Change back up files from D Partitioned Drive to External Hard Drive?

[matthewlong]

Hello.
Recently bought a new Laptop, and went through all the setting up process, one of which was Windows 7 back up. At the time I just went for the partitioned drive option, but after a week, I've decided to buy an external Hard drive for my back ups instead.
My questions are:
1. Can I easily change the destination of the back up files?
2. Do I just delete everything on Drive D once I'm backing up to an external Hard Drive, or will Windows give me this option when I change to external Hard Drive?
3. The Back up is done on a schedule, so how do I get on when the date passes? Will it ask me to plug my external Hard Drive in the next time I boot up?
4. Finally, I'd like to back up our Desktop too, running on Vista. Can I just partition the external Hard Drive, and keep our laptop, and Desktop backed up on the same hard drive??

Cheers, Matthew

 

[gregrocker]

Hi Matthew -

You don't need to partition the HD to keep your different backups on it.

The WindowsImageBackup file needs to be named only that and in the root of the external to reimage from the booted DVD or Repair CD, however you can click on it to see which PC it is for.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/615-backup-user-system-files.html

I don't like the way Win7 file backup works so I drag the active User folder from each computer here to external once per month, then update the backup image every few months. You may decide to go Manual after trying the automated backup, since you'll need to move the external to catch the backup anyway.