Why do my backs ups fail?

[Ilovemycam]

I am having problems backing up my photo files. I have a folder with a few years of pix in it. Maybe it is 175GB. It is divided into seasonal quarters. Each quarter has the months and each month has the pix for that month in their own separate folders.

I am using an external HD. (Both desk HD and 2 portables) I tried the option where it says 'send to' the HD. I tried the option where I highlighted all the folders and copy them all at once to the HD. Either way the copy stops after it only copies 20% or 30% of the data.

Why wont it copy it all? The only way I can get it done is to copy 1 or 2 quarter's one by one. (Although on the very rare occasion, it may copy it all or 80% of it.)

 

[spacefuzz]

Depending on how your external hard drive is formatted, there can be a maximum alloweable transfer size. I dont recall the details but Ive had your problem in the past. I unfortunately had to reformat or buy a different hard drive. There should be more info on google though, perhaps for your specific brand.

 

[Mully]

Not sure why but my thought could be a memory issue..... it is too much info to copy. If you are on a Mac try the program Carbon Copy Cloner... it backs up everything the first time then only backs up the files you have changed. I use this and it works very well.

 

[480sparky38 37]

When you say 'divided', do you mean you simply created a file folder....... or are you partitioning the drive?

 

[Ilovemycam]

File folders only, no partitions.

Too bad...wish I had a Mac!

 

[HughGuessWho95 10]

Are any of your files in use during the backup? Are pictures open for example? Remember, any file in use cannot be deleted, moved or COPIED if it is in use. Depending on the backup tool or method being used, such can cause the entitled backup to fail.

 

[unpopular]

Not sure why but my thought could be a memory issue..... it is too much info to copy. If you are on a Mac try the program Carbon Copy Cloner... it backs up everything the first time then only backs up the files you have changed. I use this and it works very well.

This is exactly what Time Machine does...

 

[spacefuzz]

See if this helps: FAT32 File Size Limit

 

[Big Mike]

There are plenty of options for software that will take care of the backup process for you. My main backup drive was made by Seagate and I use whatever software came with it. I just tell the software what drives/folders I want to back up and it does it automatically.

 

[480sparky38 37]

I do two types of back-ups: My 'normal' backups are with Achronis, which makes one file for everything backed up.

On occasion, I will merely Copy a given directory and all the sub-directories in it to another hard drive. I suspect that's what the OP is doing. I've never had an issue with any file/directory being too large to copy...... it just takes hours sometimes.