Sorry Jim but that doesn't sound so great to me.... and certainly not "exactly right", sounds more like a big PITA.
I did almost the same thing recently (but of course not on windows) One of my 3 external bu drives started dying, so I bought a new one, plugged it in, opened up disk utilities spent about 40 seconds formatting the drive to a mac. Then opened up the dying drive hit apple-a then apple-c then opened up the new drive and hit apple-v and 12 minutes later all 240gb of data was transfered and I was done. Then for the hell of it I decided to just re-install the whole os just to see how it would work out. So I dragged my home folder to my one bu drive and dropped it there, about 8 minutes later it was done. Put in os x install disk and choose to install and archive... 30 minutes later it was done and when you install and archive it puts a fresh new install in but transfers all your systems settings to the new install (very nice apple!) and then it puts the contents of your old install(minus the os files) in a folder on your desktop that you can browse and get your stuff if need be, you dont need any of that virtual pc or any of that. Then I opened up my one external drive and grabbed my old home folder and dropped it on my new install and less than 15 minutes later it was done and was EXACTLY how my last install was... all my mail was there and setup, all my programs, bookmarks, everything just how it was. And that took what.. maybe an hour and 20 minutes or so. "One INCREDIBLY neat thing is that the Backup utility actually stores your backup as VHD" I'll take mine as a reg browsable folder and not installing other programs to get it BUT for m$ that actually is pretty nice, good to see that all the money in the world can make something so that you dont lose all your data, even though in typical m$ fashion it's several years late to the party and not as nice as other os's handle it. "In short this means that even if your machine goes belly-up you can > still easily get at all your files from another machine. I can't > honestly see a more elegant way to handle it." ummmmm... ok So having to get your files you would need another machine and virtual pc.... you dont think just having a folder on your own desktop that you can just open up and get things is more elegant? I know how you love windows Jim but it really amazes me when I read things like this and windows people get all excited about a half-assed way to do something that other os's have had for years and still do it better. But in all honesty and sincerity.... Im glad you think its good and its better than it was because that used to absolutely drive me mad. > My disk array (RAID 1) has been giving me odd errors lately so last > night I went out and grabbed a 500 Gig external USB drive ($119 at > Best Buy - not a bad deal really). > > I decided to try the built-in Vista backup. Hook up the disk, run the > tool and a coupla hours later all of my 300 Gig was backed up to the > external drive. > > It was providence: this morning the system wouldn't boot: RAID Array > "degraded". I was a bit worried about the restore process (this was > always a sticking point in XP) but I was pleasently suprised. > > After I used the BIOS tools > > You just pop in the Vista boot disc (the DVD) and choose "repair". > You can then choose to try and repair the existing OS (if any) or > restore from backup. Just choose the hard drive and pick which disks > you'd like restored. You can choose to format the drive(s) before > restoring or not. > > The full restore took about 2 hours (again about 300 Gig of data > across five logical drives). > > One INCREDIBLY neat thing is that the Backup utility actually stores > your backup as VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) files (used by Virtual PC). > This means that you can see the contents of a backup using the free > edition of Virtual PC or the free "VHD Mounter". > > In short this means that even if your machine goes belly-up you can > still easily get at all your files from another machine. I can't > honestly see a more elegant way to handle it. > > In any case right now my machine is back. I'm going to see how it > goes for a day or two but I think I'm going to switch to the other > RAID controller on the machine - unfortunaely this means I'll have to > modify the case (the other controller's port face sideways on the mobo > and there's not enough room to pull a cable in unless I cut away a bit > of the drive cage). > > But despite my problems I think MS finally got back-up exactly right. > > Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ColdFusion is delivering applications solutions at at top companies around the world in government. Find out how and where now http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfm?event=finder&productID=1522&loc=en_us Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:239547 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
