Vista - Norton Save and Restore backup data

Hi all,
I did a factory image reiinstall of my Vista about a month ago.
My computer has 2 partitions in addition to my C drive.
The D drive is the Norton backup data and the E drive is the Factory Image from Dell that I must not mess with if I ever want to reinstall to Factory Image again.

My questions are these.
Since the reinstall, the old Norton backup data is still on the D partition. When I go into the Save and Restore program to Manage Backups, there is nothing there to delete, but the partition shows about 3/4 full and if you open the partition from my computer, it shows folders and data from before my Factory Image install. Can I delete this stuff manually? Should I?
My other question is when I try to do a backup, the only option that pops up is to backup my E partition. I'd really rather back up my C drive. Should I just not use the Save and Restore and leave well enough alone? Important files like photos and music are backed up to an external drive and I have a RAID mirror incase one of my internal HD's fails?
Or if it ain't broke don't fix it?
Thanks
Liz

Hi Liz, missed this post. Do you still have a problem?

Norm

Hi Liz,

It seems your Norton backup program ( I assume that's what you have ) doesn't have log files telling it where the previous backups are stored. So it can't find them to delete them.

It probably is not offering C as a target destination , as there is little point storing a backup on the same partition it came from.
It detects there is not enough space on D to store another backup, therefore only offers E.

If you want to redirect it to D, you would probably need to delete those old backups to create space. If you are sure that's what they are and you don't need them any more, then you could delete them manually.

As you have an external HD - that is a safer place to keep backups.

I would suggest making your own image , using a free app. like Macrium Reflect - storing it on your external HD , then use that to restore instead of the factory image.

It will be more up to date and have your installed apps. and settings exactly as the date you made the image.

You could make another image every now and again to keep it up to date.

It will also create a bootable cd, so you can restore an image even if you can't boot into your pc.




Macrium Reflect Free Edition 4.2 build 2033 - Downloads - ZDNet Australia

Hope it helps

SIW2

Hi Norm and SIW2,
I think what happened was when I did my reinstall, it reintalled the C drive but not D. Norton was reinstalled back to Factory Image so then it couldn't 'see' the backups on D.
The only folder on the D Drive was 'Norton Backups' so I renamed it 'Norton Old' and tried to do another backup. Norton then created a new folder and successfully backed up. For some reason now starting from scratch, I could choose C drive as the backup target. Then I deleted most of the old stuff.

I will look into the Macrium now.. sounds like a good idea!
Thank you!
Liz