Finally, backup built in Windows Backup Discuss Finally, backup built in in the Vista Features forums; yeah it'd be great except the backup feature in vista in incompatible with the backup file created in xp. huge pain the butt and i lost email because of ...

[cdaniels75]

yeah it'd be great except the backup feature in vista in incompatible with the backup file created in xp. huge pain the butt and i lost email because of it...

[dazzlin]

I'm having problems with the backup. I've scheduled it to backup every day. At the time it is supposed to backup, it comes up with a message saying it is backing up. When it's done, it says it is done. But guess what? There's no data there. Anyone else have this problem?
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Never mind, I found the files. Backup is working perfectly. Just in case anyone else encounters this, though, I'll explain why I was confused.

The first time I did a backup, I did a manual one. This was on 6-29. It created a folder named with the name of my computer on my external hard drive. Within that folder was another folder called Backup set 2006-06-29.

I assumed each consecutive day, there'd be more folders, each with the next date as the name.

I was wrong.

Instead, WITHIN the Backup set 2006-06-29 folder, are the consecutive days folders, each named with the appropriate date.

Kind of silly to put 6-30, 7-1, 7-2, etc, within the 6-29 folder, but that's a minor detail. At least it is working.

[JDonner]

Originally Posted by triumph

You can back up over the network? That is awesome.

Try backing up a files of a few GB in size over a network and you will talk differently...

[Znod]

Yep, that's not much fun especially wirelessly. But, you can always go to lunch while the backup rocks on.

[crabby]

I agree that wirelessly would not be great... but 1GB can easily be transferred in 3 mins... which doesnt sound that long to me if I am asleep

crabby

[felix8406]

Question, I did what is supposed to be a complete backup of my "C" drive. When I went to the backup media (external hard drive), there is a folder and one file. The folder is called PAPO-DESKTOP, which is the name I gave my PC, but it is empty. The file is called MediaID.bin, has 528 bytes.

Something did not go as it's supposed to. Any ideas?

[Znod]

That's a good one felix. Backup worked fine for me the few times I used it. Later I switched to Acronis True Image since it works on both XP and Vista. And, unfortunately, I don't have an old Vista backup file to inspect in trying to help you out.

[felix8406]

I suspect that it has something to do with administrator rights. My believe is that the backup was actually successful, but I won't know until I try to recover from a disaster. That's not really what I or any body want...want to know if it works before a distaste happens.

[ants]

Its all great but my beef with it is that there is absolutely no compression in the backup, so if your setup is 50GB so is the backup. Thats a bad thing IMO.

[felix8406]

Vista backup sure has it's limitation, not compressing the backup being one of them, so you must make sure to have plenty of extra room. It does offer two easy to use backup options though...a regular backup and a Complete PC backup. During a regular backup, however, you must use drive letters, instead of individual folders, and Vista decides what to backup. So if you want to secure your daily work, you'll have to backup the entire drive. One way to get around that is to place your data on a separate partition or drive, and then making sure that the partition or drive is included during the backup. However, this does not guarantee that all your data will be backup. So I recommend complete back ups to be on the safe side.