I don't think this has been covered elsewhere on this site, if so feel free to close this question, smack me with a carp, etc.
If all goes according to plan then tonight I will be installing Windows 7.
I am currently running Vista and I have two hard drives, a 500GB C:\ drive and a 1TB D:\ drive.
There is enough free space on the D:\ drive to store the entire contents of the C:\ drive.
I want to do a full install of Windows 7 - format the hard drive (the C:\ drive), install clean, the full monty (and I will have a full copy of 7, not an upgrade copy).
Back in the XP era what I would have done is basically back up my hard drive's contents to one big BKF file and then just pull things out of that as needed. However, Vista's built-in backup sort of sucks at that.
Basically I want to
- Back up the contents of my C:\ drive to the spare space on my D:\ drive
- Have the Windows 7 installation format my C:\ drive and install Windows 7
- Copy back all the stuff I need from my backup.
I'm well aware of the stuff involved after that - reinstalling programs, doing updates, etc. - so I'm not trying to avoid reinstalling everything.
I could almost get away with just backing up the C:\Users directory but in the past when I did that there would always be some really important data or settings file in some super double hidden location which Windows Explorer would miss somehow and I'd be screwed.
What's the best way to do a one-time Windows Vista backup in order to perform a clean Windows 7 install?