Vista - Recovery D: is full and I cannot backup

New to Vista. I transfered copies of Reovery D: to two external hard drives- to be safe-now I want to empty D: so that I can back up. When I tried to Back up to the external hard drives that I have one with 300 gs other with 100gs available, I was not able because it wanted to include C: and the drives would not hold both C: and D:-Thus, How can I safely backup weekly without getting these "Failed" messages?

4annegs wrote:
First of all - and the main point - you should not be messing around with
"Recovery D" at all. On many OEM machines (HP, Sony, etc.) there is a
special partition on the hard drive holding an image of the system as it
came from the factory. This is usually referred to as the "Recovery
Partition". In your case, unless you created the second partition yourself
and named it "Recovery D" yourself, your "Recovery D" provides the OEM's
method of restoring your computer to factory condition.

With these types of recovery setups, the OEM normally also provides a way to
make one set of physical restore CD/DVDs. This restore set allows you to
return your computer to factory condition if you replace the hard drive or
for some reason the recovery partition is corrupted or removed. You should
do this immediately. Refer to your computer manual or your computer mftr.'s
tech support website for how to make physical recovery disks.

So you should not be backing up your "Recovery D" nor should you store
anything there. If this is not a partition *you* made, you also shouldn't
remove anything belonging to the recovery process.

If this *is* a partition that you made and named "Recovery D", please post
back with that information.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

"4annegs" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:0a363f97ae8324a564ccbeef2da7f010@xxxxxx-gateway.com...
If you select the option to do a full system backup, it will naturally
select all internal hard drives as candidates for backup. What backup
utility are you using to do the backup?

If you are serious about setting up a backup routine, consider purchasing
something like Acronis TrueImage which will give you greater control over
what you back up and where it goes.

What you need to do is re-instate the original recovery partition, then go
to the Acronis website and download the trial version. Have a play with it,
remembering NOT to back up to your D (recovery) partition, or C. Never C..


--
Mike Hall - MVP

Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

A recovery partition is usually small in capacity - 8 - 9 gigs. Most
OEM's, such as HP, provide for the option to copy the partition to another
HD or removable media (DVD/CD). When the recovery partition was created
the MBR was modified to present the option to use the recovery partition
(hit F? to restore...) - usually an utility is provided which removes the
MBR alteration and offers the option to extend the "C" partition. Simply
"emptying or deleting" the recovery partition does not remove the MBR
alteration.