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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778 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-04-01T19:36:25+00:00

From looking at this the only partition large enough to store the factory image is D:\Data, it would not be on C:\ drive. A formatted 2Tb drive is 1863.01Gb and your C:,D: drives combined are 1861.07, Considering the fact that factory's create a separate partition (OEM Reserved) for their image (12Gb+) It likely that it is gone. The question would be... was the D:\ drive present when the computer was first booted from the factory or did you shrink the c:\ drive and create it? I looks like the factory installation created partition1 with windows recovery tools, maybe customized to access the factory image. If the factory image in not on D:\ then the upgrade to 8.1 deleted it and also created partition 5 with updated system data. I would try if you haven't already to create the factory recovery media (16Gb USB)

You can see how Microsoft creates confusion by showing partition 2 status as "Active & Boot" when it is actually "Active & System". It shows partition 4 as "System" when it is actually "Boot" What they show is intuitive, unfortunately they have set a standard of counter intuitive terminology under the hood. If Windows image backup fails it is probably because of the duplicate partition ID's of 1 & 5 The unused space on all partitions exceeds the requirements.
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Anonymous

2014-04-01T10:37:53+00:00

Eureka! Thank you for your assistance!!

I quite solved all my problems, I made a backup of my system with a new system image.

I do not used the reagentc command to redirect system backup nor I deleted partition5, but simply enlarged that partition to 800MB at the expense of 450MB of the big data partition 6 (for a total of 800MB), by using the Minitool Partition Wizardyou've mentioned a few above message.

I understood not to delete partition 1, because this is the original OEM (ASUS) recovery partition with initial OEM factory system image that I can always use in the future if I want to restore the system to factory settings with the command reagentc (or with the recovery DVD I created when I first installed the system).

I write this reply to thank you and because it may help other users.
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Anonymous

2014-03-31T17:15:08+00:00
I don't currently have a UEFI Bios to observe and test with for you. Typically when I encounter a factory system (Dell/HP...) if not yet created and if possible I create the factory recovery media. This data is drawn from a proprietary recovery partition usually with the Id set to (OEM Recovery), if the partitions are changed The OEM is picky and you lose the ability to create the factory recovery disk set and you would have to order a replacement. Win. 8/8.1 OEM's only allow the use of 16Gb fat 32 USB flash drive, no DVD set.
1. Partition Wizard will allow you to see the partition label ID's even if they are not assigned a drive letter and you can right click choose explore to observe the data.
2. I have not used "reagentc" and am not familiar with all the options. I looks like you have the right command string. I suspect that the WinRE.wim must be at a location specified in the registry for reagent to use for the copy to partition 1 if it is not already present.
3. I am not sure what "system image" you are referring to,.
4. The option to "copy the recovery partition of the PC on the recovery drive" being greyed out means that Windows does not see the "Factory recovery partition" to copy, you could still continue with a spare USB flash drive and see if windows is still able to create a recovery boot drive.
There is a lot of confusion in terminology when dealing with the terms...Windows Recovery/Factory Recovery/system Image backup and all the partitions created by Factory/custom builds and upgrades. Also limitations Microsoft creates between OEM and Retail versions of Windows.
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Anonymous

2014-03-31T11:34:39+00:00
Thank you very much indeed for your reply, let me only put some last questions:
1. How to check that partition 1 is still set to system recovery?
2. May I use the same format for the command that I see with regentc /info to redirect the recovery? i. e.
reagentc.exe /setreimage /path \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\WindowsRE
1. How to rewrite the system image onto partition1 before deleting partition 5? Is it automatically recreated when I use System Image Backup from Control Panel?
2. Why when I create a recovery drive, the option to "copy the recovery partition of the PC on the recovery drive" is grayed out?
Now that I installed "Paragon Partition Manager 2014 Free" I have much more information about partitions, so the first question is auto-answered isn't it? This is the view for my disk:

I also have all GUI and IDs for each partition

Again thank you for your replies and your patience , you are very kind and competent.
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