Windows 7 Windows Back Up not working

It is nice to have a back up solution available in the OS,,, but in my own experience,, there are better solutions....

A good free one is DIXML
You can run this from a UBCD or BartPE disk. This can get a bit complicated however, once you learn it is very easy, and is very handy.

Or,,, Acronis True Image - Not Free,,, but a better solution than the Win Back up
 
Or,,, Acronis True Image - Not Free,,, but a better solution than the Win Back up

It's free from the Western Digital website.. but that version only works when at least one of your hard drives is WD or Segate.

True Image is a FANTASTIC program. One of my top 5.

It also has feature called Try&Decide. This feature
allows creating a secure, controlled temporary workspace on your computer
without requiring you to install special virtualization software. You can
perform various system operations without worrying that you might damage your
operating system, programs or data. After making virtual changes you may apply
them to your original system if you want to make them permanent.

It's better than the restrictions you can put on accounts in Win 7 because that one
does not allot the restricted user to be in the administrator's group. You can't
test much w/o administrator privledges.
 
tblount, you mentioned about a back up program that is free on the WD website. Which one would that be? I am using 2 WD hard drives in my computer and I would like to know what back up program your referring to. Maybe I could try this one out.

I am also going to look into the Acronis True Image program you and tepid mentioned. I am tired of having to always re-install the wbengine folders in the registry every time I want to run the back up software that comes with Windows 7. I am able to reload them in the services folder where Rak told me to put them but then each time I run the back up (which will work) and later restart my computer they all disappear and I have to re-do the whole process all over again. Something keeps deleting them and I have no idea as to what. So I am going to take your guys advice and look into other back up software.

What do you think about FBackup? It's free and C-net recommends it to work with Windows 7 with no problems.

tblount, I forgot to tell you that this problem existed from the start after I did a clean install of Windows 7
RTM 64bit. It worked fin when I had the 32 bit version installed. Then I installed the 64bit (clean install) and when I went to set up the back up settings that's when I found out I had this problem. Everything else with my system is working fine (knock on wood) :) So far so good.

Thanks for all your input and help,
Greg
 
tblount,

I am currently trying out the True Image back up program based on your recommendation. I have a question about the cloning option. I already cloned my C drive to another internal hard drive and everything went good... my question is does the software automatically back up the cloned drive when it detects a change to the main one or do I have to re-clone and overwrite the old one manually? Also is this different than the auto back up feature which does a auto back up every five minutes.

Thanks for your help,
Greg
 
Cloning is not the same as backup, So No.

detects a change to the main one
What you are referring to is Delta Level Backup.
The version you are probably using, probably does not do Delta Level Backups
That will be an Enterprise Server Side Product, usually.

You really need to wipe the drive you cloned to and use it as a true Backup drive. because that is not what you are doing.
What you are attempting is called Mirroring. True mirroring can only be done through RAID. (ie. RAID 1.)

Otherwise,, you will have to clone the drive on a regular basis, manually.

Through backup,, you can set a schedule for the system to do full backups.
Then if the drive dies, you replace it,, boot the Acronis recovery disk and restore the backup.
 
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Thanks Tepid you made things much clearer for me now. I am going to erase the cloned drive and just use it as a true backup. I already created myself a recovery disk so I should be good to go.

Thanks for your advice... :cool:
 
Yeah,, the nice thing is,, the restore will usually take about 10 - 15+ min,, depending on how much data there is.
My OS drive takes about 8 min to restore.

It takes about 20 (-/+) min to run a backup.
That depends again,, how much data, and the compression level you use. I always use max compression, so it does take longer, but saves space.
 
Tepid or tblount,

I am running ESET 4.0. It seems to be working ok.

I am having a small problem I hope you can help me with. As I stated above I re-formatted/erased my cloned internal drive and after I used Drive Cleanser from Acronis to make sure everything is was completely erased. After it finished I can no longer see the drive under My Computer. I see it under device manager but under system information it is not there. I see everything else. I also can see it using the Drive Cleanser to view the status of my hard drives but it says it's unallocated and I don't know how to get it to show back up. Do I need to re-format it and if I do how do I do that when I can't see the drive to select it. I wanted to use this drive for my back-ups. I already have a system repair disk so I just wanted to use this drive for back ups. I had no problem seeing this drive before I used Drive Cleanser. It sounds like this is a stupid easy fix and I just have to format it but how do I see the drive to do this.

Thanks for your help.
 
It won't show in the Computer window without a drive letter.

Go to disk management - create a partition - quick format as ntfs- give it a drive letter.
 
Tepid or tblount,

I am running ESET 4.0. It seems to be working ok.

I am having a small problem I hope you can help me with. As I stated above I re-formatted/erased my cloned internal drive and after I used Drive Cleanser from Acronis to make sure everything is was completely erased. After it finished I can no longer see the drive under My Computer. I see it under device manager but under system information it is not there. I see everything else. I also can see it using the Drive Cleanser to view the status of my hard drives but it says it's unallocated and I don't know how to get it to show back up. Do I need to re-format it and if I do how do I do that when I can't see the drive to select it. I wanted to use this drive for my back-ups. I already have a system repair disk so I just wanted to use this drive for back ups. I had no problem seeing this drive before I used Drive Cleanser. It sounds like this is a stupid easy fix and I just have to format it but how do I see the drive to do this.

Thanks for your help.


