Cant backup 8.1 using system image backup! Error 0x80780119, Cant optimise system partition, (this is why i cant backup) please read. . .

Anonymous

I am having this issue, cant optimise the system partition 350mb. 8.1 official release,

This is also causing a huge problem, the optimise option in windows 8.1 allows me to optimise the c: drive but not the system partition this prevents a system image backup...!!

Due to the system partition being out of space for a shadow copy to be placed onto it the backup fails every time with this error code, -- 0x80780119 --.

Backups are a huge factor in operating systems and since upgrading I cant backup my system using windows image backup, if I could optimise the system partition and straighten out the file structure within it (free up some space) for the shadow copy then the volume shadow copy could be placed onto the drive but it cant...

This all worked fine in 8.0 but not now...please fix this problem!?

Not being able to backup your system is not good enough...

here is my my issue again in pictures...

1.system volume needs optimising

but pressing the optimise for this does nothing at all.. current status remains "Needs optimisation".

The way an ssd reclaims drive space is to use the optimise function, this not working prevents the reclaim for files/data to be written to space where files have been deleted previously. Giving the impression the drive/partition is full when really its not full just needs optimising/trimmed.

initiate the system image backup

both volumes to be backed up

error message due to insufficient space on the system partition for shadow copy.

finally here is a capture of the current disk setup on my system, notice the system partition only has 17mb free space and according to the above error message I need atleast 50mb free for the volume shadow copy !? Due to this I cant create a backup of my system using windows 8.1 !

(system partition has no drive letter assigned to it 350mb)

PLEASE HELP !! Thanks for reading.

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Anonymous

I have found a way around this getting Windows System Image Backup working again. I did this on my laptop and desktop confirming that I could recover from the images. It is actually pretty easy but should not be necessary. The reason that the backup would not work was because the recovery partition was using 284MB of the 300MB available. There was not 50MB available for shadow copy. Here are the steps I took on an EUFI GPT disk:

Note: All commands are without quotes.

Disclaimer: I would recommend backing up all of you important data as any time you mess with partitions, there is the possibility to lose data. This process was done one both my laptop (Win8.1 Home) and desktop (Win8.1 Pro). I cannot take responsibility if this causes any damage. With that being said, I hope this helps.

Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html Note that none of the changes will take effect until you hit apply. I am sure others may work but this is the one that I used and it is free.

You should have 3 Windows partitions; Recovery - 300 MB, EFI System - 100 MB, and your system Volume to start off with.

Once installed, Open Partition Wizard and Shrink your system volume, C: in my case, by 101MB at the beginning of the partition. (I had to put 101MB as when I tried 100 it said that the space was too small when doing the next step) To do this, Right Click the C: Drive, select, Move/Resize, and the put 101 in box named "Unallocated Space Before:" and click OK.
Copy the EFI System partition (100 MB FAT32) to this new Free Space by right clicking, selecting copy, and then selecting the unallocated space. Then next the OK.
Delete the 100MB EFI System Partition after the Recovery Partition.

After this is done, you will see 100MB unallocated space after the Recovery Partition.

Right click on Recovery partition and select Extend. Drag the bar to take up all of the extra free space. This will change the recovery partition from 300MB to 400MB allowing for enough space (50MB) for the shadow copy. Click OK.
Next Click Apply. I received an error stating that it could not make changes due to C: being in use. I clicked restart.

When the computer restarts, Partition Wizard will do its thing. Once it is done you should boot into Windows again.

This next part is essential, because, windows now does not recognize the partition that was moved before as an EFI System Partition. If you try and do a backup image now, only the system partition will show and not the Recovery or EFI System

Open a cmd prompt with administrator privileges. Press Start Key, Type cmd, right click, select run as administrator.
Type diskpart to start windows command line disk manager.
Find the disk that Windows is installed on by typing List disk. This will be different on each machine but for illustration mine was disk 0
Select that disk by typing the command "select disk" and the disk number.
Next, determine the EFI partition that was moved earlier. This is the partition that was moved earlier and should be 100MB. Type in the command "list part" to see a list of the partitions on the disk. Mine was Partition 3. This may be different on your system.
Once you have determined the partition number, type "select partition " and your partition number
Next you have to set this partition as an EFI System volume. Type in this command - "set id = c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b" This changes the partition type to an EFI system volume.
After all of this is done, restart your computer and you should now be able to back up you system using the System Image Backup in File History.

