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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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.

Was this answer helpful?

10+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

778 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-18T21:59:43+00:00

    Here is the mess on mine after upgrade. I have no idea why I have 6 unnamed Volume that are all 100%  FREE

    Capacity      Free Space      %Free

    Simple  Basic                     Healthy (EF1 System Partition)                                                  500MB                  500MB       100%

    Simple  Basic                     Healthy (OEM Partition)               40MB                                                     40MB                     40MB       100%

    Simple  Basic                     Healthy (Recovery Partition)                                                      490 MB                 490MB       100%

    Simple  Basic                     Healthy (Recovery Partition)                                                      350MB  350MB       100%

    Simple  Basic                     Healthy (Recovery Partition}                                                      350MB                 350MB       100%

    Simple  Basic                     Healthy (Recovery Partition)                                                      12.27GB               12.27GB    100%

     (E)         Simple  Basic      FAT32    Healthy (Primary Partition)                                                         14.90GB               14.70GB     99%

    OS(C)    Simple  Basic      NTFS      Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)             451.67GB                413.33 G8    92%

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-18T20:40:15+00:00

    On MBR systems Windows creates partition 1 (System Reserved) 100Mb for system files which the bios hands off to for loading the kernel which is contained in partition 2 (Boot/OS/assigned drive C:) The method you are talking about will work to push the system files to the boot partition (2) therefor leaving the option to delete partition 1 which the only ramification is that bitlocker would not function. I typically pre create partition 1 (NTFS) before running windows set up as to avoid the automatic creation of the 100Mb (System Reserved) partition. This is because I never use bitlocker and it makes 1 more primary partition creation available because of the 4 primary partition MBR limit. The issue here has to do with UEFI/GPT partitions that windows setup (8.1) automatically creates. Specifically partition 1 (System Recovery) at 300Mb is consumed to the extent that built-in windows image software volume shadow can not be created because there is not enough free space remaining on partition 1. Partition 1 can not be extended because it is boxed in by partition 2 (EFI System), partition 3 (GPT Reserved) and partition 4 (Boot/OS/Data). This can present a can of worms for Microsoft because they failed to allocate enough free space for partition 1 creation in Windows setup code. The proper way to fix post this install  would be to shrink partition 4, move it to the end of the new unallocated space, then slide partition 3 (GPT Reserved) down, then slide partition 2 (EFI System) down and the extend partition 1.

    Here is what is on my 256GB SSD drive after upgrading to Win 8.1:

    It appears that Partitions 4, 6 & 7 could be at issue, and not partition 1 as many have discussed in this thread.  What are Partitions 4, 6 & 7?

    FYI: My system is a Lenovo Ideapad Flex - pre-installed with Win 8.0 ... I upgraded to Win 8.1, screwed up my installation, reset to factory defaults, re-upgraded to Win 8.1 and then installed other software, hardware and drivers.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-17T20:52:44+00:00

    On MBR systems Windows creates partition 1 (System Reserved) 100Mb for system files which the bios hands off to for loading the kernel which is contained in partition 2 (Boot/OS/assigned drive C:) The method you are talking about will work to push the system files to the boot partition (2) therefor leaving the option to delete partition 1 which the only ramification is that bitlocker would not function. I typically pre create partition 1 (NTFS) before running windows set up as to avoid the automatic creation of the 100Mb (System Reserved) partition. This is because I never use bitlocker and it makes 1 more primary partition creation available because of the 4 primary partition MBR limit. The issue here has to do with UEFI/GPT partitions that windows setup (8.1) automatically creates. Specifically partition 1 (System Recovery) at 300Mb is consumed to the extent that built-in windows image software volume shadow can not be created because there is not enough free space remaining on partition 1. Partition 1 can not be extended because it is boxed in by partition 2 (EFI System), partition 3 (GPT Reserved) and partition 4 (Boot/OS/Data). This can present a can of worms for Microsoft because they failed to allocate enough free space for partition 1 creation in Windows setup code. The proper way to fix post this install  would be to shrink partition 4, move it to the end of the new unallocated space, then slide partition 3 (GPT Reserved) down, then slide partition 2 (EFI System) down and the extend partition 1.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2014-02-17T03:23:40+00:00

    Hello Friends of the Microsoft Community!

     

    Performing some tests, I got the following solution for this behavior:

     

    Access “Start Menu”, type CMD cick with right mouse button and then choose “Run as Administrator”

    BCDBoot C:\Windows /s C:    (To copy the Windows 8 startup files to partition C:\ )

    Be sure that the message “Startup files created successfuly” appears

     

    Diskpart

    List Disk (To identify the disk where Windows is installed).

    Select Disk 0  (Where 0 is the number of the disk where Windows is installed) – May change according to the result from List Disk.

    List Partition  (To list all partitions from the selected disk and show which one have Windows installed).

    Select Partition 2  (Where 2 is the number of the partition where Windows may be installed, commonly the second partition) – This number may change, that’s why it’s necessary to use the List partition first.

    Active

    • Restart Windows.

    How do I determine the number of the partition "where Windows may be installed"?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments