"MariaL" <layportm@bellsouth.net> wrote
>I bought a 160 GB external drive for backing up my files. I want to
> make a full backup of my entire PC. I have Nero installed and I also
> have the Windows Backup program that comes with XP. I didn't try the
> windows utility because it read it will make a bootable floppy, I
> don't have a floppy drive on my new laptop. I used the Nero Backit
> up program. My harddrive has 38gb used space, the backup came out to
> 30gb..any idea why?
>
> Also, anyone have any personal experience between these two backup
> programs or any advice on any others available that are better.
>
> Thanks for any and all help.

You can use ntbackup, which is the backup utility in XP, to backup files
without using the ASR backup wizard which creates and must have a floppy
drive. This is a file backup, however, and will not restore the system to a
running state. I also found the ASR process cumbersome to restore the
system.

Years ago I moved to a drive imaging program. I currently use Acronis True
Image Home, version 10 which is compatible with Vista and XP. It can create
a compressed image of a partition or drive. Images can be full, incremental
or differential. Saving these to an external drive as you have is a good
backup/recovery solution. It can also do file backup, and clone drives.
Restores can be done on a file, partition or drive basis. I recommend it.

I set up ATI to do a full image once a week and a differential image each
night. I alternate weekly between two different external USB drives.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]