Cloning/backing up a Vista PC

[Palatkik]

Got this Vista Home Premium laptop, not by choice, but will be using Vista so need to back it up somehow. The Vista backup so far looks a joke. Gave up waiting after 6 hours and only 50% done.

 

Anyone know a good cloning software for Vista for laptops with USB? Previously I have used DriveClone (but it's not available for Vista), and recently tried Acronis, reportedly Vista compatible, which didn't work.

[carlton68]

With Windows XP I use two programs for backups.

One is Acronis True Image which I 'recommend' for friends and family. Does a very good job and with the graphic interface it's quite easy to create tasks and explain what it does. After that it runs on autopilot.

 

The one I use at home is Drive Snapshot .

I put in the link to the vista issues page.

 

I have to add when using Drive Snapshot within windows it's quite nice and easy.

But creating automatic tasks within windows is not for the average user.

And in case you need to recover your system partition one may use the boot-cd which in my case even acknowledges exotic sata controllers. That's the good news. The bad news is that it only offers a command line interface and that the image files you want to back up must not be larger than 2GB. Duh - better to know that in advance and split the files while creating an image.

 

While it is a bitch to use once I mastered that it worked flawlessly. I did a few restores (some just to verify it really works in case I really need it) and all were perfect.

 

 

 

[cavanami]

Norton Ghost.

I have used it for over five years and it works OK.

[Palatkik]

Vista only came out a few months ago, but will give Ghost a look.