How do I backup an SD card in Windows 8?

I have a 128 GB Microsoft Surface Pro (win 8 pro) with a 64 GB microSXDC card inserted.  The card was formatted using NTFS with the Surface Pro and mounted as an NTFS folder  I'm able to read/write to the card without issue, but the volume (or the mounted folder) does not appear inside Windows Backup for me to back the data up.  I've also tried with the card mounted as a lettered drive (D:) with the same outcome.

My WHS v1 server DOES seem to back the data up when it's mounted as an NTFS folder, but when I try to view the contents of that folder in the backup I'm informed I do not have the necessary rights.  Despite the WHS Connector running successfully and many attempts to tweak the folder privileges, I've been unsuccessful at accessing the contents of the folder in the backup to verify WHS is in fact capturing the content.

Has anyone discovered a way to accomplish the backup of your SD card in Windows 8 short of XCOPY or similar?

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Ken

February 22nd, 2013 4:41am

Looks like a lot of backup functionality is borked on Surface. You can't even do a system image back up from Surface Pro (with or without an SD card inserted/mounted/mapped). http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2013/02/16/surface-pro-cannot-perform-system-image-backup/   There are a few threads appearing in the Answers Surface forums about backup issues and a couple here in technet. No engineering type acknowledgements or replies. You might want to post over on the Surface forums as well as here. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum   On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 04:41:16 +0000, KSchram wrote:   > > >I have a 128 GB Microsoft Surface Pro (win 8 pro) with a 64 GB microSXDC card inserted.  The card was formatted using NTFS with the Surface Pro and mounted as an NTFS folder  I'm able to read/write to the card without issue, but the volume (or the mounted folder) does not appear inside Windows Backup for me to back the data up.  I've also tried with the card mounted as a lettered drive (D:) with the same outcome. > >My WHS v1 server DOES seem to back the data up when it's mounted as an NTFS folder, but when I try to view the contents of that folder in the backup I'm informed I do not have the necessary rights.  Despite the WHS Connector running successfully and many attempts to tweak the folder privileges, I've been unsuccessful at accessing the contents of the folder in the backup to verify WHS is in fact capturing the content. > >Has anyone discovered a way to accomplish the backup of your SD card in Windows 8 short of XCOPY or similar? > >Thank you in advance for your assistance. > >Ken  
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February 22nd, 2013 10:47am

Thanks, for the reply Barb.  I did repost in the Surface forum too per your advice.

I had also contacted SanDisk hoping they had a utility I could use, but no joy.  Curiously enough, they recommended formatting the SD as exFAT rather than NTFS.  My understanding, however, is to use the SD within most of the Windows apps it needs to be mounted as an NTFS folder rather than a drive.  If true, I don't see exFAT working.  That format might fix my WHS v1 backup privilege dilemma, but unfortunately the volume does not appear in the computer backup wizard to even select it when mounted as a drive.  The same is true for Windows Backup on the Win8 machine.

Hopefully this is something that gets worked out soon along with the issue of creating an image backup.

February 22nd, 2013 1:54pm

http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2012/11/02/how-to-use-windows-8-rt-apps-libraries-and-removable-media/ formatted as FAT... (exFAT)   I have my music/videos/pix stored on my SD card and it is mounted in an empty NTFS folder   On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:54:16 +0000, KSchram wrote:   > > >Thanks, for the reply Barb.  I did repost in the Surface forum too per your advice. > >I had also contacted SanDisk hoping they had a utility I could use, but no joy.  Curiously enough, they recommended formatting the SD as exFAT rather than NTFS.  My understanding, however, is to use the SD within most of the Windows apps it needs to be mounted as an NTFS folder rather than a drive.  If true, I don't see exFAT working.  That format might fix my WHS v1 backup privilege dilemma, but unfortunately the volume does not appear in the computer backup wizard to even select it when mounted as a drive.  The same is true for Windows Backup on the Win8 machine. > >Hopefully this is something that gets worked out soon along with the issue of creating an image backup. >  
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February 22nd, 2013 3:34pm

Thanks again, Barb. A little counterintuitive perhaps to mount a FAT partition as an NTFS folder, but I'm certainly willing to give it a try.  This might just get me over the issue I'm having with my WHS backing it up as part of my normal backup too.  I'll let you know.

Ken

UPDATE: Still no joy. I was hopeful that formatting the SD as exFAT and mounting it as an NTFS folder would allow me to view the contents of that card within my WHS v1 backup.  Again, it looks as if it may be backing it up, but I can't get past the proclaimed permission errors despite granting my Surface Pro\Administrators group full control of the folder.

Any other suggestions would be welcomed.

-Ken

  • Edited by KSchram Friday, February 22, 2013 10:37 PM
February 22nd, 2013 4:24pm

Hi,

File History should work. You may try this back up method.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/set-drive-file-history

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February 26th, 2013 9:42am

I finally did get this to work with File History.  In my case, the SD card is formatted as NTFS and mounted both as a folder and a drive.  I'm using a network share as the destination for the backup history.  Thanks for the help.

March 4th, 2013 1:12pm

hey Ken,

I have the same problem: I want to use the SD-Card as an encrypted data store (bitlocker) for my Word docs etc. And those need to be backed up to an external drive regularly...

I cannot make File history work, as this does only give me the Libraries and the C-drive as a choice. The SD-Card on D: does not show up there, nor on Windows 7 style backup option. I tried to add the card to a library, but that does not work as "on a removable medium".

How do you now backup the data from your SD-Card? 

many thanks! 

Pat 

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March 13th, 2013 9:08pm

Hi Pat

Ultimately File History did work for me.  Here's what I did:

  1. Formatted my 64GB SDXC card as NTFS
  2. I created a folder on drive C: called "SD"
  3. In "Disk Management", I used the "Change Drive Letter and Paths" option to assign the SDXC card to drive "D:" AND mounted it as an NTFS folder pointed at the folder I created in step 2.
  4. In Windows Explorer, browse to C:\Users\<UserName>\Documents, right-click the folder, select Properties and then the "Location" tab.  Use the "Move" option to change its destination to your "D:" drive (or whatever drive letter you assigned).  You can repeat the process with whatever other library folders you'd like to store on your SDXC card.
  5. Turn File History on and select a drive external from your computer.  In my case I'm using a file share I created on my home server.  Anything in your Library (Documents, Music, Pictures, etc), your Desktop and IE Favorites should automatically be backed up to this external location once File History is configured.

Knock on wood, I've not had the occasion to have to restore a file, but I have run through some test scenarios just to be sure it was working properly and everything checks out.

Hope this helps.

Ken

March 13th, 2013 11:31pm

I managed to get file History to backup my SD card by first formatting it in NTFS and then adding Authenticated User to the permissions.

Right click the NTFS formatted SD card and select Properties then the Security Tab, under Group or User name click the Edit button then Add and enter Authenticated User followed by Check Names, OK etc.

Then create a folder, such as SD-Documents, and right click this folder and select Include in library > Documents or what ever library you want the folder added to.

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April 3rd, 2015 5:54am

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