About limitations of the Backup & Restore Center

[javierdlm001]

I am trying WinVista (Home Premium) for the first time.
I just backed up Drive C yesterday. I remember prior to do it, said only some type of files would be backed up.
Does this mean that if I were to need to restore drive C, I would still need to start by installing WinVista, motherboard drivers, graphics card drivers, and applications?

I use to do an image file type of backup with Symantec Ghost before, so I was hoping it would be like this.

Thanks in advance guys


JDL

 

[javierdlm001]

Btw, assuming WinVista cannot do it, if you happen to know of a more affordable program to act like Symante Ghost please let me know. Some of the key features I'm after is to be able to restore drive C completely from a file stored in another partition, using a DOS application that I can run just by booting up from a CD/DVD.

Thanks again,

JDL

 

[linney]

I have not bothered using the Backup in Vista and prefer to use third party software to make images of complete partitions. My software (from Terabyte @ $30) has the ability to restore the whole image (from DOS or another operating system) and the ability to just restore individual files and folders.

Vista Backup would require you to be running Vista, so that it may launch the Restore section of Backup, to restore your files. If you had Ultimate, that comes with Complete PC Backup, which can be run outside of Vista from the Vista Recovery Environment. However that too is flawed if you try to restore a Complete PC Backup on to a replacement (new or changed) hard drive.

Terabyte Unlimited

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/prodgrid.html

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

Acronis True Image 10 Home

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

 

[javierdlm001]

Thank you for your reply Linney
Funny you mention that flaw when changing the hardware environment. As I just found out of a program suite called "Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite" from Paragon Software, that has just added a new feature in this version called "Adaptive Restore": A powerful and unique technology that allows you to restore Windows Vista to completely different types of hardware or even to virtual machines.

After doing some researching on this, I found the above mentioned suite, and "Acronis® True Image Home 2009". I am presentely debating between the 2. The latter one seems to offer more features, but the former one, includes partitioning tools that allow you to:
- Easily partition your hard drives and keep them optimally sized.
- Easily move data and system information between drives and partitions.
Which I find very handy, and non of these tools are found with Acronis'
They both have the same price, $50.
I may go for that of Paragon.

Cheers,

JDL

 

[linney]

Whatever you end up with, remember to use it (regularly). So many people still do not use a backup routine and yet they store all their valuable memories on the machine.

 

[smah]

FWIW, the image based backup (Complete PC Backup) that is included with Vista Business & Ultimate will restore to a new hard drive [on the same system] just fine as long as the new hard drive is at least as big as the original. If the new drive is bigger, the extra space will remain unalocated and unpartitioned.