VISTA Upgrade - Process?

I'm getting ready to update to VISTA and would like a bit of advice on what process I should follow in case of problems. I normally do a full backup, but is that enough in case something happens in the installation.

What step should I take prior to starting the installation? I have a 120GB harddrive in 3 partitions, and an external 80GB harddrive.

Most applications are on the D/E drives. I'm running XP with all the patches. I've have checked my hardware with the MS Vista Upgrade Guide, so am comfortable that the upgrade should work.

But want to know what I need to do for recovery if something does happen during installation.

Thanks for any tips.
Charlie

 

Be sure to make the bootable TI cd and test it to make sure it will see your Backup Image, which you should be saving on the external.
Next, and very important, do an actual Restore, on a spare hard drive, of that Image to make sure the restored image will actually produce a bootable drive like the original.

 

Make an image of the entire hard drive (not just the C partition, or individual images of each partition). If you have that, you can restore and get back to where your system is now.

Boot from the TI Recovery CD and validate the image, so you know that you can see both your internal and external hard drives from the boot CD.

Then give Vista a try.