Complete PC Backup

Submarine

Submarine

Member
Vista Pro
Finally I got SP2 in Windows Update and started to prepare the computer for the installation, i.a. by making backups to my external HDD. I make files backups once a week and complete PC backups once a month from the Backup and Restore Center. This time I started with the complete backup but got an error message saying there was not space enough on the backup disk. Strange, it should delete older backups when making new if space is short.
Or is there a setting somewhere?

I had 69 GB (23%) free on the external, so I would think it was enough. Nevertheless, I quick formatted the drive, rebooted and tried again. It went smoothly without any fuzz at all and took max an hour, probably less. Next, I started the files backup. This time I had to point it to my backup disk. The backup took probably 5 hours. Afterwards, 53% of the disk was free.

Is there a technical explanation for why the files backup took so much longer than the complete backup? Can I trust this backup, you think?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS720
    CPU
    Intel Quad Q6600 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    Dell 0YU822, NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP / SLI MCP
    Memory
    4GB DDR2 800MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 1024 MB GDDR5
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell 2407WFP-HC
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    NVIDIA 640GB SATA Raid 0 (2x320GB) (7200 rpm) for Vista,
    Intel X25-M G2 160 GB for W7,
    Maxtor OT III External HDD,
    WD Elements 1 TB External HDD
    Internet Speed
    100/20
    Other Info
    M779 PCIe PAL/SECAM/DVB-T Desktop TV Tuner. Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller.
To tell you the truth, I do not trust the Vista Backup/Restore center. It has failed me once too often. I now use Norton Ghost for my imaging and file backups and that works a lot better - although I had to first study the ins and outs of that too. But at least it works. Other people recommend Acronis which I have not used yet. On another system, where I use a Maxtor One Touch disk, I use the Maxtor manager (which comes with the disk). That works well too. It is my wife's PC and she loves the One Touch ease of use.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
A few people have issues with Ghost..myself included,whereas I have used Acronis for several years and the latest version is brilliant..I would on average use it at least twice a week (on some of mine,and on clients' systems). I have never had a failure with it..and I work on some messed up systems..but it is not free. There is a free one a lot of Techs use,called Macrium...a google search will bring it up... and this one is highly rated as well. :D
 

My Computer

System One

What tasaholic says is probably true. I also have heard a lot of good things about the latest edition of Acronis. A while ago I wrote a little summary of the options that you find here ( Ghosting approaches - summary because of popular demand « How-To Geek Forums ). Macrium, has a free version that works well but does only make complete backups - no differentials. The pay version is full function though.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
Thanks for all the good advice. I was in fact thinking about getting a second external. I was considering getting Casper as backup software, as I think I should have not just two backup disks but two backup systems. I was stopped by the fact it appears it is not that easy to restore a Raid 0 setup:

"While Casper does support copying of Dynamic Volumes, it does not support cloning of Dynamic Disks. This means Casper will not allow you to copy an entire hard disk to or from a Dynamic Disk even if the Dynamic Disk is fully self-contained (e.g. defines a simple volume that is not striped, mirrored, or spanned across multiple disks). However, Casper does support copying of dynamic volumes to other volumes and Basic Disks where possible. When copying a dynamic volume, Casper will copy only the contents of the volume. It will not copy or recreate the actual data structures to reproduce the dynamic disk(s) by which the volume is defined. Dynamic Volumes include volume sets, stripe sets, stripe sets with parity, and partitions located on disk mirror/duplex sets configured using the Windows Disk Administrator"

I an not sure I understand what this mean. What do I do to restore if I need to?

I would also appreciate if someone with experience was kind and shared som light on my OP questions, but thanks again for sharing your thoughts.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS720
    CPU
    Intel Quad Q6600 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    Dell 0YU822, NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP / SLI MCP
    Memory
    4GB DDR2 800MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 1024 MB GDDR5
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell 2407WFP-HC
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    NVIDIA 640GB SATA Raid 0 (2x320GB) (7200 rpm) for Vista,
    Intel X25-M G2 160 GB for W7,
    Maxtor OT III External HDD,
    WD Elements 1 TB External HDD
    Internet Speed
    100/20
    Other Info
    M779 PCIe PAL/SECAM/DVB-T Desktop TV Tuner. Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller.
So I went ahead and got a new external HDD. I am formatting it right now and it appears to be a slooooow process. After 3 hours it is 10% done...
What do you recommend as backup software for my setup?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS720
    CPU
    Intel Quad Q6600 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    Dell 0YU822, NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP / SLI MCP
    Memory
    4GB DDR2 800MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 1024 MB GDDR5
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell 2407WFP-HC
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    NVIDIA 640GB SATA Raid 0 (2x320GB) (7200 rpm) for Vista,
    Intel X25-M G2 160 GB for W7,
    Maxtor OT III External HDD,
    WD Elements 1 TB External HDD
    Internet Speed
    100/20
    Other Info
    M779 PCIe PAL/SECAM/DVB-T Desktop TV Tuner. Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller.
Submarine said:
So I went ahead and got a new external HDD. I am formatting it right now and it appears to be a slooooow process. After 3 hours it is 10% done...
What do you recommend as backup software for my setup?
Click to expand...


