Backup keeps failing : Error 0x81000033

Anonymous
2010-02-05T02:01:36+00:00

I keep getting the error: 0x81000033 when I try do run backup.

I have tried various backup devices all with ample disc space.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Internet and connectivity

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Anonymous
2010-02-05T23:17:21+00:00

Hi,

If you have any security software installed on the computer it would take longer for the backup center to backup files. Try to disable security software and try to take a backup and verify.

If that works fine later enable the security software.

Follow the link for more information

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Disable-antivirus-software

You may also run disk cleanup utility and check if that helps.

Start Disk Cleanup

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Start-Disk-Cleanup

Also try to run a Check disk for the hard drive.

To run Check disk

1.       Open Computer by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Computer.

2.       Right-click the hard disk drive that you want to check, and then click Properties.

3.       Click the Tools tab, and then, under Error-checking, click Check Now. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

To automatically repair problems with files and folders that the scan detects, select Automatically fix file system errors. Otherwise, the disk check will simply report problems but not fix them.

To perform a thorough disk check, select Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. This scan attempts to find and repair physical errors on the hard disk itself, and it can take much longer to complete.

To check for both file errors and physical errors, select both Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

4.       Click Start.

Depending upon the size of your hard disk, this may take several minutes. For best results, don't use your computer for any other tasks while it's checking for errors.

For information follow the link

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Check-a-drive-for-errors 

After you perform a check disk try running the backup process and check if that helps

Hope this information is helpful.

Amrita M

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-06-28T07:53:51+00:00

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-06-28T09:50:06+00:00

    you guys need to read this

    http://pagestart.com/win7br0x8100003301.html

     solution does not work in win 8. There is no Healthy system partition that can be assigned a drive letter.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-08-02T18:18:01+00:00

    The real solution is described in http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/624aef35-b27f-4e78-9fed-3beb24442457:

    "Deleting the USN journal on the volume solved the issue. Here are the steps (assuming the 100mb partition is F:)

    1. Launch cmd --> run as admin
    2. fsutil usn queryjournal F: 

        The output will be USN journal settings which also includes its size (in hex bytes). If it is anything around 30mb, the backup will fail due to snapshot creation failure because of lack of space.

    1. fsutil usn deletejournal /D F:

        This will delete the journal. Retry backup."

    I had the same problem. I applied your solution and now the backup works fine. Thank you very much

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-08-16T22:01:57+00:00

    Thanks for the solution! Had the same problem here,

    I nearly gave up in clearing invisible junk on the system reserved volume. 86% of 100MB were full and of course a system image backup was not possible. Endless searches for posts on the problem resulted in mostly nonsense suggestions and I was getting ready to expand the system reserve volume using a variety of free partition managers. Since it requires not only to shrink the system volume (C:), but also to move it to increase the size of the system reserved volume, I got the repeated warnings, that windows 7 may not function properly or not at all.

    I just didn't have the guts to commit to the change.

    After deleting the USN Journal, I gained over 50MB in the system reserved volume, so that I now have

    over 70MB free space. More than enough to do a successful system image backup.

    It's probably not Microsoft that fills up the system reserve volume with the USN journal, but it certainly is Microsoft that fails to prevent this from happening.

    I am just amazed that it took nearly 6 years to identify the problem and to come up with a solution. Wouldn't you think that Microsoft would come up with a patch, in their weekly distribution of windows updates, that blocks any illegal entry to the (very critical) system reserved volume?

    Update:

    Have done some additional research on the subject since the above post:

    USN Journal (shorthand form of Update Sequence Number Journal, also known as Change Journal)

    is present on all mounted disk volumes and updated as changes occur on the volume. If the USN Journal is deleted on the system reserved partition, (using method described inhttp://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/624aef35-b27f-4e78-9fed-3beb24442457:)

    it frees up approximately 50MB of space, enough to do a successful System Image Backup. However, after some file changes/ creation, Windows 7 creates a new USN Journal on the System Reserved Partition to track those changes, using default parameters for it's size and behavior, Approximately 50MB!

    You can choose to delete the journal prior to each System Image Backup or you can permanently fix the problem by limiting the size of the USN Journal on the System Reserved Partition doing the following:

    Open the Administrator Command Prompt as described in the above link and delete the existing USN Journal.

    Then create a new USN Journal, limiting its size to 1 MB using the following command:

    fsutil usn createjournal m=1000 a=100 h:

    Drive letter assignment for the System Reserved Partition in the above example is h:

    You have now created a USN Journal with a fixed size of 1 MB (m=1000) which is updated in chunks of 100KB(a=100), placed at the end of the journal and the same amount removed at the beginning.

    Since hardly any changes ever occur on the System Reserved Partition, the reduction in size of the journal is not noticeable in the performance or speed.

    I hope this helps those with the consistent error message : Error 0x81000033 when trying to do a System Image Backup

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