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
    2013-11-26T00:41:24+00:00

    I thoroughly agree. The average user would be unable to do the partitions. Why should this even be necessary. I wish I'd stuck with Windows 7 or 8.0! Microsoft is no Apple!

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-25T19:48:03+00:00

    Larry, you are doomed.... lol..... read whole thread......

    Whole thread? What do you think I've was doing last night until 3:00 AM?!

    I will try the ISO download of 8.1 from Microsoft. That's supposed to take our Windows 8 DVD key. So, maybe that will work. I guess I hadn't seen any progress in a few days or a week, so I was hoping something changed.

    I built a bootable USB Flash drive, and it boots...I've not attempted to restore (or rather, "Refresh") from it yet. But as long as I do, maybe I'll do the UEFI first. I've been a bit unhappy how long the legacy takes to boot....considering the SSD boot takes a few seconds.

    But let me add my whining to the thread. I can't believe that Microsoft had instituted something that wasn't tested! I mean, how could it have been tested...there would have been an obvious software defect.

    Doesn't anyone at Microsoft do regression testing? Testing the new features in Win 8 & 8.1?

    What, are all the Microsoft software development and test teams now working on Obamacare? That's got to be why we don't see a response from MS!

    Cheers,

    -Ambi

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-25T19:11:17+00:00

    Larry, you are doomed.... lol..... read whole thread......

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-11-25T18:24:20+00:00

    Hi,

     

    I am hitting that well known (to everyone BUT Microsoft!) problem where win 8.1 will not backup because the recovery partition is only 350 MB. I plan to do a "refresh" of the OS from a USB flash drive with my 8-12 GB recovery environment on it (the state of my C disk before refresh, created in Legacy BIOS mode at the moment, done manually with the "INSTALL.win" method, then make recovery drive).

     

    What I wonder is, can I "refresh" from using Legacy BIOS to UEFI then refresh, setting a larger sized recovery partition, while "upgrading" my Win 8.1 to UEFI? (I think I can get into diskpart from CMD while doing "Refresh", right?

     

    My mother board, an Asus Maximus VI Formula can do UEFI boot mode, and my graphics card, an Asus GTX770-DC2OC-2GD5, is supposed to have a vBIOS for UEFI, but I need to confirm this. The board also has the Intel RAID controller, but I use the Option ROM to config the arrays at the moment...though I've seen screen shots about getting the RAID to play with UEFI.

     

    The one remaining wrinkle is that I have 3 Intel RAID arrays on the 6 Intel SATA 3 ports. I have a RAID 1 SSD with 2 Samsung 840 PRO SSD drives, a RAID 1 with the same SSD, and a RAID 1 with 2 Hitachi 7K400 drives. So, if all of that is "UEFI-able" let me know how I get it to work.

     

    Perhaps I'll use my RAID-1 pair of SSDs as a RAID-1 to install the UEFI-aware OS on, get the better-sized partition, then try to "Refresh from the USB Flash drive...though, this is risky, if it doesn't work, I'm back to installing from scratch. (but I have seen some talk about getting an ISO of Win 8.1 Enterprise for free then starting cleanly in 8.1...anyone done this yet?)

     

    If I need to reinstall Windows 8.0 from DVD then upgrade, then "refresh" or something else, that may be possible, but I'd like to use the USB flash drive to get everything closer to being all set. Let me know how you'd do this!

     

    Thanks for you help!

     

    Cheers,

     

    Larry

     

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