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

[frank479]

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]

frank479, welcome to the forums. Following the tutorial backup

step six should be where you choose only the c drive

 

[Frank1]

Glad to see another Frank here.

 

[frank479]

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.

 

[Pauly]

Probably because you have system files on E (installed programs) windows will attempt to backup all required files to enable a full restore if needs be and in your case probably needs the E drive to achieve this

 

[rzn6jw]

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?

 

[frank479]

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.

 

[Pauly]

Have a read of the thread mentioned above theres some good info in there from Brink and some links to some of his tutorials particularly the backup reset
http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-r...rking-partition-not-active-system-backup.html

 

[rzn6jw]

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.

 

[frank479]

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!).

 

[rzn6jw]

No, it didn't. At this point, I don't know what to do except, if I want Windows to backup my files, I'll have to physically remove the E: drive and let the program run.

 

[frank479]

I figured it out. I had a hunch it might be something I installed over there and Pauly also suggested it could be applications. Well, sort of. First, the registry setting I was using to place my favorites onto the E drive was not a problem. Second, I had an application on my E drive that installed a kernel mode driver... was also not a problem because during the installation, it placed a copy of the driver into the Windows driver directory. Third, resetting the backup did not work. I thought about shares, but I don't have any there. I thought about iTunes but reasoned that since only the music files are there and the application is still on the C drive, Windows should not feel like it *HAS* to back those up. I thought about Windows gadgets and Windows themes which I have there but I remembered that they, too, get installed into the Windows folder. So, my "going-in strategy" was to uninstall every application I had on the E drive that came with an installer (maybe 10 apps) but leave my portable applications alone. Which I did and the problem was still there. But...

I saved one for last, which was the Steam folder. It was the one application that I and rzn6jw had in common. I knew it wasn't Steam itself because I didn't install it with an installer. But I had Steam games that had installers, so I got rid of them first... problem was still there. Only one Steam application was left... the Hi-Rez Studios Authenticate & Update Service, which apparently installed itself from the E drive and operated there. Once I uninstalled that service... I went back again and checked the SystemImage creation facility and, voila! no more E drive. In retrospect, I am not surprised since Steam tries to act like a portable application and tries not to put anything into your Windows folder. So, applications installed via Steam will tend to run out of that environment and if they need to run services, well, you see what happened to me.

I then put all the apps I uninstalled back on, put my favorites back to my E drive, and my system image is still just the C drive. I did not put the Hi-Rez Studios application back on.

So, in summary, if you ever have a situation where Windows Backup is trying to include another drive as part of your image, and you know you have applications there, look to see if there are services running that only exist on your 2nd drive. In other words, find out the name of the dll(s) responsible for the service and check your Windows\System32 directory to see if a copy of it resides there. If not, it could be emanating from the install location on your 2nd drive which marks the drive as "system" as far as WBU is concerned.

Microsoft made a global call to force you to always have all your services backed up because they are started before you log in. We could discuss the merits of them doing this, i.e. forcing you to back it up, but, really, in the end, I'm back to my original question which is: in the statement: "A system image is a copy of the drives required for Windows to run". What does "Windows to run" mean? If the Hi-Rez service fails to start, that will not stop a system from booting up. They don't appear to differentiate their services from other installed services. There are certain Microsoft services that must run for your system to boot but those are installed in the Windows folder. But, there's others that can fail to start and not be catastrophic. What I would like to see them do in their literature where they make generic statements like the one above, to expand on it to describe examples of what they're talking about. Like, they could have said, "...required for Windows to run, for example any services or blah-blah". Citing a few examples can go a long way towards fostering understanding. Thanks to everyone for helping me find this solution.

 

[Pauly]

Thanks for taking the time to post back so others can learn from your findings, it is my understanding that the purpose of the system image is to, in the event of drive failure, give you the ability to restore to the exact condition on a new drive at the point in time the image was taken with everything working as it was so i suppose its understandable that those files would be required. Its hard to know where to draw the line

 

[rzn6jw]

Was unable to reset to default. Can only make a backup if the E: drive is disconnected (which is a pain)!

 

[rzn6jw]

Resetting backup to default did not correct the situation.

 

[robbykrlos]

Hello,

Ran into the same issue. Here's my story:

I have :
1 SSD OS only
1 Fast HDD for Other programs
1 HDD for storage.

I wanted to backup with "Include system image drives" and Drive K:\ was automatically selected. Even if I used Create system image. C, D and K were pre-selected and grayed out.

The problem is that K Drive was not involved in system routines - or so I thought.

Even more, K Drive was just a logical partition, with no "Active" nor "Primary"

So, first i started with the obvious : "Maybe some programs that i do not know of are running from K Drive and therefore the K partition is marked as system related."

First:

Fond out using default Uninstall windows utility by adding the custom column "Location" which programs were installed in K Drive.

After this I used CCleaner to search for other programs involved into system related tasks:
-Task Scheduler
-Startup
-Context menu

After I found all related progmras to K drive I had to chose - either uninstall, either move.
Uninstall part is easy.
Move is not so.

I had to deal with:

• BSPlayer installed with all codecs in K:\ Drive
  -Move folder to new location
  -Find and replace all registries(regedit) entries

• 
  Apache24 installed and had service that ran from K:\ Drive.
  -deleted service "sc delete Apache"

• MySQL installed and had service that ran from K:\ Drive.
  -deleted service "sc delete MySQL"

• 3 scheduled tasks that turns down volume at night automatically created by me running from K:\ Drive.
  -corrected paths to new location from K:\, after i moved the batch files.

• Startup and registry setup to replace Task manager - Process Explorer - Running from K:\ Drive.
  -uninstalled and installed process explorer in correct path.

After all of this i tried again to create System image but K:\ drive was still grayed out.

Ran CCleaner and clean registry.
Restarted OS.

After boot K:\ drive was not marked as system again.

Done.

Divide and Conquered

 

[Pauly]

Thanks for sharing your solution robbykrlos, I would like to add a small note for others that if you plan to use a program like ccleaner to clean the registry (which is not generally advised or needed) to deal with situations like this make sure you take a full backup beforehand so you have a fall back if your system gets hosed or does not function as required, changing registry is a one way ticket and if problems follow you have no way back without a backup of the registry

Heres a link with instructions of how to do this if needed
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4230-registry-backup-restore.html