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
    2014-04-23T12:51:43+00:00

    Hi,

    the error is well known by Microsoft, there was (is) a fix.

    But it´s not working.

    Even the latest ISO Images for Windows 2012 R2 with Update 1 seem to have These Errors.

    The Recovery Partition that is created during Installation is way to small now.

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2930294/en-us

    I opened a case at Microsoft today ...

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-20T22:05:32+00:00

    The OP, Paulo did not have the additional Recovery Partition installed during an 8.1 update.  And as far as I can tell, Jobongo did not either.  That procedure was being done specifically to increase the size of the original Recovery partition because there was no other option.

    Anyone reading this thread, if you have the additional small (350 MB) Recovery Partition behind the OS partition, there is no reason to mess with any of the partitions in front of the OS partition.........

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-04-20T20:25:21+00:00

    So – finally the MSR partition fell in place. The rest, as well as the beginning (re-sizing C-drive), was a piece of cake thanks to Jobongo’s good guidelines.

    However, the MSR partition was quite a puzzle due to problems in both Partition Wizard and in Diskpart.

    To begin with the last one, Diskpart has a problem if you use the offset parameter together with MSR – so don’t. Instead create a dummy partition (or more if needed) to leave only 128MB contiguous space where you want to place MSR, and then create MSR with size=128. After MSR is in place delete the dummy partition(s) again.

    Partition Wizard on the other hand is a bit more strange. On October 20, 2013 Jobongo gave the first indications of a problem when he described how he had to provide 101MB free space to copy a 100MB partition (the EFI partition). I faced a similar problem with one of the dummy partitions and a detailed mapping of usage of the physical sectors showed a peculiar problem related to how Partition Wizard in some situations make its size calculations. To put it short, what you get out of it does not always depend of what you put into it, but more how you put it into it. The manipulation of “Unallocated space before – size –  Unallocated space after” can (depending on how you shuffle around with the three specifications) change how close you finally can get to the following partition. In one of my tries I had “Size=128MB” and “Unallocated space after=0”, but after accept, the size had decreased by four sectors (2048 bytes) now placed as unallocated after the partition, and the size now 127.99.…MB. Trying once more, but in a different order, gave the correct result. All I can say is don’t give up if you face this problem – just try another way around. Luckily, in most situations, you probably will never see this problem - maybe it is somehow related to disk type/size – who knows.

    Anyway, mission accomplished so thanks to all who have contributed to this remedy of Microsoft’s shortcomings, no one mentioned, no one forgotten – well, still I would like to give Jobongo a special THANKS (if he should ever read this).

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-04-20T05:29:07+00:00

    When you use Diskpart to create a partition, it puts it in unallocated space.  If you had deleted the MSR partition, using the Diskpart command, after selecting the drive would have put it back in that unallocated space.

    create partition msr

    If you needed to size it, use create par msr size=128.

    It should be noted, if you have the 350 MB partition, you system may work as normal.  But some OEMs have data in the original Recovery partition which even fill up that size.  Some of the confusion may be the original 8.1 updates did not seem to add the 350 MB partition, so the original one had to be increased in size.  It seems later 8.1 updates started adding the 350 MB partition to adjust for this problem

    I thought someone stated, in the later updates, the size of the added Recovery partition was increased beyond 350 MB, but I have no way to check.

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