MS Backup problems. Reasons?...  
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Bill
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Windows XP Perform Maintain >> MS Backup problems. Reasons?... I'm using WixXP-pro, with all the updates, would appreciate help on
understanding/solving this problem with "MS Backup" from a MVP or someone
very familiar with it.
Thanks,
George

----------------WHAT HAPPENED----------------
Yesterday I tried to backup PC's C: drive to an external USB "E:" drive.
The E: drive is fairly new, and was also recently re-formatted.

Backup ran very stop and go, paused for as long as 2-3 minutes at many
points, displaying odd files, doubt big, not sensible pause.... Ultimately,
it created maybe 8-10 warnings in the report, then eventually did early shut
down of MS Backup after about only 18,000 files and 5.2 GB backed up
(presumably). The total bytes on this PC is more like 20 GB. I made
another attempt, but same story. Here are both attempts...

The warnings in 1st attempt were things like..
WARNING: Portions of "C:\Documents and Settings\George's files\
.........(very long path/filename)..... cannot be read. The backed up data
is corrupt or incomplete.
WARNING: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\George's files\
.........(very long path/filename)..... skipped. Reason: System cannot find
file

The warnings in 2nd attempt were things like..
WARNING: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\George's files\
.........(very long path/filename)..... skipped. Reason: The semaphore
timeout period has expired
Could not access portions of directory "C:\Documents and
Settings\George's.... You may not have permission to open... or the
directory may be missing or damaged

----------------WHAT ACTIONS TAKEN----------------
So, I did a few things...
a) Defrag C:drive
b) Used "Disk cleanup" to get rid of temp files (but still there are MANY
(100's) left in C:\windows\temp
c) connected the external drive with its 2-foot cable directly to PC (it was
previously connected thru 6-foot extension cord, or thru USB-7-port-HUB)
d) replaced the 100GB external USB drive with ANOTHER external drive that
happens to be 200GB
c) Re-booted PC
d) Re-ran the backup...it went very fast...only a few brief pauses on
known-big files...report was perfect backup.

----------------QUESTIONS----------------
What was most likely possible reason(s) for the first two failures?
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Needed to defrag, that really fixed it
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Too many temp files. Clearing them out
did the trick.
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Temp files lower now, but you still need
to clear the remaining 100's
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. USB extension cord was a problem.
Shouldn't use a 6-foot extender cord because ____
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. External drive bad, even if clean and
recently formatted, sounds like hardware was bad
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Re-boot was needed. This was what only
thing needed to succeed
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Path/filenames too long. WinXP-pro has
a limit (or bug with) path/file #characters exceeding ___
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Graphics card or driver problem (other
symptoms of this going on), encounters grahic files and stalls/trips
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Other _________________
( )likely. ( )unlikely. ( )unsure. Other _________________

Windows XP949  
 
 
 
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