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Win 7 laptop only wakes to backup after clean restart? RRS feed

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    I have Win XP and Win 7's machines working perfectly every night - they wake, back up and go back to sleep

    My other Win7 Home Premium laptop refuses to wake up and backup.  Does not matter if it is on ethernet or wifi.  Only solution is to do a complete restart and then sleep is before I head to bed each night.  Any ideas of what is causing the issue?  Else it is a matter of looking at each service...painful

    Machine is a Lenovo X200

    Thanks

    Friday, March 5, 2010 6:29 AM

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    It's going to be something unique to that machine, I'm afraid. Possibly some piece of software, or some device that's connected to that machine that's interfering with the normal process.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Friday, March 5, 2010 3:38 PM
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    If you can't pinpoint the cause and you get tired of manual intervention every night, consider letting Windows 7 Task Scheduler handle the backup task for you automatically.

    First un-check Wake This Computer for Backup in the WHS tray icon. Then in Windows 7 Task Scheduler create a task that is triggered every day at a time of your choice. Set the task to run with highest privileges, and to wake the PC. Have the task run the following command:

    "C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server\BackupEngine.exe" -a

    Since this is a laptop and you may occasionally travel with it, you may also want to add a couple of conditions to the task. On the Conditions tab, check Start the task only if the computer is on AC power and under Network, add the condition to Start the task only if the following network connection is available , then select your home network from the drop-down list. These conditions will prevent a backup from occurring if you're not at home or if you're on battery power.
    Friday, March 5, 2010 6:50 PM
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    While it won't hurt to try, I'll be a bit surprised if that works, Mark. Effectively, it's what the connector does today.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Friday, March 5, 2010 7:24 PM
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    Thanks for the hints...will try Mark's first as it is easy and let you know
    Friday, March 5, 2010 10:16 PM
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    Ken:

    Provided that manual backups work on the X200 and the laptop is capable of waking itself from sleep it should work. It works for me - I've been doing it that way for the past 6 months.

    Even though we know what the connector is supposed to do, in my limited experience only my (former) Vista desktop would back up reliably using the built-in WHS backup method. Every other machine in the house has had a different "issue" that prevented backups from working like they were designed to (missed backups, duplicate backups, failure to wake, failure to go back to sleep, etc.), and I've had to use methods like the above to get things to work automatically on the different machines. Fortunately, Windows Task Scheduler has come to the rescue every time.
    Friday, March 5, 2010 11:05 PM