I've used True Image several times but I only used the Clone feature.. and I love it. Anyway, I don't know why you can't see it but if you can format it it should straighten out when you reboot.

I don't know if you have read my blogs but I have discussed why I think the Clone option is the best way to go. Should your main hard drive or host os die... you simply change your boot sequence in your bios and boot right into your backup and don't miss a beat... except for maybe a few software progams or saved emails since your last clone.

You can eaily backup your daily files, new photos, new software you have downloaded... and a lot of other stuff to your coned drive so it will be even more up to date.. but DON't copy hidden and system files or you can screw up your clone.

Since you only copy newer files that are not found on the clone and ignore the hidden files, backing up your new stuff takes less than 4or 5 minutes. You don't even need to worry about doing a cleanup first because all those temporary internet files are in a hidden folder and will be ingnored.


Just use this command: xcopy c:\./cdys

from your root directory of clone drive.... that ignores any programs that are hidden and any that are not newer and doesn't quit if it tries to copy a system prtected file. You definitely don't want to copy your bootmanager files including BCD to your backup/clone because they are UNIQUE to your host drive. If they are put on your backup drive it won't boot. The quid numbers will cause it to look for the HOST drive and boot into it, rather than your backup drive.

I don't worry about backup much because it ony takes about 20 minutes to do a full clone.. .so I just clone about once a month... or more often if I have installed and registerd software. With a backup you have a nightmare trying to re-install and register all your software and tweak and personalize the new OS install... a clone drive has done all this the way you like it.

Also, I've found it's a lot easier to keep stuff online. Google has a great spreadsheet.... and you can share it if you want. And Google has a great RSS reader. Also, I simply forward email I want to keep to a Yahoo email or Gmail account. That makes these features and info available from any computer, anytime and I can format my drive and not worry about that stuff being backe up.
 
First do what SIW2 suggested

If still not showing,,,

Start / Control Panel / Folder Options

In there you will see a check box for "Don't show empty drives" or something... see if that is checked.

With a backup you have a nightmare trying to re-install and register all your software and tweak and personalize the new OS install

This is not true.

A back up is a a full system image.
You should be setting up a schedule of full system backup. When you restore it, you only lose the data between the last backup and the crash.

You DO NOT have to reinstall everything.

You should also study incremental, differential and full backup routines.
 
First do what SIW2 suggested

If still not showing,,,

Start / Control Panel / Folder Options

In there you will see a check box for "Don't show empty drives" or something... see if that is checked.

Excellent suggestion.. I wish I had thought about that.


This is not true.

A back up is a a full system image.
You should be setting up a schedule of full system backup. When you restore it, you only lose the data between the last backup and the crash.

You DO NOT have to reinstall everything.

You should also study incremental, differential and full backup routines.

You are correct....a system image is different from just backing up files.

Have you done a system image? First, you have to have a partition or extra hard drive... then when I tried it it was going to take several hours. True image takes 20 minutes. Files in an image are difficult to access and it's not bootable. For me, having a huge compressed file to restore is more hastle than just reinstalling Windows.
 
You are referring to selective backup.

A true back and recovery program like Acronis True Image or any other backup program used for commercial and home products, encourage full backup routines.

You start with a full backup. Which is an image that can be restored.
And either you do full backups on a regular schedule, or incremental or differentials on a regular schedule.

Yes, you need a second partition (not recommended, because if the drive dies, so go the backups)
Or a second Hard Drive (internal or external), network location or Optical.

However,, you can set it up to only back up certain folders and files. But that is not a true backup routine. That is a selective backup routine that is not commonly used outside of Windows Backup. It's not the norm and it's not encouraged. Though the option exists.

I encourage you to do a bit more research on the subject.

I would also add that most (Acronis especially) have the option to mount the backup as a drive and recover individual files. Acronis, I believe, includes an option to mount the backup and add/replace files in the backup itself.

then when I tried it it was going to take several hours

Then you are doing something wrong, have a ton of data or something is corrupted.

For me, having a huge compressed file to restore is more hastle than just reinstalling Windows.
Again, you are doing something wrong, cause I can restore a backup in less than 10 to 15 min and be back doing what I was doing.
 
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I guess I'm just old school because I don't want to depend on any 3rd party program to access my backup data. Should something fail in the restore process with the third party program my backup would be worthless.. however if the files are simply duplicated to another hard drive I can access anything or everything with any kind of boot up that can read ntfs format. If just one bit gets flipped in a compressed file... or incorrectly gets written in an ISO.. the entire backup becomes only wasted disk space. With all data compressed and written to an image I don't see how any incremental backup could be either fast or reliable.

I guess I could use more research. I have not copied more than 400 or 500 hard drives and the last 100 or so were only 300 gb.
 
Yes, you definitely need to do more research. Cause for the most part, you are way off base.

Can backups fail? Absolutely. No question about it.
Is it often? no.

Do you need to check and test your backups from time to time? Absolutely.

I won't go into disaster recovery plans or how to avoid them.
 
Yes, you definitely need to do more research. Cause for the most part, you are way off base.


I don't think I'm "off base"

I just don't want to put my backup files into an compressed archive or image where they can't be accessed without another program that is essential to get them out. It's like hiding your spare car key in your trunk -- you would need another key to get it out.

If I had trade secrets or national security files to protect I would probably use such a complex backup system.
 
What I was referring to is doing a true backup.
If you want to do it the way you do, that's fine, I'm not here to stop you. But for true backups, you are off base.
 
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