Windows 7: Have I done the right thing? Made a backup and an image file

I've been using Acronis for back up and it was really good until I tried to restore anything. When I did I got an awful lot of 'not responding' messages. I managed to get most stuff back and switched to Windows7 Backup (that was sort of fun because Acronis had left a pile of stuff in my registry even though I'd used Your-Uninstaller)

I have a drive, C: (587 GB) and I backed it up (494GB) to an external drive F: Later I put a system image on F: as well. It seemed like a good thing to do. I really don't know why. It took about 36 hours. I went to the pub after it was 96% complete. When I came back, I had a 'failure' message, but I did have an image file (533 GB)

Have I done OK? I have a backup scheduled on Sunday. Will this be an incremental backup? I hope so because I have about a TB of stuff. How often should I make a new image file? I know this is answered all over the place and I do apologise, but I find the instructions confusing. I guess what I need is.... If you want to do that, do this....

thanks, and a Happy Easter to one and all from Vancouver Island

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums and a Happy Easter to you too.

Have a look at this tutorial, which offers good advice on backup procedures.

Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

For backing up user files, have a look at this one.

Backup User and System Files

How many gigabytes are in used space out of the total 587 gigabytes? 533 gigabytes looks far too much for an image.

My C: drive is 700GB of which 587 GB are used.

I've read the tutorials and stuff on how to do things, but I need to know what to do. My goal is simple: If C: goes bye bye, I can get back to where I was by mounting (if that is the right word) the image.

I saw, Wanchoo, you posted that you make only images (it was in a conversation started by 'Silkcat' at the bottom of this page. Is that a good plan for me?

thanks

John

Myself, I just Create a System Image, two maybe three times a week manually using the Win 7 Backup utility.

I'll also backup Documents, Music etc. to folders on my second internal hard drive(drag & drop).

You have 587 gigabytes of used space in C drive. Would it be right on my part to assume that you save all your documents, pictures, movies and music in the My Documents Folder on this drive?

If yes then you might perhaps consider making your external drive F your My Documents Folder and shifting the contents of the my Documents Folder in C Drive to this location. This would make your C Drive used space smaller and easier to image. More importantly it shall ensure that no matter what happens to C, the contents of the external drive shall remain safe. The way to do it can be learnt at User Folders - Change Default Location.

The smaller image of C drive that shall be created after shifting the location of My Documents can be stored in a sub-folder in My Documents named "Disk Image" and when required restored from there.

Hopefully this is of help in organizing your files and images better.

Thank you all

As the late, great Gram Parson's wrote in 'Grievous Angel'..... Now I know just what I have to do.....

I do have an empty internal HD which is just begging for MyDocuments

John