Backup your entire computer with Vista Backup and restore (Vista Business and Ultimate only)

If you have a removable USB or eSATA hard drive enclosure, consider this tip once you have your Vista install set up just the way you like it. Vista Business and Ultimate editions allow you to create a backup image of your entire computer, data, applications and all. It does take up a lot of space as you might imagine, so you will pretty much need to dedicate an entire hard drive to it, but it's worth it for the peace of mind it offers.

recommend separating your data and system partitions, making an image of your system partitions and then regularly backing up your data partitions to a source that is not inside your computer.

To make a backup image of your entire system:

Open the 'start' menu and type 'backup' in the search bar. Hit Enter.

Click 'backup computer'.

You can backup either to a separate hard disk partition or to DVD media. You'll end up using at least 5-10 DVDs for a standard Vista install, so that's not really an option.

Once you've indicated which partition you would like to backup to