Vista - Restore Complete Computer

Hi, thanks for that, you may be right.

I saw on a another forum that the "Complete PC Restore and Backup" should be reinitialised before starting again.

Quote from the site:
"if you want application to forget *all* the old backups - you can launch an elevated command prompt.
type commandline: wbadmin delete catalog "

Have you had any experience with this, to me it makes sense that to start a new backup set any corrupted references should be deleted and I guess the catalog contains those.

I might apply this but will wait for your reply.

regards,

Harry...

I have not used that before, but you can delete the backups by taking ownership of the old WindowsImageBackup folder and check the box for all subfolders. Afterwards, you can just delete it and create a new one.

Take Ownership of file

Hi again Shawn,

I still have problems with building a complete pc and restore backup file. The initial WindowsImageBackup file builds ok (in this case image only of the c:\ drive) and if I restore from Vista install disk it can be found and restores ok. The backup is on z: partition which actually reverts to K: when accessed by Vista install disk from complete pc restore option.

If I then install/add more apps and files to the C:\ partition (OS) and do another complete PC and Restrore backup it increments the original build, changes time/date file name etc and file size increases about 1.5gb (approx size of change to OS partition). Does all the things it needs to do on the original file.

BUT when I try to restore when booted from the vista install disk all that could be found was the original build (filename, time/date) but nothing of the incremental builds (2) that had been added. I further proved this by actually restoring and observing it only restored the original backup, none of the incremental additions (files/applications) had been included.

Also I am now using the wbadmin.exe command line to check what is going on in the background. When I interrogate using the command line wbadmin previous versions I do see the incremented versions, but not when trying to restore using Vista install disk they are not in sight, just the first backup.

Is anyone else having trouble with incremental additions to the first "complete and restore backup" Can it have anything to do with the chipset, I am using the intel P45 chipset on a gigabyte mobo.

At the moment it appears I need to perform a seperate complete backup at any given stage of populating a computer and saving several complete images.

I thought that further "complete pc backups" would increment the original backup and allow a full restoration which doesn't seem to happen in my case (I have tried 5 different rebuilds/backups/restores now with no joy).

Also should it be possible to see each incremental addition to the original and be able to restore to any of the incremental stages.

I would like to persevere and get it right (if it can be righted) as the concept within Vista seems good, and as I previously mentioned one of the reasons I bought Ultimate 64 was because of the pc imaging included.

Any clues let me know or should I refer it to MS.

regards,

Harry...

Harry,

As a test, change the drive letter for the Z drive to be K instead to match what it is from the Vista installation DVD. Afterwards, see if the option to select the different incremental backups are available.

Drive Letter - Add, Change, or Remove

No luck with that, even did two reboots to see if it might reset, realign, and prayed the second time but even that didn't work.

harry.

As a test wipe out the old backups from Z and create new ones with it as K now instead of Z. They may still be tied with Z.

I must admit that I do not know what else to try other than a clean reinstall of Vista to see if it was something corrupted with the backup feature.

I think it has something to do with Complete PC restore booted from install disk only sees drives with backups on and probably labels them temporarily. I did what you suggest but no luck.

If I boot the install disk and get through to the stage of reinstalling vista, I can see all drives that are available in the system so I would assume all drivers are ok.

I am not completely happy with reinstalling as I have done that a number of times during the past week to no avail.

Do any MS whizz's ever visit this forum, they may have seen it before.

BTW thanks for your help thusfar, wish you could tell me the answer.

regards,

Harry.

Your welcome Harry.

I wish I knew something else to try for you. You might also post this in the General Discussion forum to see what you may get from there to.

Yes, we do have a few of the MS Team folks here sometimes.

Sorry,
Shawn

Thanks Shawn,

I think (well I know) I have solved the puzzle of the missing incremental backups.

In my desire to be "SAFE" I had copied the original backup to another drive, so I had a copy of the original backup on S: drive and my normal backup on the Z: drive.

The backup on the Z: drive (as you well know from the above) had been incremented several times.

As you know I couldn't see the increments on the Z: drive backup but when I booted from Vista install disk it did find both available backups, ie. the backup on S: and the backup on Z: (but renamed as D: and K: under install disk).

I checked both and they both only showed the original backup and original time/date, it was very disappointing.

IN the meantime because of this problem with Vista Complete Restore and Backup I tried a trial version of Acronis True Image Home 11 and it appeared to be a very good program, backed up nicely, allowed a view of backed up files and easy restoration from within Vista. This looked really good so I decided I would create the Acronis boot disk to check that I could restore whenever I wanted (after all that is the main aim of the program)

Hmm, Acronis is not good for restoring from boot disk if you have all SATA drives, it can't see them, it will see standard IDE and I have one of those. After very little web research seems like a lot of folks have the same problem, and on forums is actually acknowledged by Acronis support team. This is not very good for a program recently upgraded for Vista, you would expect it to be able to handle SATA from bootdisk!, so Acronis didn't look like a good substitute.

I went back to the drawing board with Vista Complete Backup and Restore.

Even though Vista Complete Backup and Restore allows (and checks for more than one backup file) I decided to disable the original copy(just renamed temporarily) and reboot and try again, didn't think this would have any effect at all.

Wow!! is Vista Complete Backup and Restore a great program, found my one and only backup with all the increments so I can set my computer to any previous increment (shows time/date for each increment to select from), have proved it works ok and is quite easy and complete.

So what appears to have happened is; if Vista Complete Backup and Restore sees more than two backup files (maybe they have to have the same original build) it wont show any increments past the earliest. In this case it would only show the original backup(for both backups found), AND, wouldn't allow the icrements to be shown if selecting the later backup. That is selecting "restore a different backup button" which is the only way incremental backups can be seen, you may want to note that in your tutorial that increments are seen by selecting "restore a different backup button", clicking on the backup and selecting next.

Not sure this is a bug on my PC but I think not, so the moral of the story is (for me at least) keep any backup copies hidden and only have one backup available for Vista Complete Backup and Restore to discover, as all increments are then shown.

Works as good as I would have expected, I might submit this problem to MS if I can find a non payment option.

Thanks for your help, hope this makes sense, but all ok for me now.

regards,

Harry

Harry,

I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted out and working now. Thank you for posting your findings on this.

Shawn