System hangs running Server Backup - Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials

Question

I ran through the Backup Wizard, selected the System, OS, and my Data drives to backup. total output is probably about 400-500GB of data to be snapshot and backed up. It's set to automatically backup daily at 9:00pm, but upon the first backup it just sits
there. I figured I'd let it ride until the next day since I've seen backups take a couple hours before.
Well, It's more than 12 hours since it started the process, and I cannot access my server. It doesn't wake the screen, CTRL-Alt-Del doesn't do anything, and I can't remote in with RDP.
Any advice? I haven't shut it down or forced a reboot yet. 

Answer 1

The server hangs when the backup starts, and I cannot see any error message other than after I hard reboot and see the error popup on reboot due to unscheduled shut down. Also, there is an error log in the Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup directory. The
log files are empty, though. They are named according to date. 
e.g. "Backup_Error-07-01-2014_02-00-06"
I have reboot the system and the same happens when I try to backup again. I do have data in the backup HDD, as I have since disabled Server Backup. After disabling server backup, the designated drive is now mounted and I can see the log file created in the
only backup folder on it.
"Backup of volume C: has failed. The operation failed due to a device error encountered with either the source or the destination. If the source or destination volume is on a disk, run CHKDSK /R on the source or destination volume, and
then retry the operation."
"Backup of volume D: has failed. Server execution failed"
All drives are new, and CHKDSK /R doesn't resolve anything in terms of allowing backup to proceed.
I should also note that the C: HDD is a 512GB SSD with only 36GB of data on it including the OS. D: is a 2TB HDD with only 18GB of data on it. SQL server is active during the backup process, but even ending the SQL processes doesn't change the backup outcome.
Server Backup ends up hanging regardless of everything I've tried.
I imagine Server Backup would kill any processes that may prevent it from accessing data to snapshot/backup, no?
I will add the backup HDD does have 3 files in the F:\WindowsImageBackup\NESServer\Backup 2014-01-07 020006 directory.
@ 9:02pm 1/6/2014 (9:00pm was the scheduled start), a 2,550,784KB file
@ 12:45am 1/7/2014, a 11,264KB file
@ 10:49am 1/7/2014, a 272,384KB file
All three of those files were created from the same backup process. However, checking the Server Manager/Server Backup Tool, that drive doesn't qualify as containing any backup files. "The backup location does not contain any backup. Specify another
backup location."