I'm not a fan of the built in backup software.  It doesn't fully backup the entire hard drive either.  I use Acronis True Image and do complete hard drive backups (all partitions to a second hard drive).  There is a freeware program you can look at, "Macrum Reflect" that is getting some attention.  Click Me

Thanks, Fireberd-

I may just part with the $45 and give Acronis a spin. Yesterday I downloaded the free Easeus Todo, which seems solid, but is very basic. It doesn't seem to be able to view and restore individual files from the partition backup. I loved the old Powerquest Drive Image, and would like to find something similar.

Rob

I have no idea why this was said "It doesn't fully backup the entire hard drive either", but Windows 7 Ultimate does have the capability to do image backups and restores.  Read "Back up and restore: frequently asked questions" in Help and Support.  What you can't do is a selective restore from a image backup, however you can do a file backup in addition to an image backup. 

I thought that was an awesome feature ... until I recently tried to set it up.  The image backup finishes successfully (it says), but then the WindowsImageBackup folder on my external drive shows as 16K in size.  When I open Image Backup, it says it has a backup for that date/time, but when I open the Restore from Previous Image, it can't find it (which makes sense, since the folder is 16K).  Just a little disappointed that it doesn't seem to work, as nearly everything else about 7 is stellar.

msgale- You are correct, at least as far as what it's supposed to be able to do, but it is very temperamental, to put it nicely. No matter how I configure, I continue to get the 0X80070002 error (selected file not found....). It's just not worth the hassle to troubleshoot this cow when there are so many good imaging programs out there that actually work, and have far more useful capabilities.

Rob

It always work for me.  I have however for other reasons switched to use Backup Exec 12.5 Enterprise Edition from Symantec.

Beware, there are may unhappy people using Acronis True Image Home 11. The previous version was way better but you can't buy it from Acronis now.

Rob

Beware, there are may unhappy people using Acronis True Image Home 11.

The previous version was way better but you can't buy it from Acronis now.

I didn't use this toll but i am using norton ghost instead of all these backup tools and its really great specially for the drive you installed your OS on. I suggest you to use it once then you see the abilities of this software.

Rob, you can still get a brand new boxed version of Acronis True Image Home 2010  from somwhere like ebay but not from Acronis itself. It should  cost you around $30.

If you go down this route, don't install the program from the cd but register it @Acronis and then download the latest version for installation.