Backing up Boot Camp Partition

[gahideg]

Well, I've searched a lot of threads and maybe I'm just not getting it.
I am trying to find a way to back up my Boot Camp partition which contains my Windows Vista Ultimate OS and applications. Apple tells me that anything beyond providing the Boot Camp software is beyond their scope (not going to go on about that issue here
I figure there are 2 ways to go about this:
1) Format a portable drive in Snow Leopard to a recognizable format for the Mac OS and then image the Boot Camp partition to the portable drive as a .dmg file.
2) or, install WinClone on the Mac OS side, and then try to image the Boot Camp partition to a portable drive.

Anybody try either of these or have another method? I almost had a hardware emergency the other day and then found out that when I have been running Time Machine, that it does not backup my Boot Camp partition.
Almost a nightmare for me. I always backup my Windows file on multiple separate media, but I need to find a logical, consistent, sound way to backup the Windows system and its applications...because I don't care to spend a week reinstalling everything when the hard drive dies one day. I use Windows only to run Autodesk's Revit Architecture 2010 (runs like a dream on my MBP 17!)...need it for work. I use the Mac OS for everything else (why would'nt you!).
Any help is truly appreciated.

 

[balamw]

Winclone is basically a wrapper for built in Mac OS tools and ntfstools. It uses DMG as one of its image formats, but knows how to resize partitions and make sure they will boot, so it is better than Disk Utility by itself.

If you have enough space on your main OS X partition, use Winclone to create an image to your main OS X partition. It will then get backed up by Time Machine automatically.

B

 

[gahideg]

For clarification...

So, does that mean if I use WinClone to image the Bootcamp partition onto my Mac OS, then not only will Time MAchine back it up, but I will also be able to use the "image" to restore the BootCamp partition if it gets corrupted one day?
I'm not super computer savvy, so just checking.
Thanks

 

[balamw]

So, does that mean if I use WinClone to image the Bootcamp partition onto my Mac OS, then not only will Time MAchine back it up, but I will also be able to use the "image" to restore the BootCamp partition if it gets corrupted one day?\

Yes. That is the point of the image. You would first restore the image from your Time Machine backup and then restore your Boot Camp partition from that.

B

 

[gahideg]

Thank you very much

 

[3rdi]

sorry nooB question ? is xp or win 7 better for b/c
cheers j

 

[gahideg]

Which is better...

I am using Vista Ultimate and it works great. I hear Win7 is the way to go though. I need to use Autodesk's Revit Architecture 2010, and it is a 64-bit program, so Vista 64-bit was what I used (Win7 was still a few months away).
I can attest to Vista working great with a few minor annoyances:
1) Machine gets pretty hot
2) Battery life is shorter than in Mac OS, but better than my 3 yr. old PC laptop running XP.
3) Trackpad and keyboard is not as good as in the Mac OS.
Other than that I am very pleased using Vista in Bootcamp.

 

[3rdi]

thanks