Vista - All I want to do is backup my files!!!

How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
harddrive!!!

1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.

HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.

--Shannon

I am having similiar issues. I keep getting that my D drive doesn't have
enough free space to accomodate the backup. My computer is just over a month
old so I am freaking about this message. Any info would be great!
Thanks,
Jackie

"Shannon" wrote:

> How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
> harddrive!!!
>
> 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
> 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
>
> HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
>
> --Shannon

First the age is not of value - the computer may have a system restore
partition which reduces available space - you do not state HD size - and
most important do not use the default Vista file selection, doing so may
involve several gigs of data - select data to be back up.

"Shannon" <Shannon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0AF10C68-C2D7-4960-988D-5C3666D5EC35@microsoft.com...
> How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
> harddrive!!!
>
> 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
> 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
>
> HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
>
> --Shannon

I don't know if this will help but this is how I approached it. When I first
looked at Vista's built-in backup utility I decided it wasn't flexible
enough to meet my needs.

I have a spare PC running WinXP Pro. I mapped a drive from the XP Pro
machine to my Vista machine's data drive. I also have an external 120 gig
USB hard drive on the Vista machine just for backup files. Each night the XP
Pro machine automatically runs Backup (the built-in WinXP backup utility) on
the mapped drive to the Vista machine and writes the backup files to the
external 120 gig USB drive (one night a week is a full backup and the other
six nights are incremental). I don't bother backing up system files...I have
a separate data hard drive and just backup my data so that helps keep the
backup sizes lower.

If Microsoft hadn't lobotomized Backup in Vista, I wouldn't have to do this.
I know I can use any number of third-party apps to run my backup (some even
free) but this works fine for me and the extra PC running keeps my basement
warm and my electric bill higher ;-)

Tim

"decoratingdiva" <decoratingdiva@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:BA432B03-F1F5-4606-B5EF-C8359E0D00A1@microsoft.com...
>I am having similiar issues. I keep getting that my D drive doesn't have
> enough free space to accomodate the backup. My computer is just over a
> month
> old so I am freaking about this message. Any info would be great!
> Thanks,
> Jackie
>
> "Shannon" wrote:
>
>> How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
>> harddrive!!!
>>
>> 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
>> 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
>>
>> HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
>>
>> --Shannon

Thanks Tim. It's a shame you have to go through so much work to get backups
to work as you like. This is not new technology and is certainly something
Microsoft should have spent more efforts on, especially since we are in an
age where much of our lives are stored digitally. Microsoft, are you
listening?

--Shannon

"Tim" wrote:

> I don't know if this will help but this is how I approached it. When I first
> looked at Vista's built-in backup utility I decided it wasn't flexible
> enough to meet my needs.
>
> I have a spare PC running WinXP Pro. I mapped a drive from the XP Pro
> machine to my Vista machine's data drive. I also have an external 120 gig
> USB hard drive on the Vista machine just for backup files. Each night the XP
> Pro machine automatically runs Backup (the built-in WinXP backup utility) on
> the mapped drive to the Vista machine and writes the backup files to the
> external 120 gig USB drive (one night a week is a full backup and the other
> six nights are incremental). I don't bother backing up system files...I have
> a separate data hard drive and just backup my data so that helps keep the
> backup sizes lower.
>
> If Microsoft hadn't lobotomized Backup in Vista, I wouldn't have to do this.
> I know I can use any number of third-party apps to run my backup (some even
> free) but this works fine for me and the extra PC running keeps my basement
> warm and my electric bill higher ;-)
>
> Tim
>
> "decoratingdiva" <decoratingdiva@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:BA432B03-F1F5-4606-B5EF-C8359E0D00A1@microsoft.com...
> >I am having similiar issues. I keep getting that my D drive doesn't have
> > enough free space to accomodate the backup. My computer is just over a
> > month
> > old so I am freaking about this message. Any info would be great!
> > Thanks,
> > Jackie
> >
> > "Shannon" wrote:
> >
> >> How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
> >> harddrive!!!
> >>
> >> 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
> >> 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
> >>
> >> HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
> >>
> >> --Shannon
>

I have a 3 month old laptop with a 100GB primary and a 10GB Recovery. I am
only backing up documents and pictures, approx 4GB worth. The incrementals
should be fairly small because the files aren't changing. Are you suggesting
to select the actual folder where the pictures are located rather than the
"pictures" option provided by MS?

"AJR" wrote:

> First the age is not of value - the computer may have a system restore
> partition which reduces available space - you do not state HD size - and
> most important do not use the default Vista file selection, doing so may
> involve several gigs of data - select data to be back up.
>
> "Shannon" <Shannon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:0AF10C68-C2D7-4960-988D-5C3666D5EC35@microsoft.com...
> > How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
> > harddrive!!!
> >
> > 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
> > 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
> >
> > HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
> >
> > --Shannon
>
>
>

I have the same problem. Clearly the incremental backup does not work, which
makes the whole damn thing pretty useless.