I know some of this may seem a little elementary to some but you never know who needs help and their technical knowledge.

I hope that this helps and let me know if you have any questions.

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Anonymous

2013-10-31T12:36:49+00:00
Merci Paulo.

2 specificities with me :
- the only partition to extend is the one appeared with W8.1 upgrade, ie the second recovery partition. Back to W8.0 (using a duly created image), all my partitions comply with image creation tool requirements. The faulty partition, born with W8.1, can be extended only in W8.1 environment.
- 2 adjacent partitions : C: and Overprovisioning. Which one has to provide the required and missing MBs?
Of course I tried to create a system W8.1 image. You know what ?...

Then I stay quiet... for the moment LOL

PS I guess PW sizing pointers adjust to a 4096 bit factor (alignment).
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Anonymous

2013-10-31T11:43:57+00:00

Hi Mark, I understand you are going to stay quiet now and I fully appreciate why, I will show you the pictures of what I did in part wiz, I did the procedure in 8.0 then upgraded to 8.1 presenting 8.1 with newly defined system partition size because like yourself I found that 8.1 did not allow for me to adjust the system partition and I failed to backup and restore or even boot up ,

I had to use virtual machines to experiment on as loosing my system each time was painful!!

(I preformed NO manual partition resize of C: partition, I simply allowed partwiz to TAKE SPACE FROM- C:)

1.

2.

3.

(these pictures show my system partition following a successful extension, that is why it is larger than 350mb.)

PARTWIZ WILL DO THE REST!! REBOOT AND YOUR NEW PARTITION SIZE WILL BE PRESENT.

This is the exact simple procedure I personally used for my 2 partition setup. I will repeat once more I preformed this procedure in windows 8.0, tested the reboot and system image BACKUP in 8.0 and all worked good, then I upgraded to 8.1 and still all good, backup and restore perfect !!
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Anonymous

2013-10-31T10:54:55+00:00

Thank you kindly Paulo. I'm now back in W8.1. Then again a second recovery partition (in french : partition de récupération) of 350MB appeared

Disk management :

(notice the unallocated 24 GB = over provisioning space granted to the SSD)

Partition Wizard hereafter shows that the 350 MB recovery partition added by W8.1 badly lacks unused space (issue I previously addressed with eventual poor results - cf recent posts - before I had to redo all the stuff : back to W8.0 and again to W8.1) . Now I stay quiet until new major fix toward system image tool. If anyone has clues...
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Anonymous

2013-10-30T23:20:48+00:00

Question 1:

I think that it will create the all of the files necessary in the directory that you select. In the case in the article it was the root directory of the C: drive. If you don't specify a directory to copy it to then it will copy it to a temporary directory. Basically this part is to change the initial configuration that Windows looks for when installing. This is the way that I see it.

Question 2:

I would imagine so. The ISO image contains all of the files necessary to boot from. At least the 8.0 does. For example, to create a bootable USB, I simply copied all of the files from the DVD onto a USB stick and everything was ready to go. There was no extra preparation of the USB (i.e. creating a bootable USB, etc). The only thing is that since I am using UEFI firmware, I made sure that the format was FAT32. UEFI does not recognize NTFS disks if I am not mistaken.

The only thing I have a problem with is the fact that I can't get my hands on an 8.1 ISO. I have tried downloading the ISO from Microsoft, but since I have an OEM version, I cannot use that service. I am trying to find a way around it and if anyone knows of a way please let me know.

In the article, he mentions a "second drive" which makes me suspect that it isn't the C drive.

With regard to your OEM version, I think you can use the same service. In your ei.cfg file, just change your channel to OEM. See my third link in my prior post. I am no wizard on this stuff.

For what's it is worth, I have an OEM version of Windows 8 on my pc, and my plan is to use the above steps to create an 8.1 iso bootable disk.
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