Vista Tutorial - Backup Complete Computer

Hi rwp123,

You can try Acronis True Image for a fully functional 15 day free trial period. It works great.

Complete hard disk drive copy, cloning and image backup software: computer files and disk copying

Shawn

P.S. I changed your username to not include your email address. You would get spammed to death if you left it.

hiya, wonder if you can help me? I've been successfully backing up to an external drive but have now started getting this error code "0x81000008" and a failed back up... any thoughts?
Thanks, Chris

Hello Chris, and welcome to Vista Forums.

This usually means that there is corruption on the HDD. You can run chkdsk on the external drive to see if it can fix the corruption for you. If not, then reformatting the external drive with a NTFS file system should clear the problem, then just create a new backup.

This tutorial will show you how to run chkdsk if needed. Be sure to substitute with the drive letter for your external drive.

Check Disk - chkdsk

Hope this helps,
Shawn

yes but what if u dont get the backup computer option does not appear in the backup center

Hi Paul, and welcome to Vista Forums.

For a complete PC backup, you will have to a 3rd party program like Acronis True Image since you have the Vista Home Premium edition.

Complete hard disk drive copy, cloning and image backup software: computer files and disk copying


You can still manually backup files, or use the Backup Files option instead.

Backup Files

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hello...Brink!
I downloaded the Acronis True Image. Do I follow the tutorial above to set it up?
Thanks.

Hi Bennys,

Sorry, but No. Acronis True Image is a separate program and not a part of Vista. You can download and read the User Guide (right side of webpage) PDF file for how to use the program at this link.

Complete hard disk recovery solution, backup, drive copy, clone and image computer software


You will need to have the free program Adobe Reader installed to read it though. You can get from here if you do not already have it.

Adobe - Adobe Reader Download - All versions

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi Shawn,

Just completly my PC backlup for the first time right now. Just wondering, like File Backup, is there a way to schedule a complete PC backup weekly? Or from your experience, would this not be necessary? How often should I PC backup? Will it take ages each time, or quicker eachtime as the first time always starts from scratch?

Cheers,
Joronamo.

Hi Joronamo,

If you use the same location (ex: second hard drive) for your Complete PC Backup, then it will do the backup in increments. In other words, instead of a completely new back up, it only backups what has been changed since the last Complete PC Backup. This way you can choose between these Complete PC Backup dates to restore from.

I normally do a Complete PC Backup after any changes that are made to my computer from say Windows Updates, installed programs, or any other change that I wish to have restored if needed. It should not take as long as the first time you have created a Complete PC Backup, but it depends on how many changes were made.

There is no option for automatic Complete PC Backups, but I prefer to run this manually though since the computer doesn't know if I want the changes backed up or not.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

hi Brink! thanks always for your tutorial!
it takes how many mins or hour to complete the backup using separate HDD?