Hello and thanks to everyone who participated in my process over the weekend. As an informational update, here is what I ended up doing:

1. Used Partition Magic to change my 110GB HD into 3 partitions, System (50GB), Data (30GB) and System Images (30GB)


2. Followed the video tutorial on Vimeo provided by whs, and moved my Documents, Favorites, Downloads, Music, Videos, and Pictures to the Data partition.


3. Because I was using the Documents folder to hold my Outlook.PST file, moving it messed up Outlook, even though I moved the PST file and redirected Outlook to it. I think that Outlook must store the email settings in another location, because the email would not work after the PST move. So, as per Darryl Licht, I deleted my existing email accounts, and reconfigured them. This solved that problem.


4. The other issue was that it seemed as if there were somehow 2 previously existing documents directories. One that got moved, and one that did not. They were almost identical, but not exactly, so I was able to identify the “old”/unused one, and deleted it.


5. One of the things I tried in the midst of these eventual solutions was restoring my HD system+data partition image from DVD disc to the newly created system partition on the HD, but it did not work. I have not had a chance to troubleshoot the error, but Macrium would not even recognize the system images I had on HD, nor would it restore the image from the DVD discs that were made. I tried putting in both the first and the last disc, and each time, it said they were not the full image and therefore could not complete the restore. I thought that was the whole point of making a system image to DVD discs; so that you could use multiple discs, but apparently not. Either that, or what it was really saying is, “I don’t like that you are trying to restore me to a smaller partition than what I came from.” Even though there was still more than enough space on the new smaller partition to hold the restored image…


6. As for backups, I am going to subscribe to Mozy online unlimited backup. I have been using the free 2GB version, and offloading my data to DVD discs periodically, and not backing up Videos, or Music to Mozy, but as I was advised by a wise forum member, just a small scratch could ruin these. (Luckily, I am fastidiously duplicative about these and always make 2 or even 3 copies, but nonetheless, it was a good point.) I like Mozy, so for the short term, backing up to that will be good, and with the unlimited version, I won’t have to worry about going over the 2GB limit.

In addition to making system images to the system image partition, I am also going to try and image with Macrium to Windows Live Skydrive, which was also recommended by a poster, and I found out last night that it can be configured to be addressed as a virtual drive. Whether or not Macrium will work with that I do not know.

In the “long term”, I am going to try and afford to acquire some external USB 2.0 HDs as the price drops due to USB 3.0 coming out. Then, I will start backing up to these instead of Mozy and Skydrive.

Well, I think that about covers everything. I’m very, very, grateful to EVERYONE who gave me their input. It was ALL very insightful and helpful, and put together as parts of the puzzle, made for a good “whole”.

Thank you everyone! :)