I vote Acronis or R-Drive Image since you're paying anyway. I'm personally using the latter.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Self Built
    CPU
    Intel Core2 Duo E2200 2.2 GHz
    Motherboard
    Emaxx IG31-AVL (AMI 1.1 Bios)
    Memory
    4.00 GB DDR2-800 MHz Dual Channel Memory
    Graphics Card(s)
    Inno 3d GeForce 9500 GT 1GB DDR3
    Sound Card
    Realtek 6 Channel On Board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15" Generic Flat Screen Panel
    Screen Resolution
    1024 * 768
    Hard Drives
    1 Seagate 80GB 7200 RPM SATA

    1 Western Digital My Book Essentials 1TB
    PSU
    500W
    Case
    LGA 775 Compliant Case
    Cooling
    Case Fan (Generic)
    Keyboard
    Generic PS/2 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Generic PS/2 Mouse
    Internet Speed
    1Mbps DL 600Kbps UL
    Other Info
    Altec Lansing 2.1 Sound System

    Nokia 5800 Xpress Music RM -356 v31.0.101
Ya, formatting is a slow process. The last 640GB disk I formatted took 11 hours. As for the imaging programs, Acronis has a lot of fans and is probably good to use. I personally use Norton Ghost - but with that, you need a little experience. There is the free version of Macrium you might want to look at as an alternative. Also check on your new disk. It may have come with an imaging program on it - I know Maxtor does.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
whs said:
What tasaholic says is probably true. I also have heard a lot of good things about the latest edition of Acronis. A while ago I wrote a little summary of the options that you find here ( Ghosting approaches - summary because of popular demand « How-To Geek Forums ). Macrium, has a free version that works well but does only make complete backups - no differentials. The pay version is full function though.
Click to expand...

Thanks, excellent link!

oreo27 said:
I vote Acronis or R-Drive Image since you're paying anyway. I'm personally using the latter.
Click to expand...

whs said:
Ya, formatting is a slow process. The last 640GB disk I formatted took 11 hours. As for the imaging programs, Acronis has a lot of fans and is probably good to use. I personally use Norton Ghost - but with that, you need a little experience. There is the free version of Macrium you might want to look at as an alternative. Also check on your new disk. It may have come with an imaging program on it - I know Maxtor does.
Click to expand...

Well, I have a Maxtor OT, which I bought for my old XP Machine. Never worked well with Vista and I am now using the Vista Backup instead of Maxtor's own. Now I just wanted the hardware to avoid the problems I got then.

There is an enormous amount of software out there. Finally, it seems I have narrowed down the list to the following:
Acronis, ShadowProtect, DT Utilities, Casper (yes it works on RAID created by hardware controller) and Norton. I will take a look at R-Drive Image. Then I have dumped several interesting alternatives.

This is not well timed, I guess, as I hope to wipe my disk later this year, or perhaps early next, to start all over with Windows 7. We will see, there is a price attached to that, not just for the O/S.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS720
    CPU
    Intel Quad Q6600 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    Dell 0YU822, NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP / SLI MCP
    Memory
    4GB DDR2 800MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 1024 MB GDDR5
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell 2407WFP-HC
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    NVIDIA 640GB SATA Raid 0 (2x320GB) (7200 rpm) for Vista,
    Intel X25-M G2 160 GB for W7,
    Maxtor OT III External HDD,
    WD Elements 1 TB External HDD
    Internet Speed
    100/20
    Other Info
    M779 PCIe PAL/SECAM/DVB-T Desktop TV Tuner. Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller.

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Vista
    CPU
    Intel E8400
    Motherboard
    ASRock1333-GLAN R2.0
    Memory
    4gb DDR2 800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nvidia 9500GT 1gb
  • Operating System
    win7/vista
    CPU
    intel i5-8400
    Motherboard
    gigabyte b365m ds3h
    Memory
    ballistix 2x8gb 3200
So, what did I do?
Nothing, just went ahead and installed SP2 with success. Just took a second file backup to my new external first.

Learnt a lot though. Taking an image of a striped Raid is not that straightforward. Spent a lot of time studying the user manuals for the 9 programs and their forums on the net. It appears they were either not up to the job or not totally independent of the Vista backup method, so having a second backup program would perhaps not add that much value for the money. If my HDDs go down or Vista cracks up, I can always install again, and I am anyway considering W7.

So what would I had installed if I had decided otherwise? Well, probably ShadowProtect, yet quite expensive.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS720
    CPU
    Intel Quad Q6600 2.40GHz
    Motherboard
    Dell 0YU822, NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP / SLI MCP
    Memory
    4GB DDR2 800MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 1024 MB GDDR5
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell 2407WFP-HC
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    NVIDIA 640GB SATA Raid 0 (2x320GB) (7200 rpm) for Vista,
    Intel X25-M G2 160 GB for W7,
    Maxtor OT III External HDD,
    WD Elements 1 TB External HDD
    Internet Speed
    100/20
    Other Info
    M779 PCIe PAL/SECAM/DVB-T Desktop TV Tuner. Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller.
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