Backup of vista with V9 Bartpe disk is too large

I have just purchased a new computer with Vista home premium and decided to make a image using my Bartpe disk "TI version 9" ( rescue disk didn't see the new Sata drives) and the backup is 79gigs Normal compression,my complete drive is only 36gig. ( probably should have been about 25 gigs after compression) What gives? Anybody know?
I am in the process of upgrading to version 11, but wanted an image to fall back on. ( Just in case).I don't even know if version 11 will see a version 9 image.
Do you think this image is good?

 

What build of TI 9 did you use?

Does the disk/partitions show up in BartPE exactly the same as in Vista? Same sizes for partitions, same used and free space reported, etc.

Does the Safe Mode version of TI 9 show the disk/partitions correctly?

Does it Validate okay?

Even if TI did a sector-by-sector backup, it shouldn't have doubled the size. Perhaps your BartPE CD needs drivers for the new computer.

 

I am using build 3667
The partitions did show up the same except it is an acer computer and they have a hidden partition when I selected disk1 it did seem to add to it. I did not check for free space etc. though, I guess I ignored that bit. I will have to check that and get back to you.
Never tried the safe mode. I am so used to using the "TI rescue disk" that I never thought of that.
I didn't validate because I figured the image files were too big and probably bogus ,spending two hours validating a bogus image did not appeal to me.
I did download the driver pack for bartpe, but got lost with were it should go. I put it in the "driver folder". I made two Bartpe disks and the driver pack is added in the other disk. ( ie: not the one I tried.)
Thanks for the ideas MudCrab they are appreciated. Gives me a few things to look at.
Version 11 is still a bit buggy and I would really like to wait until I start hearing some good reports before upgrading.

 

The image verifies and all the partitios are shown with correct amounts of free and used disk space.

Safe version with the rescue cd wouldn't start the Acronis loader.
I tried the bartpe with the driver pack this time. ( doesn't mean I have the latest drivers though, it is about 6 months old.)
The image is 71.6gigs the usage of my drive is 39.84 gigs

I will hope this image is okay, for the time being and wait for TI version 11 to sound like it is stable for most users and then purchase it.
Meanwhile any suggestions will be gratefully received.

 

Hello dbknox,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please notice that Windows Vista often stores a lot of system information (for example, restore points) in hiddden state. Acronis True Image images all data on drive, regardless if it's hidden or not.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image 11 Home in the respective User's Guide.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Thanks Marat Setdikov, I was hoping that the reason I had 39gigs used space on my drive ( brand new Vista, almost bare bones) was because of system restore. It seems about right I have two partitioned drives showing 144gigs and system restore after use would be close to 15x144=21.6 gigs leaving approx. 18 gig for the OS (still a lot). I sure hope that Vista isn't that bloated.

 

I set system restore to 1 gig and I now show only 18 gigs of used space on my "C" drive does anybody know of any other files that do not show up in the used space of the drive?

 

After setting my system restore to 1 gig, I finally tried backing up another image last night. The image is 14 gigs in size now. Compressed down from what windows and True image both showed as 19 plus gigs of used space on my drive. ( That is much more like it!) Why the original backup was "compressed" from 36 gigs to 79 gigs is a mystery to me.
I have a lot more confidence in this backup. It validates and the "compressed size" makes sense. After Christmas I will have to install another hard drive and try a "test recovery" to it.
Then once TI 11 seems to be working with a minimum of problems I will purchase and install it.