As you may know, I was playing a lot with Ubuntu lately. At first I was really amazed that the moment I installed it everything worked without a hitch; or so I thought. This is for all of you who think Vista's bad with drivers - so is Linux. More on that at some later time, let's talk about backup now :)
I did not want Vista to die on me while playing with Ubuntu, so I decided to use integrated backup. You go to the Control Panel and choose Backup and Restore Center. Click on Back up Computer, set it to where you would like a backup to be created at and voila - the fastest and best way to backup your OS is in progress.
I must say, I am amazed at how fast this went. Within 10 minutes the whole computer, all of my documents and everything was backed up! Surely this will depend on how much stuff you have going on but it is faster than any other backup software I've ever used.
To restore the backup, boot from your Vista installation DVD, instead clicking the Install button, rather go to Repair Your Computer on the lower left. This will take you to a set of tools available to you where one of them is to restore a system from a backup.
Following through is quite easy and self explanatory, program will detect the external drive/dvd where Vista backed itself up, and let you restore a system.
There is a catch - or at least there was for me. Before getting Vista back on the system I went in and moved my partitions around, I removed that Sony system partition in the beginning of the drive and designated the whole disk as a big NTFS partition so Vista can enjoy. Then, when I was about to restore the system, there was a nice little checkbox saying something like "Restore the hard drive partitions to the state saved in the backup". There was NO way to uncheck the box!!! So, after a very quick System Restoration (10-minutes or so), my system was back On-Line with one dumb problem - I again had that Sony partition in front of my Vista partition since Vista restored itself exactly at where it was when the backup started.
What does this mean - well it means that I cannot restore my backup where I want - but rather where Vista wants it... I do not know why I was unable to uncheck the box and restore the system on that one new partition I created but I really hope that changes soon. Maybe the function still does not exist or something, I do not know. It is very strange since the backup itself is not sector based but rather file based (just like Vista's own installation image).
The main point is - Vista's backup is GREAT, FAST, and quite Reliable - but it is made for people who do not play much with resizing partitions, installing other systems etc. It is made for novice users who would in most case scenarios want to restore a backup to where it came from anyway - and it does it's job well.
