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

2013-11-14T21:47:32+00:00

The wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:E: -include:C: suggestion has been in this thread for several weeks now, :-)

Thanks, PauloAllan. I've been spending so much time dinking around with Windows 8.1, I didn't have the patience to read all 25 pages of this [justifiably] very long thread. My bad. In my defense, I did attempt to use the "Search this Thread" function to make sure nobody else had mentioned it. Then I realized THERE IS NO "SEARCH THIS THREAD" FUNCTION! (and I didn't want to search the whole forum). * sigh *
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Anonymous

2013-11-15T01:12:02+00:00

Did you reset the EFI System Parition as and EFI partition?

Also, I would suggest resizing C:, reboot, and then only copy the EFI (100MB Fat32) partition to the extra space. Windows "recommends" that the partition layout should be like this,

Recovery --> EFI --> MSR --> System

but emphasizes that the Recovery partition needs to be at the beginning. So the setup with what you did should look like this.

Recovery --> MSR --> EFI --> System

This is the way that I have it on one of my machines and it works. The other, my desktop, I resized the C: drive shrinking it by 150MB, shifted the MSR and EFI to the right to take up that extra space and then extend the recovery partition. I ended up doing this in several steps instead of one big step and it worked great. Here is what I have,

Recovery (450 MB) --> EFI (100MB) --> MSR (128MB) --> System

The only thing with moving the EFI and MSR partitions over, you have to re-set the partition type to MSR and EFI. This can be done through diskpart.

Thanks for your help but can I please ask for a bit more detail...

I am at this spot now:

Recovery (300MB) --> EFI (100MB) --> MSR (128MB) --> Free Space (128MB) --> System

Partition Wizard will not move the MSR or EFI partitions.

I can copy the MSR to the free space, but then it does not show as File System "Other' or Type 'GPT (Reserved Partition)' like I think it should.

In DISKPART I think I can use the command

create partition msr size=128

and I think it will find the free space and create a MSR partition of 128MB.

I would then delete the first MSR and so have 128MB free.

I would then copy the EFI to the end of the free space and delete the original EFI.

I should now have 128MB unallocated to add to recovery, which when I do will make me reboot to perform the operation.

And then on rebooting to Windows (really nervous with no EFI it won't boot) would do as you state on page 1 to set the EFI partion as actually EFI...

Sooo...will this work? Thanks for thoughts...
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Anonymous

2013-11-15T16:13:10+00:00

Can it be that 8.1 the worst and buggiest Windows since - I don't know - Win 98 is?

After detaching my SSD in order to play around with test installations on another HDD my system is completely f*cked up. Booting from the SSD (untouched during the whole testing process!) was not possible anymore. Repairing, even with an installation media, did not work.

I was able to repair it with a restore point that was ceated not too long ago. But since then: bluescreens, errors, freezes, Firefox won't start anymore... So many different errors and event IDs that I stopped bothering to look for what each of them could mean. Even the event log snap-in failed ;)

I also tried installing Win 8.1 with UEFI deactivated so that I have a MBR partition. But that brought up so many bluescreens that I stopped following that path.

I start to believe I have to start from scratch and install Win 8.1 again.

But what can I better? Is there any possibility to make everything work including system image backup? BIOS instead of UEFI does not seem to be an option...

Or should I stick to Win 8 until I can be sure that all those problems will be solved?
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Anonymous

2013-11-15T16:40:04+00:00

Even the event log snap-in failed ;)

Or should I stick to Win 8 until I can be sure that all those problems will be solved?

lol @ event log snap-in :-)

If you CANT restore and backup in 8.1 then I would recommend either using 3rd party tool like clonezilla to backup or indeed stay with 8.0.

8.1 is proving difficult for a lot of users (backup and restore) and this simply should not be the case, 8.0 was perfect for me actually but I wanted 8.1 and managed to extend system partition using partwiz.

I seriously doubt Microsoft are going to address this issue, so if you go back to 8.0 and wait for a fix for 8.1 you could be waiting along time.
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