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Back-up problem

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by Nick Wright, 2012/12/29.

  1. 2012/12/29
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    My backups keep failing.
    Tried to do normal backup o 1.2TB of data to a fresh formatted 2TB USB drive.
    it took FIVE days to reach 50% then crashed. subsequent attempts failed saying not enough space on drive.
    So I formatted drive again.and-
    Tried to save a System image - it reported that space needed was 1.28TB, Space available was 1.82TB.
    it started then failed saying not enough space on drive to store shadow copy?.

    What am I doing wrong? (Am I doing anything wrong?)

    I`m already having major problems with a cloud storage company called "Livedrive" -their backup solution is virtually unusable/useless so no respite there...
    I don`t like taking chances and will feel safer with everything stored but I`m getting nowhere...
     
    Last edited: 2012/12/29
  2. 2012/12/29
    MrBill

    MrBill SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    What program are you using for backups?
     

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  4. 2012/12/30
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    The microsoft Backup (now called Windows 7 File Recovery), also same for System image, and again with microsofts "File History" - they ALL fail. -System image backup says "not enough room for shadow copy" File history can`t even see the H drive (USB 2TB newly formatted). Theres nothing wrong with the drive , its been happily working on a windows 7 computer as a back up drive.
    "File history" even tries to use my readyboost thumbdrive whilst ignoring the Empty 2TB drive.

    Edit also tried paragons free windows 8 backup program, -IT goes through the motions of selection,tells you to reboot to start, but when you reboot -nothing, you have to start the program again & it gives the same reboot message.(it got swiftly uninstalled).
    What IS it with programs & windows 8 - why is everything so badly designed and difficult to use nowadays? -I`m not inexperienced but I am struggling - god only knows what a casual user thinks of it all....

    P.S -ignore me if I sound Grumpy but I`ve been fighting with this Operating system for a fortnight now and its driving me Crazy....
     
    Last edited: 2012/12/30
  5. 2012/12/31
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    How much free space you have on the drive you are trying to backup?

    Any related error messages shown in Event Viewer?
     
    Arie,
    #4
  6. 2012/12/31
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    C:\ Drive = 1.2TB used , 512MB free space
    the USB drive (H:\) is a newly formatted NTFS 2TB drive and Empty.

    There are so many errors showing in the event viewer hat its hard to pin any one down,although the one that does seem pertinent is
    0x81000033
    Event I.D. 4104
    "The backup was not successful. The error is: Windows Backup skipped backing up system image because one of the critical volumes is not having enough free space. Free up some space by deleting unnecessary files and try again. "

    I have moved the USB drive to my windows 7 machine which has nearly identical hardware specs and the backup flew through with no problems...

    Edit:- (512GB - not MB)
     
    Last edited: 2012/12/31
  7. 2012/12/31
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    That's not enough free space. But are you sure that you got that right? You'll probably have 512GB free space...

    Do you have a recovery partition on your system? Does your system have a System Reserved partition?
     
    Arie,
    #6
  8. 2012/12/31
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    Sorry don`t understand - enough free space for what? I`m trying to back=up the 1.2TB on my C drive to the USB (H: ) drive which has 2TB of free space.
    and yes the C: drive has a recovery partition but even with that - it should fit?

    [​IMG]

    (and I did mean 512GB of free space)
     
    Last edited: 2012/12/31
  9. 2013/01/01
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    That's an awful lot of data on the C partition. Run Disk Cleanup prior to backing up anything.

    Do you store all of your multimedia on the same partition as the operating system? I can't think of anything else that would consume that much drive space.

    IMHO, it's best to store all important docs, files, multimedia on a separate drive or separate partition. If the operating system fails or the drive fails, all data is lost.
     
  10. 2013/01/01
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    Again I don`t see the relevance, Wherever I store Data, I should still be able to back it up..
    Also isn`t that what a backup is for anyway-if the O/S or drive fails the data is Backed up?-and if I put the data in its own partition it will still be on the same drive.
    Anyway,-Whatever, - I`m through waiting for answers now ,its clear I`m on my own.
    I moved the USB drive to my windows 7 machine which has the same data stored in exactly the same way and the backup performed flawlessly.

    In my opinion the problem is windows 8.
    its pants.
     
    Last edited: 2013/01/01
  11. 2013/01/01
    BudTheGrey

    BudTheGrey Well-Known Member

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    Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the fundamental new concepts in Win 7/8 is VSS ( "Volume Shadow Service ", or something like that). As I understand it, the built-in windows backup uses VSS to make a copy of the data being backed up on the same drive (a "shadow "), then backs up the copy. The message you are seeing means that there's not enough space to make the shadow copy.
     
    Nick Wright likes this.
  12. 2013/01/01
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thank You.
    At last - an answer.
    Well it explains why the back-up won`t work but its logic escapes me-Why make another copy? and on the same drive?What does the "Shadow copy" actually achieve ?(apart from breaking the back-up function).
    and can I disable it..
    (for the duration of my backup -which will occur when the computer is not being used)

    Edit:- if the Operating system makes this "shadow copy" using free space on the C: drive then why doen`t the space it needs appear as "being used" i.e. NOT free space? This system suggests that for instance a 2TB C: drive only has 1TB of useable space because of the "shadow copy" - anything above that and the backup won`t work.

