Windows 7 Backup says disk full while it has plenty of space

bastani · 13 Dec 2011

Hi All,

I tried to use windows 7 backup utility recently (for the first time on my new computer) and I get the "disk full" error while the target disk space has still 130 GB free.

I have moved my USERS folder to my D drive (during the windows installation) to keep them separate from the system files and since I have some other files on my D drive, I chose the option of manually selecting the files to backup and I selected libraries, system images and some extra files on D drive. However, I am pretty sure that they should not be totally more than 110 GB as everything (except programs that should not be naturally backed up) is on D and it is only 110 GB full.

However, the backup stops and says not enough disk space to finish backup while the backup size is only around 90 GB and the disk containing the destination disk has still around 130 GB free.

It is strange because I have at most only 110 GB of data to be backed up. Even if it tries to backup everything on C it should add up 40-50 GB more which makes the total volume of files 150-160 GB which is still less than the target disk size (230 GB, and it is dedicated to backups, I have formatted it before).

Even if for any weird reason windows is trying to exceed the capacity of the destination disk, I should see a much larger file (not only a 90 GB one) and then received the error message, isn't it? I mean whatever he wants to do, he still has 130 GB of free space to write in before giving this error message!

Has anyone encountered the same problem?

Thanks,

whs · 24 Jan 2012

Post a full picture of your Disk Management. I suspect it is an act that Windows7 imaging plays on you. But we have to see the disk management to judge.

bastani · 24 Jan 2012

attached please find it. I didn't have the external disk (on which I was trying to store the backup) with me right now. It is a 250 GB, Western Digital disk.

whs · 24 Jan 2012

I think I know what is happening. Since you moved the user folders to D: (probably with the location tab), it wants to image that D: drive too because it figures that the folders are part of the system.

Here is what I would do:

1. I would move the bootmgr from the 100MB partition to C:. Here is how: Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD That 100MB partition is pretty useless and will only be in your way.

2. Image C: with free Macrium. That is a lot more reliable than Windows imaging and never fails. And you can image each partition seperately. Here is how: Imaging with free Macrium

bastani · 24 Jan 2012

To move the Users folder I used this method during installation of windows: User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation - Windows 7 Forums.
Nevertheless, I still have the basic question that even if it tries to backup both C and D partitions, even 200 GB of disk space should be more than enough. Why backup fails while the target disk still has 130 GB free?

whs · 24 Jan 2012

C and D together are 300GB. That may compress to 160 or 170GB. So there is not enough room.

bastani · 24 Jan 2012

Yes, they are totally 300 GB but C has around 50 GB and D around 120 GB of data, so the total amount of data on both of them is 170 GB. The target disk for backup is 250 GB, how it can be insufficient?

whs · 24 Jan 2012

You got a point. But I have no idea. I have abandoned Win7 imaging a long time ago because it is nothing but a pain in the neck. This is one example.

JimLewandowski · 24 Jan 2012

You might have to set the Shadow storage information to the whole drive (that's what I do for my external drive used only for backups/images). Mount your external drive, set it via System -> System Protection.