Back Up cannot find external hard drive

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to do a complete back up of my computer on an external drive using Backup on Windows 10.

I've tried 5 different external drives and so far only one (an SSD drive) can be found while the other 4 (not SSD) are not found.

I don't know if the fact that the only drive that Backup manages to find is an SSD drive has any relevance.

It's not a space issue, those drives all have a capacity above 2TB, well above what I need.

Answer 1

I see. Have you tried all the steps here?

https://recoverit.wondershare.com/computer-back...

Disclaimer:

The link included is a non-Microsoft website that would provide accurate and safe information. Watch out for ads on the site which are frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). There is no need to buy paid products to fix your computers as they do more harm than good sometimes.

Answer 2

Basically when I selected Macrium to boot my computer upon restarting it, it just got stuck indefinitely on the black screen with the four white squares and I had to force-shut it again (it took two attempts as the computer was unresponsive at first), so it was kinda scary.

I've also tried Aomei Backupper but all those third-party apps seem to do the same thing: create a single file (with a different extension), that I cannot use to either view what it contains or to reboot my computer. There is something that is conceptually different from the simple clone that you can create natively on mac os, and like so many things on Windows, I fundamentally don't understand how to make it work.

I think the only option I have is to buy a new drive of the same brand as the one I already have and that Backup recognizes. By the time Windows stops supporting it, hopefully I'll have switched back to mac and live a happier life free from the endless stream of problems that plague Windows.

Answer 3

Another alternate is Acronis, free to use, and reliable.

https://www.acronis.com/en-us/products/true-image/

The reason why I am pushing a 3rd party tool is, Microsoft itself recommends using a 3rd party backup program. Down the road if they remove the inbuilt backup utilities, your backups would be useless.

Disclaimer:

The link included is a non-Microsoft website that would provide accurate and safe information. Watch out for ads on the site which are frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). There is no need to buy paid products to fix your computers as they do more harm than good sometimes.