Solved Backup and Restore Skipping Files

Oops! I might have messed up some stuff.

Background: Upgraded today from Win 10 to Win 11 Ver 21H2. Ran all updates available. My primary drive has a partition for the operating system on C: and another for data on D: The only folders I really care about and keep on D: are Documents/Downloads/Music/Pictures/Videos. Using File Explorer/Properties, I changed the Location for each of those folders from C: to D: Then I set up File History to backup daily to another internal drive. I excluded libraries for anything other than Documents and Downloads. That seemed to work just fine.

Problem: Next I tried to set up Backup and Restore (Windows 7) to backup all user files plus a system image to an external drive. The backup completes, but skips some files. The folders that are skipped just happen to be the same ones I excluded in File History AND ALSO my Documents folder.

I'm sort of at a loss, not really understanding what I'm doing. BTW I've only been on Win 10 for three weeks since I just set up this new computer. Any help pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated!

sspohl said:

I've only been on Win 10 for three weeks since I just set up this new computer. Any help pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated!

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The 'right direction' would be not to try and use 'Backup and Restore (Windows 7)' at all. Microsoft themselves say that their System Image Backup has been a deprecated feature since 2017, and that you should use something else.

Microsoft said:

The features described below are no longer being actively developed, and might be removed in a future update. Some features have been replaced with other features or functionality and some are now available from other sources.....

Feature	Details and mitigation	Announced in version
System Image Backup (SIB) Solution	We recommend that users use full-disk backup solutions from other vendors.	1709

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Windows 10 features we're no longer developing - Windows Deployment

The 'other vendor' that I prefer is Macrium Reflect Free. One advantage of Reflect is that a system image can be mounted as a virtual drive so that you can explore it to retrieve individual files. Other vendors include Aomei Backupper and Easus Todo.

Thank you so much for your speedy and helpful response. I know it's probably overkill, but with Win 7 I was doing both Macrium and Windows images for backups. So obviously I just stick with the Macrium going forward.

But what about File History? That looks to be something new that wasn't in Win 7? Is it worth setting that up in your opinion?

sspohl said:

But what about File History? That looks to be something new that wasn't in Win 7? Is it worth setting that up in your opinion?

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File History was first introduced in Windows 8, and was the default 'backup' solution in Windows 10. It's still included in Windows 11, but it's less prominent. Microsoft now push OneDrive as their preferred 'backup' solution.

sspohl said:

I know it's probably overkill....

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You can never have enough backups.

I used File History on my main machine in Windows 10, and when that upgraded to Windows 11 I continued to use it. Reflect is my primary backup, I also have written a batch file using RoboCopy to make full or incremental back up copies of my user folders. File History is my third line of defence.

Thank you for those explanations. RoboCopy is new to me -- looks like fun if I had more time to study it but I've only got so much time to devote to being IT Director! OneDrive is not an option for me, I try to keep my data off the web.

I'm off to get my MR backups up and running ... is there somewhere to mark this thread as solved? Is that still a thing in this forum?

sspohl said:

is there somewhere to mark this thread as solved? Is that still a thing in this forum?

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Yes, it is. You'll find the button at the top right of your opening post...