Backup did not complete successfully

Hello everyone, I have been having trouble with my file backups and restore points. I am not tech savvy, and am struggling. It started out awhile back with an issue of there being no room in the designated file, so I tried to delete the files, but am afraid that I deleted something I should not have.

Now when I run the scheduled system backup, I get the following error message:

The backup did not complete successfully.

An error occurred. The following information might help you resolve the error:

The backup location cannot be found or is not valid. Review your backup settings and check your hardware configuration. (0x8000006)

Backup Location Recovery E:

I really appreciate any and all advice. I tried to get help from microsoft, but they wanted $100.00, and with the birth of my first child on Saturday, that is just not in my cards!

 

I have run all of the preliminary tests and attached the results below.

Thanks again for all of the help in advance,
Chris

 

A few questions:
- what is your Windows version?
- what backup program are you using; Windows Backup?
- your E: drive, is that an external disk? What is its capacity, and how much free space you have?
- the error code you provide (0x8000006) is not valid; it should be 8 digits after the 'x'.

 

1) Windows Vista Home Premium
2) Windows backup
3) The E: drive is an internal location. I do not have any external disks attached to the laptop. It is named "RECOVERY E:" and I can find it in the Computer link. It says the capacity is 14.6 GB, but only 394 MB are free.
4) 0x80000006 Sorry I missed a "0" in there

 

Have you been able previously to backup successfully to this E drive? I suspect it is the manufacturer's recovery partition which you would normally only use if ever you wanted to restore your computer to its original state, and is not intended to be used as a home for regular backups.

You would normally backup either to DVDs or to an external hard drive, as that then secures your backup in the event the hard disk fails or Windows won't boot for some reason.

Try again using a DVD-R or DVD-RW disk.

 

I have always backed up everything to this E drive as it was set up that way. I was messing around with it, and it appears that I have deleted almost 20gb of previous back ups, and when I ran the backup again, it was successful.

I tried to back up to a large thumb drive, but it was not big enough to store the info.

It sounds like I need to get some external way to back this up to prevent the issues in the future.

Thank you for your help and insight!!