I am using my Western Digital external hard disk to backup my data. I have two partitions on my system. C is the system partition and D is the data partition. When I chose to backup, it creates a shadow copy but then quits after a while with the error message The file name, directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect. When I tried to backup after removing the documents folder, then the system was successful in making a backup. I wonder what would be causing this error? I am using Windows 7 Professional 64 bit edition. http://twitter.com/movingahead

Hi, Firstly, please check if Volume Shadow Copy and Windows Backup services are running and set to automatic in Services Console. 1. Click on Start, type Services in Start Search. When the Services page is open, scroll the page to find Volume Shadow Copy and Backup service.2. Right click on them and check if they are started.3. If the services are disabled, start the services and set it to Automatic, then check if the issue disappear. If the services are running and you get Error Message: “0x8007007B - The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect”, file name or volume label has special characters.Since the system does not accept the keyboard combination Alt+0 through Alt+32 or the following characters: \\ \\ / [ ] : | < > + ; = . ? Please correct the file name or volume label and make sure the folder name in the Documents has no spaces or special characters and then try to perform the backup. You get more ideas from the link below. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc956689.aspx In addition, it would also be caused due to Operating System shell corruption. If your file name and volume does not have any special characters and you are getting this error message, Create a new user account and perform the backup in the new user account as a test, then let us know if it helps.Hope these information helps you. Regards, John

Hi,Are you selecting documents library in the backup configuration? In that case, can you please check if the library has other locations also included?Thanks,S.Soudamini.This posting is provided "AS IS" without warranties and confers no rights.

I'm getting the same message now. Initially I was getting errors when it was making a system image of my C: - I fixed that setting the Windows 7 partition as the active partition. Now I can backup the OS ("system image") fine, so I know the services are up and running. However, when it tries to backup my libraries (some 15K odd files) I still get this error. How can I narrow down the source of this problem so I can take some actionable measure to resolve this? Like I said, there are some 15,000-18,000 files across my music, pictures, etc so I can't really examine each file manually... Thanks Sid As a side note, the error is designed for the developer - "0x8007007B" means *nothing* to an end user - and this is production, commercial code!! You should be printing out a very specific message in english ("File xyz doesn't look right" or something). And even if you encounter an error on one file, shouldn't you move onto the next file? Don't get me wrong, I write C/C++/assembly s/w for a living too - but some of your human design principles in Windows 7 backup are very ... crude. You guys (=the Win7 backup team) should understand the consumer of your product a lot better. eg: The "just works" backup ("Time Machine") on my macbook is awesome, despite the annoying "hollywood" effect when launching the application. The Win7 backup experience of non-technical customers must be terrible ...