Unaccountable Windows Backup Folder!

[glennc]

Hello,
I am having problems with system imaging my Windows 8 machine to an external hardrive via a usb (??) cable.
First, as mentioned in another thread is the exceptionally long time. The external drive is a WD 1TB BTW. I have two older hardrives on the computer. Just installed the second, which at this time is not being used. Trying several several programs, Paragon Free, Easeus, Macrium Reflect and the built in Windows Backup I was getting 14 hour estimates.
The actual issue I wish your help to resolve is that during a over 9 hour backup of the primary drive with approx. 34GBs, I noted what appears to be a folder with the Windows backup icon called the name of my computer on my external drive. It contains approximately 3GBs of data in multiple folders. Windows backup is turned off. I did not have this file on the external hardrive and I didn't initiate the OS to perform this. It showed no indication of running and occurred during the Macrium backup.
Any ideas of what might be going on? Thanks
glennc

 

[my2cents]

Hi again glennc,

I have no idea what they could be; however, I can offer you a screenshot of what my Macrium backups look like on my external drive. Note that Macrium uses compression so the image backups will not relect the true size of the image to be restored. The top three are Macrium backups:



Look familiar?

Update: BTW, Macrium does give one the option to select a different naming scheme for the backups. I chose to keep the default name. Any chance you selected an optional name and that might just be a partial bacup attempt that was (somehow) aborted? Screenshot please...

 

[glennc]

Howdy my2cents,
Here is the snip from the external drive. Notice the dates on the the Reflect folder which has a subfolder with the system image of my W8 machine that took 9 hours and the iconized "Ridgeway" folder.



Stumped!
Thanks
glennc

 

[my2cents]

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that since you tried so many different backup programs, you might have created those folders to store the different backups (initially). Moreover, you may also have Macrium set to save those images to the Macrium folder (or at least you did at sometime in the past. with that said, I also noticed the absence of a size related to that one image so could you please do the following:

[DEL]Turn on the size view in the folder options so the file sizes can be seen and provide an updated screenshot.[/DEL]
Next, access that Reflect folder and provide that view as well.

OOPS: Scratch the request for the first view and only provide the second. I thought that Ridgeway was a file.

 

[my2cents]

Can you also provide a screenshot of that opened Ridgeway folder as well?

 

[glennc]

As I have multiple backups using reflect of my W7 along the process of restoring, that folder contains those. During the Macrium Reflect System Image on the W8 machine, Reflect asked and created a W8Reflect folder in the Reflect folder automatically only asking my permission if it was okay. It has the strange reflect image file names.
Prior to backing up the W7 machine with Paragon 12 Pro in the Paragon 12 folder, I as mentioned, tried Windows Backup. I deleted that icon with my computer name as well as all the partial backups of the attempted software. I actually deleted some old backups of pre reinstall items.
The ParagonW8Pro folder was a single previous system image using Paragon Free or a trial Paragon Pro, don't recall, I guess I can delete that also.
Will get the snips as soon as possible!
glennc

 

[my2cents]

Win key + print screen for an instant snip. Upload from Pictures/Screenshots folder. Takes about 2 seconds.

 

[my2cents]

Reflect asked and created a W8Reflect folder in the Reflect folder automatically only asking my permission if it was okay. It has the strange reflect image file names.

It sounds like Macrium was smart enough to be able to differentiate between backup versions and did the right thing (without any manual intervention required). This was probably to ensure that there was no mistake when one selects an image for restoral. Now, I can tell you first hand that Windows inherent system imaging will only restore a matching Win version over a matching Win version or a blank hard drive. However, Macrium is not that selective so maybe their solution is/was to provide a separate folders for various system images from different OSs. Note that all mine are from the same version of Windows.

 

[glennc]

Back again! That is certainly a Windows Backup folder as when I went to click to open it a Windows Backup Prompt came up asking me if I wanted to restore from it. I just don't know how it got there. The time is 7PM which is about 5 hours after I started running Reflect, and well before it finished it's backup. I confirmed that Windows backup is turned off. So I am just going to delete it.
Thanks for your time
Cheers
glennc

 

[my2cents]

Ok, glad you figured it out...