I have followed every bit of advice I have seen on these forums and nothing seems to work.Every time I use Windows 7 Backup it ends up freezing - typically at 15% with no error messages. It has NEVER been successful and I upgraded from W7 Home Premium to Ultimate specifically to use this backup s/w to a Western Digital My Book storage device attached via my home network GBP£100 to waste significant amounts of time and end up messing around with Win 7 configurations and removing anti virus, etc is not time well spent either!If anyone can help please shout!I am using Win 7 64bit - its a brand new desktop top of the line!!

Hello,Does your PC has a factory recovery partition? Try to modify backup setting and run it once again:1. Open Backup and Restore, click Change settings.2. Select a drive which you want to save the backup.3. Click "Let me choose", click next.4. Unchecked all options but C drive. 5. Click Next and run the 'Back Up now'.6. Click View Details button to see the detail backup information. If the backup failed, click 'Option' button, to see the probable cause. You can also try back up the files to a local drive to detect whether the problem is caused by the Western Digital My Book storage device. The backup process will also be affected by the backgourd problems. Boot hte compouter to clean boot mode and see if the issue persists. Thomas77

I managed to do manual system image and manual backup of c: only but only after I ran chkdsk it found no errors (and so it shouldn't as it's a new pc!) I hope that copying only c: will include data in my libraries even the libraries were not selected. I have since tried to do a new backup and system image (again manual!) but failed again until I ran chkdsk I am now concerned if it's that tempermental could I recover my pc with the system image and get all my data back with no checking facility how would I know? Any advice on this long standing issue?

Chris, do you have a 100mb hidden system partition (view it from disk management). Check the properties of it and see how much room is left on that, as it could be your problem. See what Sneha a moderator said Unfortunately, that is not sufficient space for backups (system image specifically) to run. If you want only file backups, unchecking "Include a system image" is the solution for you. However, we recommend that you have a system image handy because it can be used to restore your machine in the case of a hard disk crash. If the System reserved partition cannot be extended using Disk Management because of lack of contigous space adjacent to it, creating a new system volume is the workaround. Here are the steps to move the system volume to any other volume: 1. Choose where you want to have your system volume. Few things you need to keep in mind:a. System volume can only be created on a primary partition of MBR disk.b. If system volume & boot volume are together, then BitLocker feature cannot be used to encrypt volumes on your machine. 2. Suggest creating a new volume (say F:) on the same disk that contains the boot partition of size of about 490 MB (be careful to keep it less than 500 MB). 3. Assuming Windows 7 is installed on C: on your machine. From an elevated command-prompt run: bcdboot.exe /s C:\Windows /s F:. 4. From elevated command-prompt run: DISKPART 5. From the disk part command-prompt: DISKPART> select volume FDISKPART> active Now you can reboot your machine and F: will become the system volume. You can undo this by repeating the same steps using the original system volume (you have to assign drive-letter to it) to revert to your previous configuration.This should help resolve your issue. Please let me know if it works.Thanks,Sneha[MSFT] MCSE, MCSA, MCDST [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]