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
    2014-02-16T09:49:45+00:00

    The Winre.wim file is the recovery environment for windows to boot into from the hard drive for system repair. This would work but once the image is created there would not be enough room to put it back onto the partition. You would ruin your ability to create a recovery boot disk (USB/DVD) and the system repair boot options. Otherwise your computer would run normally. You must create the boot disk first and then if you want to repair or apply the image created use this disk. For me I just deleted the GPT Reserved 128mb, used partition wizard to slide the EFI System partition down and then extended the  system recovery partition. From what I understand you only need the GPT Reserved partition if you convert the disk from Basic GPT to Dynamic GPT disk.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-16T07:56:00+00:00

    I know this is an old thread, but what I ended up doing was just moving the WinRE.wim file to my desktop, thus creating the free space that was necessary for backing up. Once the backup was complete, I moved it back again. Just have to remember if you restore from this that you'll need to move the WinRE.wim file back to its rightful place.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-10T21:23:03+00:00

    There is one little glitch that causes confusion which is counter intuitive...Love Microsoft. You said that drive "C:" was your "System" partition.

    Microsoft terminology....

    System = Boot files (System Reserved/EFI System)

    Boot = Operating System (C:\Windows)

    For me it gets a little more complex :-)

    disk -0

    Partition

    1 - 300mb 35.14 free (System recovery) THE PROBLEM

    2 - 100mb EFI System

    3 - 128mb unallocated (GPT Reserved)

    4 - 140gb Win 8.1 (Boot)

    5 - 349gb Data (Storage)

    I used partition wizard to shrink data (5) by 150mb (to keep the 300mb under 500mb when done) and then moved it to end of drive. then selected Win C (4) to move down but partition wizard required restart as expected to do work in dos mode but caused system to crash with no possibility of repair. New install required, hours of configuration lost :-(

    Obviously the goal was after restart would have been to slide partition 3 and then 2 down leaving room to extend partition 1 and not have image backup fail. My next attempt is to run windows setup delete all partitions except partition 1 and extend it installing windows to it. This works with win 7 to avoid system reserved partition creation which is only required for bitlocker to work. This frees up the creation of 1 more partition later since basic disks only allow up to 4 primary partitions. (make no mistake this system is UEFI/GPT) We will see how this works.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-02-10T09:01:16+00:00

    The recovery image is "winre.wim". This file is contained in the recovery partition. But how do I register it? If I run "reagent /info" it says the location is "0". Meaning what? 

    Thanks...

    If you can't re-enable reagentc to show the correct info, you may have to re-register the image file.  After I re-enabled, I had to reboot my system for the image backup to show the Recovery partition as one of the partitions to be backed up.

    If you use the reagentc /setreimage /? command, it will show you some of the possible options.  Be aware the drive letter used in the path in the examples will be what you set in Disk Part.

    If my response gets cut off, there is another thread where the process is shown.

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8\_1-system/unable-to-refresh-windows-81-in-recovery-setings/2fa6f4ba-921a-46f8-a5bd-245c822e8943

    But you will have to make sure which partition you need to work on.  Using Disk Management is a good way to see what partitions are on your system.  In the case of a 8 to 8.1 update, you may need to use the 350 MB Partition after the OS partition that was placed there during the update.

    Once you find the correct partition, you need to use Diskpart to add a letter so you can run the reagentc command.

    Once you have the letter assigned, you can leave diskpart and run the reagentc /setreimage command.  If you are in Windows, you do not need the target entries.  On a Windows 8.1 install, the WinRE.wim file is located in the T:\Recovery\WindowsRE directory, if you gave the recovery partition the drive letter T: 

    Reagentc /Setreimage /Path T:\Recovery\WindowsRENote:  This path will not work for Windows 8 since it uses a special folder identity.Then use reagentc to enable the process and check with the /info switch.  If it works, go back to Diskpart and remove the drive letter.

    Thank you very much! Very helpful, I will try this.

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