Freeze but not because of HDM XP SP3 with HDM 14 Data drive - an extended partition covers the entire drive Backup drive - USB 3.0 local Backup of system drive - OK Backup of data drive - freeze as soon as the destination folder is created. Freeze is system-wide. It is also not random (happens consistently). Only applies to backup under HDM (not recovery media). Suspicious - when plug-and-play the USB 3.0 drive would freeze the system too, in a very similar way to the HDM freeze. Problem solved: This not a bug in HDM. Instead, it's a bug in Eset antivirus. As soon as Eset was uninstalled, HDM did that all right. Thread topic was re-edited after the Eset diagnostic. Forum admin, may delete this thread (not really an issue with HDM)