usb flash drive not a valid backup location for system image

Anonymous
2013-08-14T13:07:06+00:00

OK, Microsoft continuing to confuse me and others it would seem.

Tried to make system image to USB flash drive in Windows 8 and Yes it would not work. It States " the drive is not a valid backup location ".

Yes its formatted to NTFS. and I have read various sites where it gives instructions how and ive read sites and Microsoft who seem to have conflicting statements.

Please can someone HELP all I want to do is go to windows 7 file recovery in windows 8 - press make system image - select usb drive and sit back.

Windows for home | Other | Recovery and backup

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-08-14T20:04:11+00:00

    Try this:

    • create a directory on your USB drive
    • right-click the directory and choose "Share with", "Specific people"
    • choose yourself from the list of users and click Share and Done
    • in the "Create System Image" menu choose "On a network location"
    • now enter the URL for your share (\your-computer\sharename)
    • enter your username and password and click OK

    Good luck.

    /Claus

    Edit: what I copy and pasted to network share is D:\folder\folder_with_backup\desktop-comp_name\backup

    I have also copied the back up to my computer. It couldn’t find that, and when I typed the path into network share, the “OK” is still grayed out

    So this worked for me to create the back up, but now I am having trouble restoring the back up from the control pannel. I am at the page where it says select location and I can’t get it to come up. I copy and pasted the location from the address bar by finding it in files. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-05-28T13:37:03+00:00

    Plants and Zombie,

                                  Good to hear, maybe if many more people went for the alternatives instead of microsofts then perhaps they would change,but only if it hit their pocket! Will try open office myself,have similar problems myself with "office"

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-05-28T12:14:11+00:00

    A very early post mentioned using 3rd party backup but I have yet to find anything which works.   I save and back up all my personal files to thumbdrives and refuse to store them on my inboard drive, anyway.  Really just looking for backup for the system and program files to avoid having to reload from scratch and go through all the various updates.  From the string of previous posts, it seems that's a futile hope.  In fact, after years of my Office EXCEL degrading with each new "free" upgrade to the point where it no longer works, and based on my refusal to send Microsoft money for a newer version which has lots of bells, whistles, and snooper features which I don't even want, I have begun using OpenOffice instead.  Maybe the Free Software Foundation will come up with a backup program for system software, too...

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-05-28T11:33:47+00:00

    Sorry John, I cannot help you in this regard. I have not yet recovered from the shock of losing just about everything. Fortunately, my email is backed up on Gmail so can at least find my old mails. I am just letting it do it' s own thing for now. Thanks anyway, I will investigate SSD for my machine.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-05-28T11:19:24+00:00

    Charles, you have my sympathies, it seems Win10 is not all it is cracked up to be and microsofts only aim is profit. I would recommend changing your hard drive to SSD, there's nothing moving to stop or cease, plus your pc/laptop would run faster! Where do you now backup if not Windows, do you use an outside source? After my disaster with Win 10 upgrade, I to am looking for a RELIABLE back up system whis is EASY to reboot when everything goes pear shaped.

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