I have a 500GB vhd that holds 300GB of user roaming profiles. as an extra precaution i wish to back it up to an external HDD.

I have a 5TB external attached but i cannot find a transfer method that works. windows backup stops after 1GB with no error ouput. Ive tried to copy, paste, resulting in it hanging endlessly.

I have also tried macrium image to take a copy but it says "

error 0x80070079: The semaphore timeout period has expired

as far as i can tell its getting stuck on a large file somewhere. i have changed the vhd settings so that i am the owner, i also have full access to each of the roaming proifle folders and files.