Windows 10: backup failure

Every time I try to backup my WIN10 pc I get a failure message. I am informed that my empty 500gb external drive is too small for a backup. It appears that I need over 607gig for a backup to work. This seems way over the top to me as c: drive is only 506gb total. Any help would be great.

:)

 

Macirum Backup Failures


After working flawlessly for months, Macrium Reflect is now failing, backing up only one out of the past five days. I have received differing errors; today, both in my schedule backup and with an entire new backup schedule, the failure is "Write Operation Failed - Access is denied."
I just created a new folder in the folder on my external hard drive E that is used by Macrium, so at least not all access is denied, although I have no idea what creating that folder actually proved.

I have removed and reinstalled Macrium; I have rebooted each day that the backup failed, which worked each time, only to have it fail the next day, except for yesterday, which was the day after the reinstall of Macrium.

I deleted the folder previously used by Macrium and created a new one, the one where today's backups have failed. A search for the error message in the Macrium database did not help. The log files for today's failures don't either; they end with lists of shadow copies created (whatever that means,) and do not have any error information.

I think that is a recounting of the steps I have taken to try to fix the problem(s.) Assistance is rather obviously solicited.

 

Macrium Reflect Backup Failures


Hi.
I don't understand why you're contacting Dell and MS? *Confused
I thought we were going to try my instructions in post #115?
Those steps need to be performed, in that order.
A repair install should not be done until post #115 is completed and results known for each step, where appropriate.

 

Using network hard drive for backup

It depends what sort of backup you want to do. If you're happy just backing up regular files, then there are a bazillion (really, that many!) different bits of freeware to do that. There is a good list here:

Download Back Up Tools for Windows - MajorGeeks

and pretty much all of them can do network backups. Some even have fancy options like encryption. Really, the most useful thing is just being able to schedule them and know they ran OK.

You may also want to make a system image backup too, and you'll find that software in the very same list.

I don't have Windows 8 as yet, so I'm afraid I can't suggest any for that platform. Personally, I use Clonezilla for image backups.