I've been trying to use the Computer Backup Utility that comes with Vista, and every single time it crashes the computer.

I am running the one that does the full system (C:\) and settings so you can restore from a harddrive failure or whatnot. It estimates the size at about 90GB, when it goets to about 50 or 60 I am welcomed with a BSOD which reads:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
*** Stop: 0x000000D1 (0x0000002C, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x804063c4)

*** NVSTOR.SYS Address 804063c4 base at 80402000, datestamp 458d543d

This happens every time, otherwise my computer runs relatively fine. I've run memtest and chkdsk and everything comes back fine. I've got an AMD X2 on a Gigabyte nvidia nforce 590 Mobo, 4 sticks of identicle Corsair XMS DDR2 800 c4 memory. I am trying to back up everything on my C drive to my F drive, both are identicle Western Digital 250GB SATA drives.

I'm not sure whats wrong, have other people had problems like this? Is Vista's built in backup software known to be buggy or not recommended. Would someone be able to recommend a good program to use to back up and restore my data?

Thanks

nvstor.sys sounds like an nvidia nforce driver. Try downloading the latest nforce chipset driver from Gigabyte or directly from nvidia.

I have an Asus nforce4 SLI MB and have done the backup successfully; I used version 15 drivers from nvidia. My backup was only about a third of yours though.