Win7 system image backup to USB3 drive fails

It's a new Series 5 laptop, model NP550P5C-T01US, which has two USB3 ports and two USB2 ports. The external drive is a Western Digital My Passport Essential USB3 (and 2) that is powered from the USB port.

So I'm trying to do the Windows 7 system image backup. It works fine saving to the D: partition on the internal drive. It works fine saving to the WD external drive when it is connected to a USB2 port.

But when connected to a USB3 port, after a few seconds of working, when it gets to "Backing up C:", I hear the two-tone "ding-dong" that you hear when a USB device is being disconnected, and the backup aborts with the message "The system cannot find the file specified (0x80070002)". Of course no file is actually specified. Thanks, Bill.

Looking on the external drive, the proper folders appear to have been created, so at least initially the connection was ok.

It seems to me that for some reason the backup program is shutting down the power to the USB3 port, which of course causes the external drive to reboot, during which time it can't respond. So my guess is the file it can't find is the one it's trying to write to.

I've used this WD drive a good bit lately for various transfers of large files, and it has always worked fine on USB3, so the problem appears to be with the Win 7 backup software.

Can anyone shed any light on this? It's not a critical error since I can do the backup via USB2, but it kinda bothers me that I don't know where else this problem may arise.

 

Windows 7 doesn't include native support for USB 3.0. I think it gets as far as recognising that the USB hardware needs a driver but then can't find it. There might be a way round this. In the old days of XP not being able to handle SATA there was a Press F6 to install driver option.

One alternative is to get Acronis TrueImage 2012 / 13 which includes includes USB 3.0 support.

John

 

I have a Vantek 2 doc USB 3.0 eSATA with a 1TB and the original 750 GB drive. I just started a backup to the 1TB with usb 3.0 with no issue. I did have an issue before though.

The original cable would connect at 3.0 speedsw but then revert back to 2.0 all the time. I replaced it with a good cable and now there are no more disconnects..........................

 

But TANWare, I strongly suspect that your Vantek external drive enclosure has it's own power supply, whereas my external drive is powered from the USB3 port. If that's the case, I suspect that's where my problem is. It's the power that's being dropped - or the drive thinks it has been dropped. In fact, I found one post where the guy had the same problem I do, but cured it by installing a powered USB3 hub.

 

Yes there is an external but it only powers the drives under eSATA. My P79 is an underpowered port and can only support 1 drive at a time being active. More than likely the guy changed or added a hub and cables. since a different cable plugs into the pc that solved the issue. That is unless your system is not producing spec power from the original port or you use a usb 3.0 non powered hub and have multiple items plugged in................

 

I don't think that's the explanation for my problem. The drive works fine on USB3 all the time except when doing the Windows 7 image backup, and it always fails at exactly the same point in that process. The other guy's failure was also at exactly that same point. And since the cable for these drives is proprietary, he was still using it to connect to the hub. Anyway, I don't have another cable to try.

 

The problem with non powered hubs is they split power. If this happens it can degrade the signal and the system may attempt downgrading the hub or devices to 2.0 spec. It can do this for other reasons as well but when it does it temporarily interupts the data flow and drive assignments. Then the backup fails. Just to be sure on mine I just ran two full backups with no issue to an external 1TB 2.5" drive from my 480GB SSD. And yes I did have to buy a new cable as the one included with the hub you had to put a piece of paper in it to get it fit tight enough to maintain USB 3.0 speeds................