive, other for the Vista) these vhd files can be used to completely restore the drive if it fails, using the complete pc recovery option in the bootup menu. they can also be used a normal vhd files and mounted with virtual pc, which i imagine may come in handy to someone somewhere.

In response to your above comment, i know what you mean, time and time again MS have added "extras" to OS's that have been complete donkeys, but i have to say, so far what what ive seen of this, the PC backup it quite good. although i guess i'll only find out for sure if my drive goes!

bledd · 23 Jan 2007 at 17:46

vhd is what virtualpc uses as hard drives

would be awesome if you can load the ms backup into a VPC (i'm assuming you can)

lordedmond · 23 Jan 2007 at 18:29

Gopher_By_Fende said:
Hi,

i've just installed a fresh copy of Vista business and Office Enterprise 07, and i wanted to create a backup using vistas complete pc backup. the problem is that when i go through the options, to the page where it asks which drives i want to back up, it has the vista drive selected, but also my xp partition is selected and i cant deselect it. i only want to backup the vista drive, mainly because the vista drive alone needs 13.5 gig but with the xp drive it goes upto 37 gig.

does anyone know if it is possible to stop it automatically selecting the xp partition? i would just take the drive out, but they are both on different partitions on the same drive

The built in one works very well

I have tested by formating the os drive, then using the vista disk to repair the syatem its very quick and the system worked well after the restore