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
    2014-04-16T20:42:58+00:00

    What a mess. I think this is what setup does upgrading from 8.0 to 8.1 on a factory UEFI system. Partition 2 should be the one that has the files which starts the boot (C:\Windows) process but I says free space 100%? No other partition says "system" I hope you have already created the Factory recovery USB flash drive. Because the 12.68Gb is the one which houses the data and also has free space of 100% and is likely gone. You should get Partition Wizard and analyze these partitions it is far superior to Windows disk management. It will likely reveal an additional partition just before the (C:) partition which would be labeled "MSR Reserved" 128Mb Unallocated. Since I don't know where the files are located which boots the operating system I would hate to instruct you to do something that will leave you in an unbootable condition and no resources to get it working again.

    volume shadow creation during the imaging process.

    volumes 499mb or less require 50mb of free space.

    Volumes 500mb to 999mb require 320mb of free space

    volumes 1000mb (1gb) and larger require 1000mb (1gb) of free space.

     As you can see if partition 1 (1000Mb) is included in the image back up it will fail.

    Even if it is empty the formatting uses data space.

    You could delete all the 100% partitions and use Win 8 repair drive if necessary. Cleaner but risky.

    Or shrink the 1000Mb to 800Mb and then stretch the front of (partition wizard can do this) the 260Mb partition to be 460Mb then Image backup should succeed.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-16T16:16:20+00:00

    Your disk map pretty much looks like the one I get on my Dell, a lot of 100% free unnamed volumes. It makes no sense to me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-04-15T19:38:00+00:00

    Hi, I'm not very tech-savy, but I tried to read through the first 11 pages of this thread to see if they apply to my problem. I am getting the same error message (0x80780119) upon trying to do a system image backup. The difference between my problem and others is that as far as I can tell, I have plenty of space on all my partitions.

    Should I attempt to add space to my EFI System Partition? That was one of the solutions on this thread, but I feel like it doesn't apply to me since I have enough free space. Am I missing something obvious here?

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-04-13T08:36:03+00:00

    I believe you are working on a MBR/Simple Disk and not a UEFI/GPT Disk therefore the partition you are referring to is partition 1 "System Recovery" This partition contains the start up files as well as the recovery environment, you can use partition wizard to view the contents. Your best bet is to leave it alone and extend the C:\ towards the end of the drive. I you mess with it you would have to use removable recovery media to attempt repair to get the computer to boot. On MBR installations I force windows to install without creating the recovery partition so every gets installed onto a single partition. On UEFI systems I first create in setup/custom a 150MB partition 1 but don't format it. Then create the install partition then windows automatically creates partition 2 (Recovery- 300Mb)    partition 3    (EFI System - 450 Mb) partition 4 (MSR Reserved/unallocated - 128 Mb) partition 5 (Data/Windows)then the rest of the drive to partition 6 (Data/Storage) Then install to partition 5, windows will complain about order just continue install. when install is completed use partition wizard to delete partition 1 and extend the front of partition 2 to the beginning of the drive, it will now be 450 Mb and be partition 1 staying under the 499 Mb limit the windows image backup requires for the 50 Mb volume shadow creation.

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