Windows Backup failing?

Margaret · 21 Oct 2010 at 08:16

Every time I run this it just says the backup failed, it's going to an external USB hard drive. My Mac backs up fine to it so why can't this? It's on an NTFS partition.

I've installed the hotfix where it can fail due to being on a machine with 4Gb or more ram but it's still giving me grief, I had a look in the registry when looking at another fix but that everything was normal there.

Why can't simple things just work, this is what annoys me about Windows. :mad:

I might just reinstall at this rate, I run RAID 0 and would rather just have a backup system up already.

Edit: The actual backup seems to complete but I just get an error anyway, however I'm not entirely sure if the backup is in its entirety so I'm still a bit worried

SiriusB · 21 Oct 2010 at 11:51

Is there anything in the Event Viewer or elsewhere that gives you any more details about the nature of the error?

I have found Windows 7 Backup to be pretty reliable so it must be something causing it to throw a wobbler.

Margaret · 21 Oct 2010 at 15:16

The backup operation that started at '‎2010‎-‎10‎-‎21T00:47:31.298665200Z' has failed with following error code '2147942402' (The system cannot find the file specified.). Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.

That's all I get from the event viewer, none of the fixes around the net seem to work. :/

Raumarik · 21 Oct 2010 at 15:35

Does your backup selection include any folders or drives which are no longer there? Seen this before when someone accidentally included a CD in their backup but obviously that same CD wasn't in when the backup ran.

Stab in the dark as that wasn't with windows backup but another product, but worth checking or ever redoing the selections with just the minimum to see if that works. It's possibly struggling to open a file and since you use mac it's possible that it's one of the daft names a file might have that's OK on a mac but a no-no on a Windows PC.

theheyes · 21 Oct 2010 at 17:40

Are you doing a full image backup or just certain folders?

Margaret · 21 Oct 2010 at 18:20

All the folders it's trying to backup are there so it's not that.

I'm doing an image along with the majority of my folders, just unchecked my usenet/torrents/browser downloads folders since nothing really too important gets put in those.

At the moment it seems to be working but I'm only 40% through, I removed my Mac partition to see if that makes any difference, I read that somebody with a Linux formatted partition was unable to use Windows Backup until they removed it. :/

Margaret · 21 Oct 2010 at 19:05

Still doesn't work, what a waste of time.

You'd think they'd give you a relevant error message of some kind but they don't. I've tried every solution to the problems listed on the Microsoft site and none of them work. This isn't the first time a built-in piece of Windows software has thrown a hissy fit and refused to work for no logical reason.

theheyes · 22 Oct 2010 at 16:51

Funnily enough I've had an issue with Windows Backup using a Linux share this week, but it should moan at you before the backup starts - at least it did with me. Having a Linux partition on a disk shouldn't make a difference.

Have you tried running just the image, and not selecting additional folders?

Margaret · 22 Oct 2010 at 22:45

I've tried just the image and just folders but it gets halfway then fails every time.

I tested the same external HDD by booting 7 up on my Mac and doing a backup with that - this works fine and the backup finishes.

Decided to just reformat in the end and now it works fine, no idea what the issue was because I tried every 'fix' Microsoft suggested and nothing worked. Oh well.