Windows 7: Help please windows Backup sees DVD drive only

Not able to do a backup because windows backup only sees the dvd drive and not 2 other USB drives..therefore I can not backup.. any ideas..drives are showing in device manger etc no probs

Hello Artinusa,

Windows 7 will only see and use the USB drives to save a backup to if the USB drives have been formatted with the NTFS file system instead of FAT32, and if there is enough free space on the USB drives for the backup.

Did you have the USB drives connected before starting the backup process?

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn

From "Backup and Restore" go into "Change Settings" with the USB drives connected. Do they appear as backup options?

Thanks for the responses. Brink you may be correct and I might now have enough space on the USB which are not FAT32. Does this mean that I can select files for backup and must backup whole disk..? mjf- I don't have a change setting facility as you describe but after churning 'the start to backup' it does tell me there is no setup..when I go to set up it finally selects my DVD drive advising me its not a good idea.. Sorry for edit: How can I make sure both USB drives are of the correct type?

Artinusa,

It depends on what type of backup you are trying to do. A system image backup (everything) or a user and system files backup (what you select).

I agree. Backing up to a DVD is never a good idea. It has alot higher failure rate than backing up to a separate hard drive instead.