What did I do wrong?

Hi there,

I'v only just found this forum and hope someone will point me in the right direction...

I'm not a techie and I only installed Acronis on the recommendation of a techie friend who's been using it for years and thinks it's just wonderful!

At first, all was well and dandy, though it took over 24h to create a full backup...
The incrementals were running fine until I decided to change to day/time of the backup...
Acronis started another full backup, and despite stopping it several times to check the path and try to carry on with the existing incrementals, I gave in and accepted another full backup... only this time, it took almost 3 days (yes, 3 days!!)
During this time, my laptop was sluggish and jumpy, the mouse would stop working, web pages would load after a split-second freeze, programs would take an age to start and close...
And then, after almost 3 days and just 4 hours from the end, the full backup failed!
Looking at the details brought up a raft of errors and restarts, too numerous to list.

Right now, I've stopped everything Acronis.
I'm empted to just remove the whole thing and forget about it...

Please help me get started again... Thank you...

Windows 7 SP1