"keepitsimplesimon" wrote:

> I as well went to do a backup of my files and yes I used the Vista default
> selection. In addition I rushed through the screens (my bad) and didn't see
> that Vistas default location was the hard drive. First off I can't
> understand why the hard drive would be set as a default location. Most
> people create backups to an external device for safe keeping which in my
> humble opinion is only logical. I really miss the good 'ol days of Windows,
> it was so much easier to undo problems behind the scenes. All these new
> Windows O/S are just becoming increasingly cluttered with more gui's, data
> encryption and software/program information splattered everywhere. Its
> become a needle in a haystack but, I'm just old school that way and prefer
> the KISS principle.
>
> Anyway, I have a 120 GB hard disk that is partition d:recovery which is full
> due to an assumption on my part while simply creating a backup. I already
> have my recovery disks created and I just want to retrieve my disk space.
> I've deleted the back files that were created but I didn't feel comfortable
> removing the recovery partition. I don't know what other information is
> contained on this partition. Can you offer any assistance? I've been
> searching the posts and see others who've experienced the same problem but
> I've only seen replies on what one should have done. I realize what I should
> have done but its too late for that now. Next time I'll just copy my data
> and paste it to my cd/dvd disk as I know what to expect from that function.
>
> "AJR" wrote:
>
> > First the age is not of value - the computer may have a system restore
> > partition which reduces available space - you do not state HD size - and
> > most important do not use the default Vista file selection, doing so may
> > involve several gigs of data - select data to be back up.
> >
> > "Shannon" <Shannon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:0AF10C68-C2D7-4960-988D-5C3666D5EC35@microsoft.com...
> > > How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
> > > harddrive!!!
> > >
> > > 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
> > > 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
> > >
> > > HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
> > >
> > > --Shannon
> >
> >
> >

Try 'driveimage xml' as a backup program.
On Fri, 11 May 2007 06:53:00 -0700, mos_72
<mos72@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I have the same problem. Clearly the incremental backup does not work, which
>makes the whole damn thing pretty useless.
>
>"keepitsimplesimon" wrote:
>
>> I as well went to do a backup of my files and yes I used the Vista default
>> selection. In addition I rushed through the screens (my bad) and didn't see
>> that Vistas default location was the hard drive. First off I can't
>> understand why the hard drive would be set as a default location. Most
>> people create backups to an external device for safe keeping which in my
>> humble opinion is only logical. I really miss the good 'ol days of Windows,
>> it was so much easier to undo problems behind the scenes. All these new
>> Windows O/S are just becoming increasingly cluttered with more gui's, data
>> encryption and software/program information splattered everywhere. Its
>> become a needle in a haystack but, I'm just old school that way and prefer
>> the KISS principle.
>>
>> Anyway, I have a 120 GB hard disk that is partition d:recovery which is full
>> due to an assumption on my part while simply creating a backup. I already
>> have my recovery disks created and I just want to retrieve my disk space.
>> I've deleted the back files that were created but I didn't feel comfortable
>> removing the recovery partition. I don't know what other information is
>> contained on this partition. Can you offer any assistance? I've been
>> searching the posts and see others who've experienced the same problem but
>> I've only seen replies on what one should have done. I realize what I should
>> have done but its too late for that now. Next time I'll just copy my data
>> and paste it to my cd/dvd disk as I know what to expect from that function.
>>
>> "AJR" wrote:
>>
>> > First the age is not of value - the computer may have a system restore
>> > partition which reduces available space - you do not state HD size - and
>> > most important do not use the default Vista file selection, doing so may
>> > involve several gigs of data - select data to be back up.
>> >
>> > "Shannon" <Shannon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> > news:0AF10C68-C2D7-4960-988D-5C3666D5EC35@microsoft.com...
>> > > How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
>> > > harddrive!!!
>> > >
>> > > 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
>> > > 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
>> > >
>> > > HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
>> > >
>> > > --Shannon
>> >
>> >
>> >

MICROSOFT, ARE YOU LISTENING!!!!! What are we supposed to do, suffer with
the native backup utility or be forced to use a 3rd party competitive
product? HELP!!!!

"keepitsimplesimon" wrote:

> I as well went to do a backup of my files and yes I used the Vista default
> selection. In addition I rushed through the screens (my bad) and didn't see
> that Vistas default location was the hard drive. First off I can't
> understand why the hard drive would be set as a default location. Most
> people create backups to an external device for safe keeping which in my
> humble opinion is only logical. I really miss the good 'ol days of Windows,
> it was so much easier to undo problems behind the scenes. All these new
> Windows O/S are just becoming increasingly cluttered with more gui's, data
> encryption and software/program information splattered everywhere. Its
> become a needle in a haystack but, I'm just old school that way and prefer
> the KISS principle.
>
> Anyway, I have a 120 GB hard disk that is partition d:recovery which is full
> due to an assumption on my part while simply creating a backup. I already
> have my recovery disks created and I just want to retrieve my disk space.
> I've deleted the back files that were created but I didn't feel comfortable
> removing the recovery partition. I don't know what other information is
> contained on this partition. Can you offer any assistance? I've been
> searching the posts and see others who've experienced the same problem but
> I've only seen replies on what one should have done. I realize what I should
> have done but its too late for that now. Next time I'll just copy my data
> and paste it to my cd/dvd disk as I know what to expect from that function.
>
> "AJR" wrote:
>
> > First the age is not of value - the computer may have a system restore
> > partition which reduces available space - you do not state HD size - and
> > most important do not use the default Vista file selection, doing so may
> > involve several gigs of data - select data to be back up.
> >
> > "Shannon" <Shannon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:0AF10C68-C2D7-4960-988D-5C3666D5EC35@microsoft.com...
> > > How do I do a weekly backup, then incremental backups without filling my
> > > harddrive!!!
> > >
> > > 1. Can I get the complete backup to overwrite the previous?
> > > 2. My incremental backups are not any smaller.
> > >
> > > HELP!!! I'm close to going back to XP.
> > >
> > > --Shannon
> >
> >
> >

"Shannon" <Shannon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C3AC420F-DAD4-45E2-B9A3-B8052FFFB3AF@microsoft.com...
> MICROSOFT, ARE YOU LISTENING!!!!! What are we supposed to do, suffer with
> the native backup utility or be forced to use a 3rd party competitive
> product? HELP!!!!
>

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