>More fun stuff to come unless I just give up on backup and simply ditch everything and reformat the drive.

Windows is so stupid you can't even leave it for ten minutes to move a dozen gigabytes to a thumb drive. I said move, and it went on happily to do so, and then twenty minutes later I notice it has stopped at 19% and is waiting for the permission to delete a thumbs.db, which is there for the sole use of file (nee windows) explorer. Why is that file always created, how to turn it off, and why does it have to have such a set of nasty attributes is beyond me.

I've hit this same spot so many times that I think if it were a physical object I'd be limping from broken toes.