windows backup file larger than source??

[Cinder]

I got a WD "My Book Essential" 160gb external drive for Christmas, and as it did not come with backup software, I decided to try the Windows backup utility.

I reformatted the new drive from FAT32 into NTFS, and then I did a complete backup of the entire system. It asked for a diskette to create a boot disk, and then completed fine. However, when I looked at the .bkf file to see how large it was, it was 46 gb!! My hard drive on my pc that I backed up only shows 32 gb used. How could the backup file be larger than what was backed up? Is there some option/feature that I need to change?

I have a Dell desktop, XP Home.

Thank you for any advice!

 

[Cinder]

Did I post this in the wrong forum? No one has any ideas at all? Is my question "stupid" (thinking that is reason for no replies?)??

I have scoured the net for some clue on this and have come up empty.

 

[Bruce]

Im confused

You fromatted, then you backed up???

 

[Cinder]

The NEW external drive was formatted in FAT32. My initial attempt at using the backup utility failed as the .bkf file was too large (4 gb size limit) so...I reformatted it...the EXTERNAL DRIVE...to the NTFS format.

Then I performed a backup of my PC...to the external drive. Which worked fine. But the .bkf file that the backup created, on the external drive, is MUCH larger than the hard drive on my PC. And I don't understand why there is such a huge difference.

Clearer?

 

[Bruce]

a little.

try this instead of backing up everything on the HD, try let me choose what to back up and check all the boxes and see how big the file it backs up to is.

 

[Cinder]

Okay...I'll try that tonight (at work now). So are you thinking that there is "system" stuff that gets 'bundled' into the backup file?

The reason I did that type of backup was that I thought I needed to, in order to have a "restoreable" backup. This is my first experience with the Windows backup utility, so am unsure of results to expect.

(Thanks for your help).

 

[Bruce]

Only thing im not sure of is if it will create a restore disk for you, did backing up everything give you that option? The way I told you youd have to get XP on there first by whatever means recovery partition or disc then restore the backup.

but im mostly interested in the file size it gives you.

 

[Cinder]

Yes...it asked me to insert a diskette (surprised at that since not everyone has that type drive these days) for a boot disk.

I will let you know results after I try it this evening.

 

[Bruce]

 

[Defence]

Personally I used Windows backup utility a long time ago. Since that time I've been using True Image by Acronis in order to backup my system. And during its usage I've encountered a problem similar with yours. I tried to backup a 3 GB of data to the external drive but the final image was 120 Gigs (my internal hard drive is 120 Gigs) and as I have discovered later it was related with the file system of my internal drive unfortunately it was corrupted. So maybe your problem is the same.