Backing Up Questions

whs said:

Hmm, another "victim" of the messy Windows7 imaging. I am so glad that I use Macrium which is straight forward, easy, fast and reliable. But if you like challenges, Windows 7 imaging is for you.

I also find Macrium a good standby.
I'm waiting for the inbuilt windows imaging to fail but after 20+ reimages of my computer, including a new HDD, it never has caused the slightest problem! You know the other annoying thing it's so easy to use. It isn't fair that I can't complain about it as well - maybe tomorrow.

OP,
Everyone has their favorite imaging program. Choose one that suites you.
But I can't stress too much that there are TWO basic forms of backup serving different purposes:
Imaging and file/folder backup.

I've seen much discussion of imaging and I don't think there is much more to add.
I've seen little discussion on the pros and cons of file/folder backup options.
The inbuilt windows version versus 3rd party offerings. Including data recovery from a faulty backup set.

mjf, the file/folder backup is actually a "natural" for me. Since I have all user files in a seperate data partition, I just image that partition. In Vista, I had used the system's file backup a few times. But that was screwy too. Seems that anything backup/recovery that comes out of Redmond is problematic, to say the least. They must have corralled all the D performers in that development area.