Windows Backup includes C + E drive in system image. Why?

I have my system setup to where I try not to store anything on the C drive. My E drive, which is another separate drive, is where I keep all of my user data and I have a few non-system related programs installed (some portable, some via an installer) over there. I have my iTunes folder configured to store on the E drive as well. I also configured Windows to store my Favorites folder there. The idea was to not have any data I care about on the C drive unless I couldn't put it on the E drive. The problem I'm running into is that Windows Backup (WBU) wants to backup my C drive *and* my E drive. And it doesn't give you a choice to not back it up. But, I don't want it to back up the E drive because I have another mechanism for backing that up (I don't image it because it is very large and I have specific folders identified with precious data that I backup using other means). I like to use WBU to make the system image of the C drive because it is convenient to use in a restoration because it is integrated with Windows Restore. So, yes, I know I could just NOT use Windows Backup, I've read numerous posts in here about people hating on WBU, but I really want to keep using it. So, on my E drive there is a "Program Files" folder and a "Program Files (x86)" folder that I manually created. And as I alluded to earlier, there is a Favorites folder that has the actual Windows icon (so I believe the system truly knows it is there). What I could use some help with is this: is there a way to figure out what criteria WBU is *REALLY* using to determine when it is going to automatically bring other drives into the system image? It can't simply be that it "includes what is required for the system to run" because I can completely remove the E drive and boot up just fine (some of my apps will complain, obviously, about not finding their data), unless "system to run" means all applications themselves can run correctly as well. Maybe my real problem is not understanding what "system to run" means. But, I need to solve this and get WBU to only backup the C drive. Any ideas?

Dude, thanks for the quick response. Browsing through here yesterday, I had seen that suggestion and tried it. The problem is, when you get to the screen 6 where you can select individual drives, the C & E drives are both pre-selected and grayed out. That is what prompted me to post here.

That is exactly what is happening to me (see Help in marking a partition 'not active' for system backup).

Everything was OK with my backup (system image of only the C: drive) as of 4/21 and I had not changed parameters of Backup for months. Then there was the 'update Tuesday' last week which I think is the culprit (something in their security updates did something).

I originally thought that Backup was trying to image my E: drive because it was marked as active, so I marked it inactive but that didn't do a thing.

I think Microsoft has an issue here. Wonder how many other users there out there that are discovering this issue?

Pauly, I will uninstall all of the program files on the E drive and report back in a couple days. But, somehow, I don't think that's going to change a thing. There could still be something in the registry that is still pointing to that drive for some reason and I might need to find that and remove/change it. I'm just clueless at this point. I mentioned the favorites folder because I thought Windows might consider that "system related". I may even have to remove that. It would be a lot easier if they had an advanced option for people that know what they're doing and just allowed them to override Windows default backup behavior.

Thanks to Pauly for mentioning my thread that I'm having trouble with. Like I wrote in my thread, up until after my backup of 4/21, everything had been working fine. The only 'programs' installed on my E: drive were Steam, Origin, and UPlay and those had been installed for well over a year.

So something happened between the good backup of 4/21 and my backup failure of 4/28 that caused the OS to think that the E: drive was a system drive.

I've checked everything I know of and I'm at a loss. I guess I will have to try an outside backup utility like Reflect.

rzn6jw, I know you mentioned that marking your E drive partition "inactive" had no effect. But, did resetting your backup configuration to default work at all? Btw: Thanks for mentioning the thread (thanks Pauly for the link!).