Windows 7 Win 7 Backup Failing - This Time It's Error 0x80780034

[Irishmist20]

Dell Studio XPS Laptop New April 2010
Win 7 Home Premium
Intel i5
4 GB Ram
Seagate Free Agent External HD 320GB of which 232GB is free

I've now had four failed attempts to backup my computer to an external Seagate Free Agent HD. The third failure resulted in: "Backup encountered a problem while backing up file C:\Users\Paul\Desktop\2010_06_14. Error: The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)"

Could it be because C:\Users\Paul\Desktop\ folder was empty?!

My Documents Library contained three locations:

My Documents (13)
c:\Users\Paul

Public Documents (2)
C:\Users\Public

2010_06_14 (Empty)
C:\Users\Paul\Desktop

I was able to delete the empty folder and the third location and attempted a fourth backup. This resulted in: Windows Backup failed to create the shadow copy on the storage location. Details: The shadow copy provider had an error. Check the System and Application Event logs for more information. Error: 0x80780034

Would someone care to translate that (I have no idea how or where to "Check the System and Application Event logs and wouldn't know what to do with them after checking)? Please tell me what is going on here and how I can successfully complete a Windows 7 Backup?.

Thanks,
Irish

 

[Saltgrass]

Exactly what type of backup are you doing and what utility are you using? Could you go through your steps?

The event viewer is part of the admin tools, or you can type eventvwr.msc in the Start Menu search box and hit enter.

 

[Irishmist20]

I opened the event viewer and, as I suspected, it's all Greek to me.

Backing Up:
1. Connect my Seagate to a USB port, open Win 7x64 Control Panel and click on Backup and Restore. Backup size is 61.88GB, HD free space is 232.19GB. Items to backup are: Files in libraries and personal folders for all users and system image.
2. In the Control Panel/Edit Dell power plan settings, changed power-on options for Dim Display, turn Off Display and Put the computer to sleep to Never.
3. In Control Panel/Backup and Restore click on Backup Now.
4. The backup is now in progress - real time. Time is 0946 EDT. 0952 EDT - backup 63% complete. Creating a system image of Paul XPS C:.

WELL, whadda ya know! 0956 EDT and the backup completed successfully. I guess computers are like people. Sometimes the only way to get through to them is to beat them into submission.

Thanks very much for replying to my initial post.

Paul

 

[Saltgrass]

Glad you got working.

The event viewer can be very helpful keeping track of problems with your system. It might be helpful for you to get familar with it in the future. I will normally look for an Error or Warning event. Then see how many times it has occurred and when. You may be able to decipher a pattern which could lead to a problem solution.