Windows 7 Backup Failed

Hi All

I have desperately been trying to perform a backup on my computer for about a day now and whenever I try to use the Windows Backup I get the following two errors about 25GB (out of 120GB) into my first backup run:

Then a few seconds later I get the following error:

I have read through everything I can find on google and there does not seem to be an answer as to what is causing this problem.

I have two junction points in my main "users" folder and I thought this may be causing the problem. Indeed when I select a "test" folder to backup, it does so without a problem. However, I am unsure how I should "deselect" these, i.e. make sure that these aren't part of backup. What I did was only select the folders I was sure did not have any junction points or symlinks. I also created custom libraries with the required folders for backup and even these caused problems.

Finally, I went into each and every folder, ensured there was no malware, junction points, symlinks or essentially anything that could be causing a problem and I ran the backup again selecting only a small selection. This time the backup ran to only 3GB.

This is really annoying as in principle the Windows Backup seems adequate for my needs.

I am already backing up my basic documents to dropbox and Windows Backup is just another level of protection for me.

Anyway does anyone have any suggestion as to how I can make this work?

If not can anyone recommend a VERY simple backup programme? I don't need hundreds of features, just something that does incremental backups and allows me to restore a previous version.

Thanks

I haven't had this issue myself but two possible problems identified as culprit are:
1. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/973455/. If you add a reparse point or a child of a reparse point to a library.
2. Antivirus/Antimalware reporting some bad files and holding locks for those files. Backup fails when it tries to backup these files. For this, please remove the bad files reported by the Antivirus/Antimalware and rerun backup.

What you call junction points are likely issue 1 identified above.

Source thread here ...
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...3-5882dc73a383

THanks I have already ready through that forum and tried point 1, by making sure I am not backing up junction points.

Also I do not have any viruses (as far as my AV is concerned)

Why are you using this buggy program to backup your files?

Relieve your stress and install Macrium Reflect Free. This is a VERY popular backup imaging program. I backed up my Windows 7 Pro x64 in about 3-1/2 minutes yesterday. (About a 13 GB size).

I backup to an external hard drive, but you can use DVDs also.

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Thanks for the suggestion, however i am looking for a file backup service not a disk imaging one.

It may be worth at least trying to run while your virus software is disabled in case it has locks on any of the files, not a virus per se, just that it is holding the file "in use".

When you say file backup service, do you mean a program to do it for you automatically?

If you buy either the paid version of Macrium Reflect or Acronis True Image, both of these will do what you want.

If you want to do it manually, then just get an external hard drive and do it yourself.

One of the forums suggested doing this. I am using Microsoft security essentials and i disabled real time protection but it still didn't work.

Thanks for the suggestions. But before i pay for software I'd like to get the free windows software to work, if possible.

Just to clarify i need to either get windows 7 backup working or find some software that backs up my files new versions. Ideally something like Macs time machine is exactly what I'm looking for.