    Also why did the backup work just fine on the windows 7 machine which I assume uses shadow copy too?
    (I googled the term and VSS/VSC has been around since 2003)
     
    Last edited: 2013/01/01
  13. 2013/01/01
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    Wikipedia: Shadow Copy > Overview
     
  14. 2013/01/01
    BudTheGrey

    BudTheGrey Well-Known Member

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    I believe that happens because the shadow copy is not really created until some program (like backup) requests it. To be honest, I think VSS makes a great deal of sense on servers that cannot be shutdown or paused, not so much on single user workstations. Personally, I don't normally trust "live" backups. I boot my machine from the Acronis CD and make the image to an external drive.
     
  15. 2013/01/01
    MrBill

    MrBill SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    There are FREE backup programs that do much better then the default one in Windows.
     
  16. 2013/01/01
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    Well thank you for answering some of my questions,the one thing that still confuses me is why the backup fails on the windows 8 machine , yet completes without fuss on the windows 7 machine. The files are the same, the partitions the same and I believe both use VSS/VSC .One works ,the other does not.
    it seems illogical to me that the O/S can take a "snapshot" or shadow copy and store it on the same C: drive but can`t take a "snapshot" or shadow copy and store it on the H: drive....
    I did try Paragons Windows 8 Backup program, but it did not work either - it asks you to reboot to start the backup,which when done JUST reboots,(nothing running when rebooted-start paragon again and get same reboot message)
    Surely there must be some solution to my problem else all thats left to me is physically copying the files over to the drive which will take up more room than a properly archived backup.

    Any suggestions?
     
    Last edited: 2013/01/01
  17. 2013/01/01
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    You posted this above:
    C:\ Drive = 1.2TB used , 512MB free space

    THAT is why it fails. You don't have enough free space on the C drive for Windows to do much of anything if those numbers are correct.

    Also, copied files are much better to have as a backup than ANY backup software's archive file format. Yes, it uses more disk space, but overall it uses less space IF you use a batch file or cmd file using xcopy to do the job. One simply includes the switch to only copy changed files. Subsequent backup jobs take 1/1000th the time to complete.

    Backup software such as Windows Backup and other 3rd party software usually generate an archive which has a unique name and timestamp, thus one ends up with multiple archives of the same data on a backup drive/partition. There's no need at all to have multiple backup copies of xmas pictures from 2007 (example).

    The other downside of backup software is that when the operating system drive fails you won't be able to get the data from the archives without an operating system using the same backup software. Another reaso plain old file copies are best.

    Note, I'm not referring to disk image backups, these are a separate beast used mainly to quickly get the operating system and data restored after a catastrophe such as drive failure or unrecoverable malware infection.

    I do all my backups manually by copying files to other drives as well as to another computer. I can post my cmd file if you'd like. The initial backup is long, depending upon how much data is being copied, but as I said earlier, subsequent backups are very fast. It can even be used with Task Scheduler so it runs per the schedule of your choosing.
     
  18. 2013/01/02
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks Tony that would be great, Any help gratefully accepted!
    just a small point -as I pointed out , its 512GB not MB -my typo!
    My files ARE safe- existing on the windows 7 machine too but I wanted to free that space AND provide a system image for such catastrophe`s that you mentioned.
    As I`ve already posted , the backup sailed through on the windows 7 machine with almost IDENTICAL parameters(partition size,location,free space) so I don`t understand whats different about the windows 8 machine.
    I`m fast losing interest in windows 8 actually, the backup problems are just the tip of the iceberg,-I`ve been keeping a journal of the BSOD`s , Crashes,errors etc and its 14 pages long - 60 entries! I can`t trust it as my main machine with that record so I think its destined to become just a curiosity for me until these problems are ironed out (if ever).
     
  19. 2013/01/02
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    Understood.
    Question: Did you do an upgrade to Win8 or a clean install (wipe drive) from a DVD?

    If you get that many bsods then there are other things awry that are causing problems which need to be sorted out prior to backing up or making system images, i.e. a system image of an operating system with unresolved problems is almost worthless.
     
  20. 2013/01/02
    Nick Wright

    Nick Wright Inactive Thread Starter

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    Its a Brand new Machine that was sold to me with windows 8, - I upgraded to windows 8 Pro from a DVD upgrade pack then activated same with enclosed "key on a card ".
    All my metro Apps stopped working and I could not find a fix so I re-installed windows 8 Pro from the same DVD and re-activated it.
    I initially had a lot of problems with an Anti-virus package pressed onto me by the salesman-Norton 360 Gold but it caused so much trouble I uninstalled it, then I ran a "cleaner" or `norton uninstallation program` and now just use defender and firewall.
    The only other thing I`ve added is the Media Centre activation/uplgrade.
     
  21. 2013/01/02
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Sounds like a failing machine to me. I'd return it for a refund!
     

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