Backup Partition

[seekermeister]

I decided to setup the backup system, using a partition on a drive separate from the W7 drive, but still internal. When I get the right click menu, the options does not include creating an extended or logical drive, only simple, spanned, striped or mirrored volumes. If I choose to create a simple volume, it pops a dialog saying that it would have to convert the drive to dynamic, which I don't want to do. I'm assuming that this is because the drive already has 4 primary partitions. In XP this wouldn't be a problem, so how do I create an extended and logical drive with W7?

 

[Jonathan_King]

What are partitions and logical drives?
The partition manager should create the first 3 partitions as Primary, and the fourth one as extended.

 

[seekermeister]

Unfortunately, I have 4 primary partitions on the drive in question, however I just realized that the 4 one was created by Acronis Disk Director recently, when I had it copy a partition from another drive. I guess that I'm going to have to delete that partition, but I'm still confused, because when I tried to use DDS to make a new partition in the unallocated space, it came up with a window to set the size of it, and the min. size on the slider was over 8TB, and the max. was a zero. Not only reversed of what it should have been, but many GBs bigger than my 500 GB drive, or my ~258GB unallocated space.

DDS 10 was released long before W7, and I have never seen anything that said that it was compatible or not, but after this, I think not. Unfortunately, there is no DDS 11.

 

[seekermeister]

I posted this question on the Acronis Forum, and got a response that makes it appear that DDS is another program that's not compatible with W7:

DDS 10/Windows 7 Compatibility | Forums

I'm glad that W7 isn't too expensive, because adding the costs of replacing other software is adding up.

 

[seekermeister]

I deleted the partition made with DDS, and created a new logical partition, and then commenced the backup. I thought that it would only backup files on the partition which W7 resides, but watching the progress, it was jumping around most every partition on the computer. When it got to ~51 GBs on a 100GB partition, the backup self aborted with the following error:

The backup was not successful. The error is: Windows Backup skipped backing up system image because one of the critical volumes is not having enough free space. Free up some space by deleting unnecessary files and try again. (0x81000033).

How is there not enough free space, when it has only used ~ half of the space allotted?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Try defragging it and trying again.

 

[seekermeister]

I tried again, but it failed again. I deleted the previous backup files, and did a thorough format of the partition, deleted everything that I could find that wasn't essential. In the setup I only selected the system drive, thinking that I hadn't before was the reason that the backup was jumping around the drives, but later realized that waqs probably due to the fact that I had redirected My Music, My Documents, etc. to the partitions on other drives containing corresponding files.

When it failed, it didn't get quite as far as before, so my efforts were in vain. The only thing that occurs to me now is to eliminate personal files from the backup, because I got the impression that it was during copying them that the failure occurred. If I do that, will it be a problem, since the folder properties are pointed at partitions that would not be included in the backup?

About one more backup failure is going to cause me to buy the new version of True Image.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I had just done a fresh defrag.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Don't worry about buying True Image, IMO, it is unnecessary, and a waste of money. The built in backup works quite well. Did you defrag yet?

 

[seekermeister]

You probably posted before I made the edit above.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Give me a day or two and I will get back to you.

 

[seekermeister]

I rethought the answer to your previous question, and the answer is both yes and no. I defragged the OS partition, but not the partitions containing my personal files. This is another reason for me to eliminate them from the backup. I would prefer to back them up individually anyway.

 

[seekermeister]

Another thought just occurred to me...is it possible to burn the backup files to a DVD, so that a backup would be possible if the OS wasn't bootable?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Yes and No. You can burn them to a DVD, but it has no advantages over a hard drive. They can't be booted from- they both need a program to restore them.

 

[seekermeister]

I made a System Repair disk last night, and I noticed that it said that it could be used to restore a computer from a system image. I have never used this, but it sounds as though it has the ability to access the backup files, but I don't know if it could access either a harddrive or a DVD?

 

[Jonathan_King]

A system image is an exact "image" of your hard drive. It includes system files, personal files, and settings. If you completely mess up your computer to the point where it's not bootable, you can restore the system image using the repair disc.
Now, I am getting confused as to what you are trying to do. I am happy to answer any questions, but exactly what are you having trouble with?

 

[seekermeister]

My questions remains the same as it has been from the first...how to get the backup system to work? Obviously, the aspects of my quest have evolved with the phase that I confront. It makes no sense to me to post a series of related questions, when a single thread can deal with them all, and in a sequence that I can understand.

As to your last response, it didn't answer my question, because I know what the purpose of image files are, but I don't yet know how to use this system in the fashion that it was designed. With TI, I'm accustomed to being able to burn the .tib files to a DVD and using them via the TI CD to restore an otherwise inoperable system. I cited what little info I read on the system repair disk wizard, and asked for confirmation of whether I had the choice of being able to use that repair disk to access image files either on a DVD or harddrive? If only the latter, that has an effect on how the system must be dealt with, and how reliably it can deal with a situation.

 

[Jonathan_King]

You should be able to specify where to store the backup, whether it be a hard drive or DVD.
And I am happy to answer any questions.

 

[seekermeister]

I'm about to throw my hands up and quit, I tried for the third time and failed again. This time I removed the personal folders that were on other partitions/drives, and the backup proceeded twice as far as before when it quit, but that still occupied ~88GBs of the 100GB partition that I had created for the backup. I still don't know how much space that it needs to complete. 88GBs to partially copy a system that is only using ~46GBs on the active partition seems like a lot to me. As I recall, TI .tibs were always slightly smaller than the files that it copied.

BTW, you are correct (I think) because the optical drives do appear in the list of choices for the destination drives, so I guess that the repair disk would be able to see and use a backup on a DVD in another optical drive, but wouldn't know that without trying.

 

[Frostmourne]

Can you try a 1TB external drive connected via USB, and adjust the options so that only the newest image is saved? Then you can use the repair disc or the 100mb partition if you have it as it contains the same files along with Bitlocker support to restore your pc if you have to.

 

[seekermeister]

Can you try a 1TB external drive connected via USB, and adjust the options so that only the newest image is saved? Then you can use the repair disc or the 100mb partition if you have it as it contains the same files along with Bitlocker support to restore your pc if you have to.

No, I don't have any of those things. I went ahead and ordered a copy of True Image 2010, so I'm going to put this on the backshelf.