Macirum Backup Failuers

Not Myself said:

Reflect just finished its scheduled morning backup, and I believe I know why it worked: The first thing I did after waking the computer this morning was to look at WB Quick View, which showed that the disk was locked, which it should not have been. I unlocked it and put the computer back to sleep; when it woke, I found that the disk was again locked. I suspect that the problem may be caused by KB4023057, which was installed 16November2018, followed by my reinstallation of Macrium Reflect 17November2018. That sequence indicates that the problem started on one of those dates; I cannot tell which one, as that would depend upon the time of day of the KB install; however, that is not important.

What is important is that, starting on either the first or second date, Reflect failed due to the disk being locked, of which I was unaware. The disk was unlocked when I rebooted Windows, as the WD lock program unlocks the disk when you enter your computer password, so I was able to create a backup. The next morning, as the disk was probably locked, something it did not occur to me to check, the backup failed due to it being unable to write to the external hard disk.

I don't know what caused me to check the disk's status this morning, other than continuing to ponder what might be the underlying cause of the repeated backup failures. I called WD a while ago, explained the problem, so the agent sent me a link showing how to prevent a hard disk from going to sleep in Power Options. I replied to the email he sent, explaining politely that this had nothing to do with the problem, and explaining it again.

That type of response is so typical of tech support. Recently, a software vendor wanted to do a remote session, asking me when I would be available. I replied that Tuesday through Friday of last week would be acceptable, so they replied that the session would be on Monday. I replied to that by quoting what I had said, so they reset the day to Tuesday. That having been done, I got an email Monday morning with a link to the program they use for remote sessions. I changed my plans, spent over 90 minutes on the session; the agent concluded that the program was incompatible with my computer (which I seriously doubted,) and that he would escalate the problem to Level 2 Support. Two days later, he let me know that Level 2 was already aware of the problem and had, in turn, sent it to the programmers. SIGH.

So are you saying it’s a hard drive lock feature & not Macrium/image guardian?
In any case glad you’ve found the cause.

Not Myself said:

A final word, namely that the problem has been solved. Doing some sleuthing, I determined that the WD drive software that I was using was out-of-date. It had worked until the install of the KB mentioned above in this thread; apparently, the WD software could no longer handle the procedure that called for the disc to be unlocked when the computer was awakened. (The software locks the disc when the computer goes to sleep.)

With the two WD programs updated, today at 1000 Local, I woke the computer, knowing that Macrium Reflect would have missed its 0900 Local backup. Shortly after the computer was again awake, Macrium began its missed backup, writing to the WD My Passport Ultra. After a few minutes, the backup was successfully completed.

In the immortal words of Pangloss, " tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles." Or, at least this problem has been fixed.

Good to hear you found a solution.

Best wishes,
Virginia.