EASY question - WHERE to store incrementals??

[robcar]

Just created my first full backup of my internal hard drive (C) to an external hard drive (G) and don't know WHERE to put my subsequent incrementals.

Going through the backup wizard, I come to the screen that asks "Choose an existing file to backup changes only....."

The full backup created a dozen DVD-sized volumes under G. I really didn't need the backup to be split but couldn't seem to overide that.

SO, Do I choose the last (and smallest) volume to store the incremental? Or do I need to create a NEW FOLDER somewhere on G?

I don't want the incrementals to be somewhere where they won't be found easily in case of a hard drive failure later.

Many thanks.................

[TheWeaz]

Selecting any one of the Full backup segments when creating an incremental should suffice. TI does not add to the existing image, it will create a new file.
You need to keep the Full and all the INCs in the same place (folder), wherever that may be.

[TheWeaz]

Also, what is the file system on your G drive? Perhaps that's why the Full image was segmented (FAT rather than NTFS).

[robcar]

Thanks Weaz, this is very helpful.

My G drive is FAT 32. I never set it up as such and don't know what this means. Should it be changed to NTFS? Is that possible?

FYI - My internal C drive is NTFS along with a small FAT 16 (32MB)

But I do understand that the incrementals need to be stored with the full backups.

Thanks again.................

[TheWeaz]

The drive probably came that way, not all operating systems can read NTFS, so FAT is a safer default file system for the manufacturers to use.
Should you convert to NTFS? Up to you, but I think most people would think so. Here’s a little read: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/convertfat.mspx

The reason you could not avoid the segmentation is because FAT32 can only handle file sizes of ~4GB.