Vista - Backing Up

[mattey123]

I have vista ultimate 32 bit installed on my pc. I have two sata drives, 320gb and 250gb. I want to create a backup of my 320gb HDD onto my 250gb HDD. Create an image ideally of the drive so i don't have to reinstall the operating system if HDD fails. I've tried norton ghost, norton save and restore 2.0 and acronis true image. All of them claim to work with vista but i've tried all 3 and none of them create a successful full backup image, they come up with errors and so on.

So i was wondering if anyone knows any software that will clone my partition successfully with vista?

 

[mattey123]

also i tried partition magic, that copied a clone of my old HDD but it came up with the winloader.exe problem.

 

[pagy]

You can use the built in Complete PC Backup with Vista Ultimate;

From MS WEbsite

"Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore can restore your entire PC environment, including the operating system, installed programs, user settings, and data files.

You can restore your PC back to its original state or onto another PC. Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore can be initiated from within Windows Vista or from the Windows Vista installation CD, if the PC is not able to start up normally from the hard disk."



Paul
MCSE


"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
Albert Einstein

 

[firewolfrl]

OK first its the way you need to back up vista

I have successfully backed up vista and other OS's with this method


Steps I take:
• Disconnect all drives except the back up drive
• Zero the back up drive (you have to zero the MBR otherwise the clone will not work)
• Connect the drive you want to copy
• Use Acronis true image to clone
• Disconnect original master drive
• Boot clone let it detect new drive and fix any activation issues (usually there are no activation issues)
• Reinstall original master and make bootable in the Bios
• Or use a boot manager to switch OS’s
• Use a good sync type software that works with Vista to keep the backup up dated


I know this method works because I had to do this to make a working copy of my original Vista drive to repair a crash that kept happening on my system

This might give you some Ideas

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1370154&page=1

 

[linney]

Complete Backup" as mentioned may be the way to go but you have to carefully watch which drives you backup when setting it up, also I found it very slow, but that may have changed by now?

Usually I backup my Vista Images while in a dual boot of XP. I use the software mentioned below. There is a good chance the "Image for DOS" might provide a workable alternative for you. "Image for Windows" is supposed to work in Vista, but I can't confirm that either.


Help: SATA RAID + Restore Disk

http://www.viperlair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6043

Image for DOS

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

Image for Windows

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

"Image for Windows utilizes the technology available in the free PHYLock™ add-on utility. PHYLock™ allows you to continue using your computer while the backup is locked to a point-in-time. This eliminates the inconsistencies typically experienced while backing up a partition that is in use".

 

[firewolfrl]

Linney, those are great programs...I have used them in the past.

Vista is kinda quirky when imaging. After you make the intial backup (with a happy MBR) and you know it boots. its real easy to use a sync tool to keep updated without losing any data.

I use Microsoft's Synctoy from the Powertoys for XP
works fine in vista...lol
There is a great article about synctoy in the paid version of

http://windowssecrets.com/

 

[smah]

I recently did a real world restore using Vista's 'complete computer backup' image on dvd's and was quite pleased with how well it went. It was a 6 dvd set for a 200Gb drive with about 50Gb of data. It took an 1 hour & 10 minutes which included automatically partitioning & formatting the new drive and me manually changing dvd's when prompted. That's not great, but acceptable to me as compared with trying to recreate everything. It was restored to a 250Gb drive, so afterward I resized the 200Gb partition back to 250.

 

[firewolfrl]

Hmmmm!
I have not used the vista backup as of yet but I do like the shadow backup when the file is in use.

I will admit I am a bit impatient and just like to boot into my clone if the master is corrupted.

I do alot of work for appraisers and they are a twitchy bunch...they want no interruptions of their work and need to work on a schedule.
OMYGOD....talk about PANIC when their system goes down.
I use a server for them and create images @ 3 days, 1 day, 1/2 hour incremental....I even have a cloned workstation and and server in the standby that just stays updated. gotta love RAID 5

Smah! I do like alot the idea of a backup on DVD media. though it is slow and somewhat manual restore it is great for cheap offsite backup. I am a firefighter and one of my clients lost their business to a fire but I had recent recovery disks that I had made for them a week before
they were up and running the day after. That and I got to fight the fire...lol....gotta love adrenaline.

 

[mattey123]

It was going really well with vista's own backup program, it was very quick but of course too good to be true.

I got the error above come up, i don't have any removable media attached to my system so don't know why this error has come up, anybody else got any idea's???

 

[mattey123]

i've got removable media called PseudoDrive (I but it's not mine, must be part of some software. I tried booting in safe mode, it didnt appear but then you can't run vista backup in safe mode! Vista i love it but it don't half do your head in sometimes.

 

[linney]

mattey123,

Error message when you try to connect to a shared resource from a Windows Vista-based client computer: "A device attached to the system is not functioning"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933664

Your error message seems more common when talking about Video card problems, but have a look at the provided link.

 

[mattey123]

thanks for the help, i finally managed to create a complete vista backup. I found out it was the PseudoDrive (I that was the problem. It was a part of farstone drive clone pro, another piece of software i tried backing up with so i removed that and that removed the PseudoDrive (I. Then it backed up my whole drive, might test it on another hard drive to see if it actually recovers the operating system properly or if it developes the winloader.exe problem like other backups.