Just upgraded Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium. When attempting to back up to an external hard drive with Windows back up in control panel it stops atabout 20% completedand gives me the error code: 0x80070002. What can I do to fix this so that I can back up?

Hi NubeeW7,

This issue may occur if there are duplicate accounts on the computer.

Please try the following suggestions and see if the issue can be resolved:

Step 1: Backup registry key

==============

1. Click Start, click Run, input "REGEDIT" (without quotation marks) in the Search box and press Enter.

2. Navigate to the following registry key by expanding the "+" beside the registry tree in the left pane:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/ProfileList

3. Right click on "ProfileList", click "Export"; please name the file as "RegBackup" (without quotation marks) and then save it to the C:\ drive as a backup.

Note: In case we need to undo the modification, we can double click this RegBackup.reg file to restore the registry key.

Step 2: Delete the duplicate account

===============

1. Click the Start button, type regedit (without quotation marks) in the Search box and press Enter.

2. Navigate to the following registry key by expanding the "+" beside the registry tree in the left pane:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/ProfileList

3. Delete the duplicate profile list keys there.

4. Exit the registry editor and reboot the computer to check the results.

Please check if the issue can be resolved.

Regards,

Linda

• Marked as answer by Linda Yan Monday, November 16, 2009 5:58 AM

Hi NubeeW7,

Does this issue happen consistently? If so, can you zip andsend the contents of <SystemDrive>\Windows\Logs\WindowsBackup to sneham_at_microsoft_dot_com(Remove underscores and replace words with characters wherever possible)?

Thanks,
Sneha
[MSFT]

Hi

I have this same problem. I upgraded to Win7 Home Premium from Vista HP. External HD is fine (works with another computer), cannot back-up using windows backup or 3rd party software (acronis). Get the same error every time - 0x80070002 Cannot find the file specified. When this happens it also disables my wireless network adapter and I can only reset adapter by rebooting but computer hangs at "shutting down" and I have to force quit. On restart (after I get the "windows failed to close properly" page), wifi works. I tried the fix above to no avail (no duplicate keys to delete).

Thanks

I encountered the same problem when using windows backup. I tried your solution but did not see any duplicate profile list keys. I am computer savvy nor do I have any confidence in messing around with the registry, but I am running windows 7 64-bit home premium and wondering what happens if I delete all the profiles. Just a question, if that is a no-no. Do you think upgrading to windows 7 is the major cause of all these problems? Thank you for your help

Hi fschap and BIGnewbie,

Can you zip andsend the contents of <SystemDrive>\Windows\Logs\WindowsBackup to sneham_at_microsoft_dot_com(Remove underscores and replace words with characters wherever possible)? This will help us find the root cause of the failure.

Thanks,
Sneha
[MSFT]

Hi there Windows 7 fans,
I too am a victim of Error code 0x80070002 in Win 7 Ultimate when trying to do a back to external HDD (yes it is in NTFS format).
I've also entered into the spirit of things in more of these threads on this site - all with the same problem.
Now - here's my take on the matter - and I'm just, shall we say, an experienced 'User'.
I've followed through on the Log files -those *.etl files, and got to a user friendly readable format in Event Viewer where my 5 Mb of log file was interpreted into lines of events. All of them ended with the very same conclusion - "No Format Information found". And that seemed to be the reason the process came to a full stop.
So maybe the error is a file giving this absent information to the application right from the very start of the process. If so this is a basic omission; nothing to do with Administrator files, registry errors, and other wild surmising from an error message built on a system that is, historically,dodgy in identifying the real cause behind the error - right since Windows 3.1.
So perhaps it is the very first line in the processing code!
To prove this hypothesis I did the very same backup to DVD without problem - except of course an increase in the amount of time required to complete it - 1hour.
I shudder to think of how much time I will have to spend on a full system backup to DVD - even if all the required discs burn OK the first time through the machine - Yeah that'll beright!
THis experience was had on a complete, and "clean", full installation of "New" OS (Win 7 Ultimate overwriting Win 7 Home Premium) plus the usual "Home" applications - Word etc. (Plus FSX).
I really would like to be able to these backups to an External HDD to save time - so how about it MS - can you help??

