Windows XP Backup and Compression - what's am I doing wrong?

Hello,

I'm trying to backup My Documents using Windows XP Backup, but I need to
compress the backup otherwise it will take up about 70GB of space, which I
don't have.

I've looked at the comrpession setting under Backup > Advanced Mode > Backup
(tab) > Start Backup > Advanced. But the option "If possible compress the
backup data to save space" is greyed out.

I had a look on the Web and from what I've read it looks as if you can only
compress backups if you're backing up to tape!

Is this correct? If, as I hope, it isn't, how can I compress the backup
files I make with Windows XP backup?

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

Karl

"Karl" <Karl@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I'm trying to backup My Documents using Windows XP Backup, but I need to
>compress the backup otherwise it will take up about 70GB of space, which I
>don't have.

Honestly: backing up data to the _same_ disk is useless. I would get
an external USB disk and backup to this media. Norton Ghost is a good
software to do this since the NTBACKUP which comes with Windows is
very limited.

Is Norton Ghost a good backup utility to make incremental backups to my
system? I bought a Western Digital external USB drive, and I'm not pleased
with the backup software that comes with it (Retrospect). The documentation
is terrible, and I don't understand the functions.

"Thorsten Matzner" wrote:

> "Karl" <Karl@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >I'm trying to backup My Documents using Windows XP Backup, but I need to
> >compress the backup otherwise it will take up about 70GB of space, which I
> >don't have.
>
> Honestly: backing up data to the _same_ disk is useless. I would get
> an external USB disk and backup to this media. Norton Ghost is a good
> software to do this since the NTBACKUP which comes with Windows is
> very limited.
>

"novice_geek" wrote:

> Is Norton Ghost a good backup utility to make incremental backups to my
> system? I bought a Western Digital external USB drive, and I'm not pleased
> with the backup software that comes with it (Retrospect). The documentation
> is terrible, and I don't understand the functions.
>
> "Thorsten Matzner" wrote:
>
> > "Karl" <Karl@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> >
> > >I'm trying to backup My Documents using Windows XP Backup, but I need to
> > >compress the backup otherwise it will take up about 70GB of space, which I
> > >don't have.
> >
> > Honestly: backing up data to the _same_ disk is useless. I would get
> > an external USB disk and backup to this media. Norton Ghost is a good
> > software to do this since the NTBACKUP which comes with Windows is
> > very limited.
> >

Yes, Ghost does incremental backups and is very easy to use. The other good
disk imaging software on the market is Acronis TrueImage, I'm fairly sure it
does incremental backups too.