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

Anonymous
2013-10-19T14:16:48+00:00

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.

 

  1. initiate the system image backup

  1. both volumes to be backed up

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

 

  1. 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.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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Anonymous
2013-10-20T20:19:10+00:00

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. 

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Delete the 100MB EFI System Partition after the Recovery Partition. 

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

  1. 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. 
  2. 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

  1. Open a cmd prompt with administrator privileges. Press Start Key, Type cmd, right click, select run as administrator. 
  2. Type diskpart to start windows command line disk manager. 
  3. 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
  4. Select that disk by typing the command "select disk" and the disk number.
  5. 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. 
  6. Once you have determined the partition number, type "select partition " and your partition number
  7. 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.
  8. 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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  1. Anonymous
    2013-11-06T11:13:42+00:00

    But this is anyway not the solution to the backup problem. Just tried, I will still have to enlarge the Recovery Partition. Guess I'll have to wait that Microsoft takes note and issues a corrective update. Thank you for your help, Jobongo and PauloAllan.

    hi Pikohler, the reason I mentioned the partition optimise was that I discovered that following an optimise of the recovery partition I had extra space in this partition, both 32mb files as described previously disappeared and this did free up some space on this partition, I think the files were restore points and ive repeated this procedure twice and on both occasions they have been removed, I also turned file history off, these findings were consequential findings and related to the system partition, the "FIX" as such is described in this thread and involves the extension of the system partition one way or another, I am sorry if you have been mislead by the optimise of the system partition, I just wanted to share what I discovered, The optimise function does not work via the GUI in 8.1 update so I wondered why? I also wondered if the optimise (or lack of it) and system partition problem were related.

    It seems strange that this function no longer is possible in windows 8.1?

    I noticed that when you preform a system image backup a 32mb file is written to this partition, following a restore from this image the file is still in this partition then as I say following a system partition optimise the file then disappears??

    My thought was that Why cant we optimise?? is this the problem? would files be deleted from this partition following an optimise immediately following an update to 8.1? if you understand my train of thought.  

    Thank you, Sir, for the care you take to elucidate the problem. I have looked into the content of the problem disk (Recovery) with a free program called Recuva which can be downloaded from Piriform.com among others. I do indeed see a 32 mb file but it has been overwritten by the huge file Winre.wim which takes no less than 256 MB of the 300 MB available. It seems that after upgrading from Window 8 to 8.1 there is simply not enough space available on the Recovery disk to write a new 32 MB file. As you say, the solution to this problem requires that the Recovery partition be made larger. It seems strange that Microsoft would not have noticed this.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-06T00:52:47+00:00

    Many thanks, this worked for me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-05T14:22:14+00:00

    But this is anyway not the solution to the backup problem. Just tried, I will still have to enlarge the Recovery Partition. Guess I'll have to wait that Microsoft takes note and issues a corrective update. Thank you for your help, Jobongo and PauloAllan.

    hi Pikohler, the reason I mentioned the partition optimise was that I discovered that following an optimise of the recovery partition I had extra space in this partition, both 32mb files as described previously disappeared and this did free up some space on this partition, I think the files were restore points and ive repeated this procedure twice and on both occasions they have been removed, I also turned file history off, these findings were consequential findings and related to the system partition, the "FIX" as such is described in this thread and involves the extension of the system partition one way or another, I am sorry if you have been mislead by the optimise of the system partition, I just wanted to share what I discovered, The optimise function does not work via the GUI in 8.1 update so I wondered why? I also wondered if the optimise (or lack of it) and system partition problem were related.

    It seems strange that this function no longer is possible in windows 8.1?

    I noticed that when you preform a system image backup a 32mb file is written to this partition, following a restore from this image the file is still in this partition then as I say following a system partition optimise the file then disappears??

    My thought was that Why cant we optimise?? is this the problem? would files be deleted from this partition following an optimise immediately following an update to 8.1? if you understand my train of thought.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-11-05T13:52:24+00:00

    You can still assign a letter to the partition. You have to do it through diskpart though. When in diskpart, select the volume of that partition and type assign and enter. It will automatically assign a letter to the partition. You can check the partition letter by either typing list volume in diskpart or by going to my computer and it should be there along with other partitions. I hope this helps. 

    OK, thanks. With diskpart I could indeed assign letters to both disks. 

    However they the letters do not appear in Disk Management

    and Defrag does not seem to work

    But this is anyway not the solution to the backup problem. Just tried, I will still have to enlarge the Recovery Partition. Guess I'll have to wait that Microsoft takes note and issues a corrective update. Thank you for your help, Jobongo and PauloAllan.

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