Windows 7 backup

Hi
I finally got around to making a backup of my system comprising 227Gb in
total.
It took over 5 hour and at 346Gb I stopped it before it consumed all the
available space and deleted the whole stupid mess from my external hard
drive.
How can a backup of the system be bigger than the whole? It is supposed to
back up data files and the system which does not include the program files.
Furthermore the system should be an image that take up a fraction of the
space of the original.
I could have backed up the data files in a couple of hours and who cares
about the system when it can be reinstalled in about an hour.
The Microsoft backup program is totally pointless. I thought they had got
their act together for Windows 7 but apparently useless bloatware still
occupies disc space.
Have I missed something or have you all come to the same conclusion?
Cheers
Paul

YOU have missed something!
--

(swap a mouse for a house to email)
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. - Albert
Einstein


"Paul Lower" <judy-> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Hi
> I finally got around to making a backup of my system comprising 227Gb in
> total.
> It took over 5 hour and at 346Gb I stopped it before it consumed all the
> available space and deleted the whole stupid mess from my external hard
> drive.
> How can a backup of the system be bigger than the whole? It is supposed to
> back up data files and the system which does not include the program
> files. Furthermore the system should be an image that take up a fraction
> of the space of the original.
> I could have backed up the data files in a couple of hours and who cares
> about the system when it can be reinstalled in about an hour.
> The Microsoft backup program is totally pointless. I thought they had got
> their act together for Windows 7 but apparently useless bloatware still
> occupies disc space.
> Have I missed something or have you all come to the same conclusion?
> Cheers
> Paul

Paul Lower wrote:
>
> Hi
> I finally got around to making a backup of my system comprising 227Gb in
> total.
> It took over 5 hour and at 346Gb I stopped it before it consumed all the
> available space and deleted the whole stupid mess from my external hard
> drive.
> How can a backup of the system be bigger than the whole? It is supposed
> to back up data files and the system which does not include the program
> files. Furthermore the system should be an image that take up a fraction
> of the space of the original.
> I could have backed up the data files in a couple of hours and who cares
> about the system when it can be reinstalled in about an hour.
> The Microsoft backup program is totally pointless. I thought they had
> got their act together for Windows 7 but apparently useless bloatware
> still occupies disc space.
> Have I missed something or have you all come to the same conclusion?
> Cheers
> Paul

MS Backup is pointless. Even if you do get it to work, try recovering...

The best way is to copy your data out. Put a large hard drive in an
older PC, and copy files into it. I use Linux with Samba, but you can
use XPee or whatever. The idea is to get your data into two places (or
more).

Keep all your programs, downloaded or bought on CD and DVDs. You will
need to them reinstall.

If the data is small enough, burn it to DVDs.

A lesser protection is to put 2 drives in your system using the second
drive for data only. Having a copy on both disks is what you want. But
if the OS goes nuts, it could wipe out the copy too so it isn't as good
as off board.

All PCs will eventually fail, and hard drives are a number one cause.
Best to be sure important data is backed up.

For super important stuff I have USB memory sticks.

I refer Macrium Reflect, and there is a free edition of it available if you
don't mind giving up incremental backups. And both Macrium and Acronis
compress the backups, so they're smaller, not larger, that the original
(but you have to read the backups with the software that created them).

On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:41:57 -0500, rak wrote:

> If you continue to have problems, I have had good luck with Acronis True
> Image and with Macrium Reflect.
>
> "Paul Lower" <judy-> wrote in message
> news:...
>>
>> Hi
>> I finally got around to making a backup of my system comprising 227Gb in
>> total.
>> It took over 5 hour and at 346Gb I stopped it before it consumed all the
>> available space and deleted the whole stupid mess from my external hard
>> drive.
>> How can a backup of the system be bigger than the whole? It is supposed to
>> back up data files and the system which does not include the program
>> files. Furthermore the system should be an image that take up a fraction
>> of the space of the original.
>> I could have backed up the data files in a couple of hours and who cares
>> about the system when it can be reinstalled in about an hour.
>> The Microsoft backup program is totally pointless. I thought they had got
>> their act together for Windows 7 but apparently useless bloatware still
>> occupies disc space.
>> Have I missed something or have you all come to the same conclusion?
>> Cheers
>> Paul


--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom

Paul Lower;1193551 Wrote:
> Hi
> I finally got around to making a backup of my system comprising 227Gb
> in
> total.
> It took over 5 hour and at 346Gb I stopped it before it consumed all
> the
> available space and deleted the whole stupid mess from my external hard
> drive.
> How can a backup of the system be bigger than the whole? It is supposed
> to
> back up data files and the system which does not include the program
> files.
> Furthermore the system should be an image that take up a fraction of
> the
> space of the original.
> I could have backed up the data files in a couple of hours and who
> cares
> about the system when it can be reinstalled in about an hour.
> The Microsoft backup program is totally pointless. I thought they had
> got
> their act together for Windows 7 but apparently useless bloatware still
> occupies disc space.
> Have I missed something or have you all come to the same conclusion?
> Cheers
> Paul

Try this, it works like a charm:
http://www.vistax64.com/software/261...e-macrium.html


--
whs