I just made a systems image back up for my OS in Windows 8.1 for the first time.

I put it on and external hard drive.

When I open the drive and click on properties for the image back up it says that

the size is zero bytes ans it contains no files or no folders.

Is this right or am I doing something wrong.

Is this right or am I doing something wrong.

It sure sounds like something is not right.

I assume you can upen the external HD in Windows Explorer, so what size does explorer say the image is?

If zero, I would assume the backup started, but then failed for whatever reason.

Also, what program did you use to make the image?

yeah that sounds about right, the folder is protected by default just like C:\System Volume Information. To view the contents, you first need to take ownership of the folder. I can't remember how to do this manually, I just use the Take Ownership registry hack that can be found around the traps via Google search.

I've solved the problem by opening the Image Folder and the all the subfolders

and going back to click properties and it shows the size of the image.

Next I put in a flash drive to try to put the image on that instead but I'm being told that

this drive cannot be used to store a systems image because it is not formatted with NTFS.

Is there anyway around this.It's a Sandisk 32GB Flash drive or thumb drive or something.

If not DVD is not an option but is there any where online I can store it for free.The image is 29GB.

Lemsta69, on 24 Jun 2016 - 08:49, said:

yeah that sounds about right, the folder is protected by default just like C:\System Volume Information. To view the contents, you first need to take ownership of the folder. I can't remember how to do this manually, I just use the Take Ownership registry hack that can be found around the traps via Google search.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-take-ownership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/

Thanks Guys,

What I really need to know now is can I put the image on a flash drive

and what is this business about no NTFS

Thanks Guys,

What I really need to know now is can I put the image on a flash drive

and what is this business about no NTFS

Probably formatted as FAT32. Just right click on the flash drive and select format. You have an option to format it as NTFS. Of course be sure what you have on the drive is not important.

FAT32 is limited for a single file size; and there is one file in your image (VLD) which most certainly exceeds this limit, so you'll need to to use NTFS.

You want to keep the image handy, but obviously not on your computer.

Were you able to create a recovery disk?

I could not, get this error message: https://neosmart.net/wiki/we-cant-create-a-recovery-drive-on-this-pc/

And in my Image directory I have a file Mediald which I cannot copy to another location?

As "mtls2005" said FAT is limited to 4gb file size on flash drive.

You have to format to NTFS to allow bigger file size.

If the NTFS option is not available when you click for format :-

To enable NTFS on your USB Flash Drive drive (USB Flash Memory):

1. Right click My Computer and select Manage.
2. Open the Device Manager and find your USB drive under the Disk Drives heading.
3. Right click the drive and select Properties.
4. Choose Policies tab and select the "Optimize for performance" option.
5. Click OK.

NTFS worked first time for me.

Thanks,