Full computer (disk image) backup and restore in Vista Ultimate works great!

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Hi,

I had a total hd breakdown on my laptop this morning. Under normal
circumstances I would have had hours of restore work after I had
installed a new drive. I would have had to first install Vista, then go
through tons of backups to get my user files back, and finally I would
have to reinstall all my programs. It would have been a weekend
dedicated to disaster recovery.

Since I have Vista Ultimate I've been creating complete disk image
backups on an external USB drive. But to be honest, I didn't expect the
restore to work. But it did! I made sure I purchased the exact same
drive I had before, put it in the laptop, booted from the install CD
and got the the repair option where full system restore was an option.
It found my images on the USB drive. The restore started and went to
the movies. When I came back I I was presented with the login prompt as
if nothing ever happened! I have tried programs like Ghost and True
Image from Acronis, but the built in one that comes with Ultimate is
faster than anything I have tried before and works without any problems
of any kind. The user interface is so simple that it made me think:
This can't just work. Well, even my encrypted volumes residing on the
disk mounted without problems after the restore. It's like it never
really happened.

What I wonder is if I had to purchase the same kind of drive, and if it
would have to be the same size? I know you can restore images to
different drives using dedicated software like True Image, but I am not
sure you can with images made while Windows is running like the ones I
make in Vista are?

I have to say that I am really impressed with both System Restore and
the backup capabilities in Vista Ultimate (and Business also as far as
I remember). This alone is worth the extra cost for Ultimate, much more
so than any of the other extras that is added. Actually, being a long
time Linux user and Microsoft sceptic I have to admit that Vista is
better than anything I have ever used from Microsoft. It's just working
for me, and this painless recovery process tops it off. I used to be
booted into my Linux install all the time, but these days it's not very
often.


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