I'm confused by the backup options. With Vista, I could backup my entire C: drive, which included the system by doing a "Complete PC Backup." With 7, I can make a "System Image" and/or backup the C: drive. I chose both, and I ended up with 2 vhd files, one that appears to be a complete copy of C:, and the other is labeled "System Reserved", is only 40 gb, and when mounted contains no files. Is the "System Reserved" vhd the "System Image", what is it good for, and doesn't a complete backup of C: make it unecessary? BTW, with Vista the entire backup process took about 90 minutes. With 7 it took about 6 hours. Why the difference?

If you look at "Backup and Restore", there it says by Backup, "Contents: Files in libraries and personal folders for all users and system image". That means that you can either restore specific user or program files, or all your files, with your actual system settings maintained. If you select "Create a system image", you "freeze" your current installation and store it elswhere:When doing a restorefrom this "frozen state" or image, you replace all the contents of your drive with those from the image. All what you added in the meantime, data, programs, settings etc. will be lost. So, a normal - preferably automatic - backup would be the right thing for savekeeping your everyday's work, and a system image would be some kind of last resort if your hardware or your entire OS cease working (for this reason the system image should be kept on another media than the daily backup).For the rest of your question, I've no clear idea what you did. If I look into my backup folder ("WindowsImageBackup"), there are two *.vhd files, apparently one for the user and one for the system files. A file labelled "System Reserved" isn't there, probably because I didn't create an image, and I wonder where you "mounted" that file.Mobile AMD64 3000+, VIA Apollo K8T800 chipset, 1 G RAM, ATIRadeonMobility 9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

Good question.Mobile AMD64 3000+, VIA Apollo K8T800 chipset, 1 G RAM, ATIRadeonMobility 9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

I'm not sure I understand. I don't see where you see"Contents: Files in libraries and personal folders for all usersand system image". But when I'm setting up the backup, I eventually get to a window that asks "What do you want to back up?" The options there are "Data Files", which is either "Back up data for newly created users" or "My Libraries". Under that is "Computer" where I can check "Local Disk C:". Then down below is a checkbox for "Include a system image of drives: System Reserved, (C:)" I selected "Local Disk C:" and "Include a system image of drives: System Reserved, (C:)". I ended up with 2 vhd files, one of which is the entire contents of C:, which is what I want (and the same as the Complete PC Backup in Vista). The other image is smaller, only 40mb (correction from above), and when mounted is identified as "System Reserved" and contains no files. I guess my question is this: if I only choose to back up Local Disk C:, won't I get everything I need to restore my system to that point? I'm really not interested in any incremental backups, I just want a complete backup once a week for emergencies.

Hi -after looking at each of the steps I understand you, at last. You don't get the same "Contents...etc." message because you didn't select "Let Windows choose (recommended)" at the "What do you want to back up?" screen but "Let me choose" instead. If your choice would have been"Local Disk C:" and "Include a system image of drives: C:", that would have been a slightly complicated way to do the same as the "Let's Windows choose" option offered. You decided to also include a drive "System Reserved". I suspect that's the one that holds bitlocker infos in case you enabled that. It doesn't simply exist in my system, so I assume that a successful backup of the real drives is enough to restore all when emergencies come up. Forget this "System Reserved" thing. - And no, if you only choose "Local Disk C:" without a system image, I guess you will not be able to do a complete system restore, only a restore of your data and program files. I might be wrong, but every backup program I know makes this difference between "Backup" and "Drive Image", there are even programs that are specialized to drive imaging.So, in one short sentence, I would recommend you to stay with the recommended settings. And the daily incrementals are small in space and time.Mobile AMD64 3000+, VIA Apollo K8T800 chipset, 1 G RAM, ATIRadeonMobility 9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

Hi twentworth,I happened to come across this post just now. Sorry for the late reply. The backup of "System reserved" partition is also essential for your machine to be able to restore. It contains critical files required for the machined to boot.Thanks,Sneha[MSFT]