[NancyLieder]

I have an external hard drive, someone gave to me, which connects by USB port and becomes drive F: I can read and write to it, so I know it works. I was trying to make a complete copy of my C: drive, as I had a crash the other month and went through contortions to rebuild my system, and was hoping to avoid that in future by a complete backup. BUT, I always found there were about a dozen files that would not allow themselves to be copied, as they were being used at the time, by virtue of my system being up and running at the time.

XP 2000, Home Edition. I went to this site
http://www.microsoft...t_03july14.mspx
and followed the instructions for loading Additional Tasks, as the instructions said 'double-click the ValueAdd folder, then Msft, and then Ntbackup.' Did that, installed it and yes I did then find the backup program as specified from the Start mention => Accessories => System Tools => Backup.

The form, as expected, gave me the options of
* My Documents and Settings
* Everyone's Documents and Settings
* All Information on this Computer

Well, I wanted the last, all information, but got this log back:
Backup Status
Operation: Backup
Active backup destination: File
Media name: "Backup.bkf created 12/21/2005 at 2:48 PM"

Backup Status
The files for the recovery diskette could not be created. The operation was aborted.

----------------------

The operation did not successfully complete.

----------------------

Now, I had done as directed, pointing the backup to go to F: which was live on USB, and had a floppy disc in A already in place as the backup said it would create a start disc there at the end. But the floppy was not called for, nor did any activity happen with F: To check whether it was some peripheral problem, I did the 'Everyone's' option, and this copies to F: quite extensively, took 20 minutes. No floppy disc was called upon during this operation, and the resulting log said this:

Backup Status
Operation: Backup
Active backup destination: File
Media name: "Backup.bkf created 12/21/2005 at 3:01 PM"

Backup (via shadow copy) of "C: "
Backup set #1 on media #1
Backup description: "Set created 12/21/2005 at 3:01 PM"
Media name: "Backup.bkf created 12/21/2005 at 3:01 PM"

Backup Type: Normal

Backup started on 12/21/2005 at 3:01 PM.
Backup completed on 12/21/2005 at 3:21 PM.
Directories: 778
Files: 49146
Bytes: 3,250,142,650
Time: 19 minutes and 27 seconds

----------------------

So my question is, why won't the entire computer option work? I have DSL and on one of my attempts turned that modem off in case that was the problem, so I was not connected to the Internet during the attempt.

Bumfuzzled, here. Thanks for any help.

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i have never had any luck with the windows backup software...for whatever reason...i j ust never could get it to work properly...it would be worth the investment to get a third party backup software...you can go down to the local computer shop..or best buy or whatever....and they will help you pick one out...but i'll try to do some research for you...and...who know..while you wait...someone may actually come in here with some great advice on getting the windows sollution to work...so...off to google!

[dsenette]

i have never had any luck with the windows backup software...for whatever reason...i j ust never could get it to work properly...it would be worth the investment to get a third party backup software...you can go down to the local computer shop..or best buy or whatever....and they will help you pick one out...but i'll try to do some research for you...and...who know..while you wait...someone may actually come in here with some great advice on getting the windows sollution to work...so...off to google!

[dsenette]

http://www.backup-so...re-reviews.com/
http://www.argentuma...ware/index.html
http://www.pcmag.com...738,4798,00.asp

there's a few reviews

[NancyLieder]

Thanks for the tips and the confirmation that I was not I that was somehow flubbing up here with XP build in backup.

I dug around in the site you mentioned and found Acronis True Image 8.0 had high marks from users (per PC Mag) and is under $50 so I will take the plunge. I did not know the term to be used when posting my problem, but is it ghost image, mirror image. Since I save my data files regularly to an internal hard drive backup, and also floppies and CD's, it is not a loss of data that a worry about, but being able to restore my ability to get bck to work, the apps, quickly in case of a HD crash.

Thanks again to Geeks to Go!

[gerryf]

For what it's worth

http://www.newegg.co...82E1681279691SF

Acronis True Image is up to version 9

You can actually download the newest version from Newegg -- no manual or packaging, but the manual is downloadable from thier site. I far prefer Acronis as the backup utility of choice. The only thing you need to be on guard against is that it back ups to a device/media that you can restore from in a dos environment (this applies to any imaging program)

For example, My current version of Acronis Version 8 does not support DVDs, so I cannot make a bootable back up to DVDs.

I believe that it will work with any USB drive, though. You will create a boot CD-rom, which will then access the image file on the USB drive. You might want to do a little research before purchase to be safe.