Windows Vista Vista Backup won't work

I have a Gateway Laptop running Vista Home Premium. I have Backup set to daily backup files to a USB external Hard Drive. Up till yesterday, June 20, this backup setup worked perfectly. Now, after having cleaned off some infections with help from the Malwarebytes forum, backup no longer works. If I open Backup Restore page and click on "backup now," after some moments the notice comes up backup not successful. I also want to do another full backup, which I was able to do before -- can't find a way to access that either.

 

Try running Error Checking (CHKDSK) on the drive or drives.

I haven't had much problem with my limited use of Windows Backup.

There is no other information about why? I am wondering if logs are being made, but I can't find "log" in Help. You could check Event Viewer (Administrative Tools) or Problem Reports and Solutions in Control Panel.

You might need to abandon your old backup set and start a new one.

Matt

 

Matt you stated: "You might need to abandon your old backup set and start a new one. "

Not sure how this would go. Are you suggesting to perform a new Full Backup? If I do this, would it then be safe to delete the old incremental backup sets, of which I have several. And that this should then leave the new Full Backup fully functional to activate and accept regular automatic daily backups as I had working so successfully before?

 

I expect (?) so. You need to be happy that the system is working well now. It sounds like you know about sets. Can you save the current set to another drive?

You could consider installing a backup from back before any of your problems started, but Windows Backup are very simple and it could be hit-and-miss. I think they are great for backing up your data, but the instructions for doing a full system re-installation looked too intricate for me.

I only install the programs I am sure I will need and I keep those to a minimum. My backup system looks after my data, so if the system needs to be reformated, I install a new version of Windows and reinstall my most important programs then my data from the backup. I might even leave installing programs until it is about time that I need them.

I think I have only needed to reformat once though . I would do it if my system seemed "sick" and I couldn't a fix for it. I do for people's systems that I work on, where I weigh up the amount of time to find a solution to the problem and/or the time lost running a sick system compared to the time it would take to reformat and install Windows again or maybe a backup that could (?) take you back to a time where you might have a few bugs here and there.

Start a new backup set, it sounds like you have done it before. The incremental backup set you have now may not match the changes you have needed to make to the system.

On the other side, does your system work "really well" now that you needed to make repairs to it? I would watch it very, very closely.

Matt