Windows 10: Windows backup went bad

A relative's machine is old, bought with Windows 8.1 but it's been working fine with Win 10. She was having a problem last week where it wouldn't start up. When I visited on the weekend, I did the only thing I could, which was to follow the instructions: to reformat and reinstall Windows.

During the process I chose the option to create a backup, which required five recordable DVD's. There was no option to use other media.

That went mostly okay, and the machine works.

When I was making the backups it offered to backup everything that looked like personal documents, including documents, photos, movies, presentations, everything. I said yes. As it was running I saw flashes of filenames that looked reasonable: "taxes", "bank loan", "slides", "wedding", etc. It all looked okay.

The reformat and reinstall process ended up with Windows 8.1 installed on the machine, which was disappointing but at least it was running. I installed all the Win 8.1 updates, which totaled more than 200. Then I started replacing software, e.g. Office, Everything (from voidtools.com), IrfanView, a PDF reader, Chrome, etc. etc.

Then I used the backup DVD's to restore the files that had been lost. It took me a while to figure it out, because the files were mostly ".wim" format which I had never seen before.

Eventually I noticed an executable program on the first DVD, something like "RestoreMgr" (I'm not at her house and that's probably not the right name, but anyway …)

It started up and started reading the DVD, then asked me to insert each of the other four. During the restore I could see file and folder names flashing on the monitor, that looked just like the ones that had appeared during the backup process.

But when it was finished, I couldn't find any of the expected personal files. No pictures, documents, scans, nothing. It restored some junk, such as leftover bits of bloatware (such as some Wild Tangent games) that came with the machine. But nothing else.

Before the backup, the only selection that it offered was which file types to backup and I left the default (all of them). During the restore process, there were no choices to make.

I also checked the Recycle bin but it didn't have anything worthwhile.

1. 
   What could have gone wrong?
   
   
2. 
   Could it have anything to do with the fact that the backup was made by Windows 10 and the machine is now running Windows 8.1?
   
   
3. 
   Is there any way to examine the backup DVD's and see what files they contain?
   

P.S. This is only the second time in more than 15 years with Windows that I used Windows Backup. The other time didn't go well either. If I had a choice I wouldn't have used it now.

P.S. I realize now, I could probably have removed the hard drive and connected it to another PC, and made backups that way. Next time, grr …

Thanks.

submitted by /u/JeanMarbot
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:)

 

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.

 

Backup Issue - Microsoft 10 - Cannot perform initial backup

Question

• 
  
  

Applies to

• Windows
• Windows 10
• Update, backup, & recovery

5 views Backup Issue - Microsoft 10 - Cannot perform initial backup




My backup stubbornly refuses to run. I can't run the initial backup, therefore the file history backups don't run either. This has been an ongoing problem for quite some time. Suggestions I've received have not worked so far. Following is the problem
and the failed resolution attempts:

• I get this message from the Event Log:

Unable to scan user libraries for changes and perform backup of modified files for configuration C:\Users\Papa\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\Config

Event ID - 201

Level: Error

User - System

*** ---- There is no config file at this directory location. The contents of the location are:

catalog1

catalog2

config1

config2

• In another thread from July, someone suggested checking a particular service (I forget the name just now) is running. It is.

• Two days ago a Microsoft employee suggested the following steps. These steps resulted in no change, still no backup:

KA

Karthicka_R replied on

• Microsoft
• Support Engineer

Hi,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft community.

I suggest you to follow the below steps to start and stop the services “Windows backup” and “volume shadow copy” and check if it helps.

• Press “Windows+R” and in the run command box type “services. MSc”.
• Search for the service “Windows Backup” double click on it and check whether the service is started or not, click on “OK” button. I suggest you to stop and start the service again.
• Once done again search for the service “Volume shadow copy” double click on it and check whether the service is started or not. I suggest you to stop and start the service again, click on “OK” button and
  check whether you can perform backup successfully.

Hope this information was helpful and do let us know if you need further assistance. We will be glad to assist.

• I performed these steps multiple times. The backup still crashes, with the same error message. In addition I collected the following error message, but only one time:

Unable to start a backup cycle for configuration C:\Users\Papa\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\Config

Event ID: 200

• Can anyone help me with this stubborn problem?

Thank you in advance.

 

windows xp installation and dual core am

could someone please list the steps they follow to install windows with a dual core processor and windows xp service pack to. I'm reletively new to amd dual core and i feel i'm missing a step. All help will be appreciated. thanx