HELP! With external hard drive

[Dave Lehnert]

Purchased the Western Digital external hard drive and need some help.

I ran WD backup and got a message "Some files could not be backed up" It it listed a file or two but had no idea what it was. I ran backup from the user down. I could go to the external hard drive and open some files and look at them so they did back up.

I ran backup again but this time from Windows down. This time I got the same message "Some files could not be backed up" but this time it listed a whole bunch. Way too many to look through.

-What an I doing wrong?

-Should I just drag and drop the files I want to keep? (mostly important documents and my photos)

-Using windows backup better? My windows backup says "For Windows 7" but I have a 7 machine that was upgraded to Windows 10 right away when new.

[Myk Rian]

When a computer is turned on, it opens many files, some of them being temporary, others system files. These may not be getting backed up.
You might try starting the machine in safe mode. F8 while it's booting up. http://support.eset.com/kb2268/?locale=en_US
I backup MY files. Documents, pictures, etc.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Dave, I have had a WD external for a few years now and whenever I see files that could not be backed up - I click on the file and have it run back up again. It is odd but running the file through it the second time seems to work.

[Dave Lehnert]

Another issue I am having is I can not eject the drive using "safely remove hardware" It says drive in use, close program etc....." according to the LED on the drive it is not in use or working.
How can I tell what program is the issue?

[Steve Schlumpf]

Dave, I hit the power button on the drive. It will go through a shut down sequence and then power off. After it shuts down I unplug it from the computer.

[Chuck Wintle]

Purchased the Western Digital external hard drive and need some help.

I ran WD backup and got a message "Some files could not be backed up" It it listed a file or two but had no idea what it was. I ran backup from the user down. I could go to the external hard drive and open some files and look at them so they did back up.

I ran backup again but this time from Windows down. This time I got the same message "Some files could not be backed up" but this time it listed a whole bunch. Way too many to look through.

-What an I doing wrong?

-Should I just drag and drop the files I want to keep? (mostly important documents and my photos)

-Using windows backup better? My windows backup says "For Windows 7" but I have a 7 machine that was upgraded to Windows 10 right away when new.
what i normally backup are files, photos and thunderbird and firefox settings. I use windows 7 image maker to produce an image file for total backup.

[Curt Harms]

Here is what I use if backing up Windows installs:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-linux.htm

Windows isn't running at all so there are no issues with file locking or any of that. I've backed up & restored Windows 98 to Windows 7 using it and no problems. I'm not sure about Windows 8 & 10, they don't shut down fully by default, they use fast startup, some sort of hybrid hibernation and the file system may not be clean if copied as is. I've set fast startup on my Win 10 install to "off" and it makes little difference, especially on SSD equipped machines.

[fidell mormile]

Purchased the Western Digital external hard drive and need some help.

I ran WD backup and got a message "Some files could not be backed up" It it listed a file or two but had no idea what it was. I ran backup from the user down. I could go to the external hard drive and open some files and look at them so they did back up.

I ran backup again but this time from Windows down. This time I got the same message "Some files could not be backed up" but this time it listed a whole bunch. Way too many to look through.

-What an I doing wrong?

-Should I just drag and drop the files I want to keep? (mostly important documents and my photos)

-Using windows backup better? My windows backup says "For Windows 7" but I have a 7 machine that was upgraded to Windows 10 right away when new.


I recommend use Acronis for backup in future. When I was a QA, it was our main program to backup. Works perfect :)

[Art Mann]

Here is the deal. If you want to be able to restore your computer in a short while after a disk crash, you are going to need a disk image, which has already been mentioned. There are a few free programs that will do that and several commercial programs. It is of no value to save system and installation files in any other form because they are unusable. What I normally do is just back up the data files and accept the risk that I may have to reload the operating system and all the programs from scratch if a drive fails. My data is all that is irreplaceable.

[Curt Harms]

Here is the deal. If you want to be able to restore your computer in a short while after a disk crash, you are going to need a disk image, which has already been mentioned. There are a few free programs that will do that and several commercial programs. It is of no value to save system and installation files in any other form because they are unusable. What I normally do is just back up the data files and accept the risk that I may have to reload the operating system and all the programs from scratch if a drive fails. My data is all that is irreplaceable.


The correct approach to take IMO. When I was using Windows, I'd create a second smaller partition on the hard drive. Set applications to save to that smaller partition by default. Then just back up the data partition frequently. For the O.S. partition I'd install the O.S. and primary applications and image that. That reduced the likelihood of restoring a problem.