• Proposed as answer by Old Codger Sunday, December 06, 2009 11:28 AM

It's me again - with further reference to the above post.
I DID do a full system Image backup to DVD with 100% success taking far less time than I thought to process.
5 Discs and a little under 2 hours to complete.
I made no changes to anything before I started this process, no error messages at all.
This, although successful, doesn't alter the fact that the process will not complete to external HDD.
As far as I'm concerned this is indicative that the problem occurs solely when the backup is directed to an external HDD - at least on my machine.
I don't muck about with registry, I don't alter anything via back door third party applications, and I don't do anything with Windows that isn't catered for in the
straight forward control panel options.
Any system applications are purely of Windows origins.
This - surely - means there is a bug in the backup process.
I'm convinced, because my backup attempts were made the day after re-furbishing my applications to a fresh installation of Window 7 Ultimate from a split new disc.

• Proposed as answer by Old Codger Sunday, December 06, 2009 11:40 AM

So far, we have known two instances of hitting this 0x8007002 error:

1)      one of the reasons we have found is an issue with the USB controller on the machine. Can you try the hotfix from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976972 and retry backup?

2)      We’ve recently seen issues where reading a bad sector returns “file not found” error.     If you run chkdsk /R on target disk, it detects such  bad sector(s) then backup will ignore those automatically.

Can you please try both these options and see if your problem is resolved?

Man, I am getting awfully tired of this kind of thing.  All I want to do is a simple backup.
1.  I do not have any duplicate profiles. 2.  Brand new DVD in a brand new drive.
And still, another no doubt complicated Microsoft problem with a simple operation.
So, the solution I guess is to go out and spend money on an external drive so I can create a backup with this wonderful "wizard"?
But what really, really bothers me is that I am able to achieve a backup to DVD with Norton 360 Beta software (whose subscription has expired).

Hi rct0725,

Regret the inconvenience caused to you. What exactly is the error that you are getting? Can you check if your backup has failed fatally or has succeeded but skipped files?

Thanks,
Sneha

I have also have this issue and error code - cleaned up registry using CCCleaner- trieed 3 different ext hard drives and still get that error code. I also have tried a back up0 using  Paragaon backup with no problems and back up completed- so what is the fix? The registery looks ok and I don't have a NVidia USB hub as one of your fixes above

So Microsoft- can you help us?
Thanks,
BG

The error occurs not thirty seconds into the backup, and my advice to you is to move on to problems others are experiencing here.  Why?

Because I remembered I had Nero software which came with my DVD drive.  I installed it and...what do you know...it worked flawlessly.  Imagine that.  Saved me $100 or so on a new external drive and goodness knows how much lost time waiting for (and fruitlessly attempting, no doubt) solutions offered here.

Now, no data has been lost, thank goodness, and my blood pressure is back to normal. 

Sorry, but third-party software trumps here.  Someone should be embarrassed.

I did Perform Backing up of Registry, Exporting, Running regedit as Admin and drilling down to Profie List.  There were 7 entries but zero were duplicates as I opened and viewed each.  Therefore no luck unfortunately with this fix.  Thanks for a great post.

• Edited by Fats_Domino Thursday, July 10, 2014 5:23 PM

I realize this is an older thread; however, I was able to resolve this issue when backing up to a mapped network drive by adding the following security groups and assigning full permissions:

• Backup Operators
• Service

To do this:

• Right click the desired drive letter then select Properties
• Click the Security tab
• Click Edit
• Click Add
• Click Advanced
• Click Find Now
• Scroll to the groups listed above then click OK
• Click OK again
• Select Full Control
• Click Apply / OK

Hope this makes sense and I hope this helps someone.

• Proposed as answer by kevinb_003 1 hour 3 minutes ago