Hi, I've used Backup and Recovery in different releases for years, and done well by it. However, with B & R 14 Home, I have no trouble making a weekly backup for my documents and downloads drive (D:, about 370 GB size; only using 8%)) but most of the time, my monthly backup fails for my C:\ and F:\ (system reserved) drive; 500 GB disk size, only using 14%. The error message I get either early or late in the backup is "cannot write to disk." I.e., I get that error message sometimes after only 1 or 2 of the 4 GB backup segments and sometimes the error occurs after 6 or 7 of the 4 GB segments. My backup disk is a Western Digital Elements 500 GB external usb hard drive; it is only 35% used. I don't know what is causing the backup on the C:\ and F:\ drive to fail; the backup process quickly and flawlessly backs up the system reserve section (F:\) but then fails during the C:\ portion of the backup. I've used Windows file checks on the C:\ portion of the 500 GB drive, and it finds no file system problems. I do have a successful backup of the full drive from mid-May, but haven't had a successful backup of that drive since (I tried three times today). Any ideas for a test I could run that would help diagnose the problem? I'd suspect a file writing problem on the external hard drive EXCEPT that I never have had a problem with my weekly backup of my D:\ drive, as I said above.
- Verify the images already created and saved in the USB disk. Supposedly, if the verification fails, there are (subtle) problems in some part of the hardware chain used. - Check the SMART parameters of the USB disk. They may point to some problem in the disk. - Try with another imaging program, for example Macrium free.
Hi Robin, Thank you for those knowledgeable and creative suggestions! I'll try them sometime in the near future. What I cannot understand is why the backups are flawless for the D:\ drive and not the C:\ portion of the larger 500 GB drive. Bob Riley
What I first understood is that you are doing file backups from D and sector backups from C (the only way to backup the system). If this is correct, you are using two different processes, and the different results may be related to this.
