Vistas Backup Utility (complete PC backup selects D too)

[markm75]

For some reason.. if I try the complete PC backup on my Vista install (x64).. it selects my D drive in addition to the OS C drive... It should only select the C drive, as it does on my work work machine, then letting you save the file on the D drive.

Anyone run into this one?

(Secondly, I just have to rant for a second, this Backup system is trash in Vista.. sure it may appeal to the common user, but most power users wont use it. Without a way to select specific folders and files, its nearly useless. Why MS didnt offer the newer type interface as an OPTION rather than the only way, is beyond me)..

For file backup, I use Acronis 10, but even this program runs into problems backing up files at times (cant read errors etc).. I believe they are VSS related. I'm awaiting a Retrospect or Symantec Save and Restore version that will work under x64 in the meantime (or better yet.. Symantec Backup Exec for Vista if they release one)...

 

[linney]

Are you not seeing the options as to what drive to choose in the Complete Backup Wizard, if you don't unselect a drive to backup it backs up everything that is ticked. Sorry for the vagueness but I too only tried it once before continuing to use software from Terabyte which I too prefer to the Vista model. After I recovered from the shock of it backing up everything I was able to look more closely at the available options and just backup the Vista Partition. The window is titled "Which disks do you want to include in the backup". Where it falls down is when Vista is spread across the System Partition and the Boot Partition, in such a case the check boxes are dimmed and not changeable, as is often seen in a Dual Boot situation.

 

[markm75]

It doesnt let me unselect the D drive, greyed out..

I think it views it as a system drive for some reason.. before it didnt.

I thought maybe its the swap file causing this, (i moved it to my d drive and set it to say 2048 to 4096).. but I think once before I had it on C and it did this, though maybe it didnt delete the swap file ..

Acronis still works well for disk imaging for me..

I checked out the terabyte site.. I guess they dont have an individual (ntbackup) like file backup option?

What do you use to backup data? Acronis keeps choking on individual (random) files for me.. so I need to find another solution (Retrospect isnt x64 capable yet, save and restore isnt out for vista yet either)..

Thanks

 

[linney]

I don't use anything but a full image backup as stated above, which provides the ability for restoring individual files as an when needed or a complete restore of the image. For other important files I just copy them to CD or DVD or an USB Flash drive and save them that way. I do not have any 64 bit equipment.

As to why your D: drive selection is dimmed besides what is also mentioned above, I wonder if having something like System Restore monitoring the drive would cause that?

 

[markm75]

Hmm ok, well for me i cant just image the drive, as I have GB of data that wouldnt fit (not needed).. I guess other than Acronis, there must not be any other x64 capable backup software for Vista at this point (that allows for selection of files and folders etc)...

As far as the lack of ability to select(deselect) D drive:

System restore isnt enabled on that drive (I never enabled it, because, correct me if I'm off on this, if I did a system restore on that drive, and it was enabled, and i added files to the d drive, then went back say 2 days prior to the files being added, I would loose those files, at least in XP this seemed to be the case?)

I thought about moving the swap file back to C, but things are running real smooth right now, so I'd rather not, unless someone else can confirm that having the swap file on D drive makes D greyed out on the total pc backup?

Cheers

 

[linney]

Dual booting with XP, and loading XP will cause Vista to wipe out System Restore points next time Vista is booted.

Have you tried just the normal Backup in Vista, not the Complete PC backup?

 

[markm75]

Well the normal backup doesnt give you any control over specfic files/folders to backup (Hence my rants in other places about how much of a piece of junk this new backup system is, to power users)...

I have alot of stuff in places that dont / cant get backed up, due to space considerations.

Cheerio

 

[linney]

They have some massive external drives on the market nowadays, the prices seem to be getting lower by the day, perhaps you can find a good deal somewhere?