Complete PC Backup Hard Disk Space

Where do previous Complete PC Backups go when creating new ones? I cannot
see them listed in the WindowsImageBackup folder but the hard disk space
they used seems to vanish.

Answering my own question. I think I found the missing hard disk space
tucked away in System Volume Information.

I just recently read in the Vista Help about PC Backup. Can you do a full
image backup of your Vista partition to an external hard drive and then
restore from that to a completely new drive (with nothing installed).

As long as your external drive can be accessed when you are at the System
Recovery (boot from the Vista DVD) you should be able to restore that backup
to a new (blank) hard disk.

However, at this time I cannot tell if you would have trouble if you try
restoring to different hardware. Licensing will be another issue.

[Jonasolof]

I'm using the Control Panel BackUp and Restore Center to make a complete backup of my new Vaio laptop after having made a lot of installations. So far, the laptop works OK. Since I'm new to both Vista and this method for backing up, I worry that there could be a problem accessing the external USB connected HDD (500 GB) if or when a complete restore would be needed. I read in the provided restore instructions that I should press F8 when trying to boot. But will the laptop access the USB HDD in that mode?

Furthermore, I did a couple of backups during which the laptop appeared to have gone into sleep mode because of the power settings. These backups were reported to have been successful, however, the folders appeared to be empty. After having changed the power settings to never shut off when connected to AC, it seems that the Backup was complete and there are plenty of zipped backup files in the folders. Thus, there seems to be a trap. You could be mde to believe that a complete PC backup has been done where in fact it has not. Also, when I did a Windows shadowImage backup, the folder contains 0 bytes.

Before installing programs and security fixes, I made a backup on DVDs. The laptop didn't come with a Vista DVD disk, but I guess the OS was backed up to these disks.

If the USB HDD can't be accessed, how would one proceed to restore all the programs, system files etc that were backed up via the Backup and Restore Center.

I chose the USB HDD for both the entire PC backup and for the repeatred files backup.

I also manually entered restore points to the laptop HDD C: drive.

[JohnnyBoyClub]

For your own safety you should use other backup software that allows you to store online on their servers.
A software like that and is free to use and has a lot of good features and you can store up to 3gb as a free member ( they have larger packs at good prices if you are interesed