Selective restore.

Seeing that Vista's Backup and Restore are totally different, I have a couple
of questions before I screw my disk up complete.y. I have done my first
backup of "files". I was given no choice of the files and it appeared that
many files from areas other than My Documents were being backed up, including
stuff in Program files. My Vista System disk & data takes up about 20 GB.
Backup sounded like it was doing a full backup but managed to get it all on a
4.7GB DVD.

My questions so far are:
1. what is on the DVD and can I control the areas that are backedup?
2. why doesn't my WindowsXP C;\ partition show up as a choice to backup to?
3. why can't I backup over the net to my 250GB backup disk on my wife's
WindowsXP Pro system?

I want to try a restore, but only if I can select the file(s) to restore. I
am afraid that if I click on restore I will get no choices and it will roll
my whole system back in time. What options will I see?

Hi Dave,

When you run the Backup Files wizard, all files on the computer of the types
that you selected will be included in the backup. If you have more than one
user account, this includes files of other users. Unfortunately, you cannot
select individual folders but you can select the types of files, such as
pictures, documents, etc. System files and program files are not included in
the backup, which is why the backup is significantly smaller than the space
being used on the drive. For more information on what is included in a
backup, see this help topic:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...4460a1033.mspx

Here are some answers to your other questions:
> 1. what is on the DVD and can I control the areas that are backed up?
You can choose what drives or partitions are backed up. Within a given
partition or drive, files of the types that were selected in the wizard will
be backed up. You cannot choose files by location, but rather by types.
Files in all locations that match the types selected will be included in the
back up.
> 2. why doesn't my WindowsXP C;\ partition show up as a choice to backup
> to?
If you are in your Vista partition, your XP partition should show up as an
available location to back up to. It will not be labeled as C because
Windows labels the primary partition that Windows is installed on and that
you are currently booted in as C. It might show up as D or some other
letter, depending on how many partitions you have. To check what drive
letter is it, you can click the Start button and then click Computer. You
will see all of your partitions and can double-click them to see the
contents.
> 3. why can't I backup over the net to my 250GB backup disk on my wife's
> WindowsXP Pro system?
This can be done but can be a bit tricky. You will need to follow the steps
in this KB article to set up the XP drive as a backup target:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307874/

> I want to try a restore, but only if I can select the file(s) to restore.
> I
> am afraid that if I click on restore I will get no choices and it will
> roll
> my whole system back in time. What options will I see?
You can select individual files and folders to restore or restore the entire
backup.

Thanks for your post!

Charlene

--
Charlene Shepard
Windows User Assistance Team
Microsoft Corporation


"DaveS" <> wrote in message
news:7D4B0BA2-F85F-44B1-ADDA-...
> Seeing that Vista's Backup and Restore are totally different, I have a
> couple
> of questions before I screw my disk up complete.y. I have done my first
> backup of "files". I was given no choice of the files and it appeared that
> many files from areas other than My Documents were being backed up,
> including
> stuff in Program files. My Vista System disk & data takes up about 20 GB.
> Backup sounded like it was doing a full backup but managed to get it all
> on a
> 4.7GB DVD.
>
> My questions so far are:
> 1. what is on the DVD and can I control the areas that are backedup?
> 2. why doesn't my WindowsXP C;\ partition show up as a choice to backup
> to?
> 3. why can't I backup over the net to my 250GB backup disk on my wife's
> WindowsXP Pro system?
>
> I want to try a restore, but only if I can select the file(s) to restore.
> I
> am afraid that if I click on restore I will get no choices and it will
> roll
> my whole system back in time. What options will I see?
>
>

Thanks Charlene;

All is well and figured out exept for my missing XP hard drive partition
with 97 GB free. The only devices that show up are my two DVD burners. The
rest of Vista see the partition it is C: to the rest of Vista.

I'll try messing with simple file sharing on my wifes XP system to see if I
can finally backup to the driver that really has that purpose.

Thanks for the help.