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
    2013-10-31T21:44:33+00:00

    I now have a Win 8.1 system image on my external drive**. I have not tried restoring from it**. But I am happy enough for now for my main machine.

    This could potentially be an issue for you, as you can see, Mark Schneider could also backup BUT could not restore, 3rd party backup is a good idea Carousel.

    Good luck.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-31T21:31:48+00:00

    I have the same Acer partition structure that Mark Schneider has. I took 650MB of unused space off the main drive (had many many GBs to spare) and added them to the later 350MB recovery partition, which had only 7MB free. Just felt good giving it a whole gig. I had to use the recovery partition wizard to do this; Microsoft's tool would not, as folks advised, work. I now have a Win 8.1 system image on my external drive. I have not tried restoring from it. But I am happy enough for now for my main machine.

    My next question was whether to carry out this process for my children's machines. Or to wait for Microsoft to put out a fix. I decided to proceed with processing my children's machines.

    Looks like I also need to consider a 3rd party backup programme. I had used the Win 7 tool with Win 8.0. But this seems to be gone with Win 8.1. And the File History process does not seem to back up my children's Minecraft worlds (from under user app data roaming, not from main libraries).

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-31T16:09:52+00:00

    I have done that some time ago during the Preview, and had to do it again for the updates. 

    It may be noted that folks who use the Setup option from the .iso (if you can get one) will have the new 350 MB recovery partition created and set up, which does solve the Imaging problem.  The same thing the one poster was referring to as the 8.1.1 option.  And the partition will be created behind the OS partition and the original Recovery partition abandoned.

    But I was thinking about the suggestion to replace the Winre.wim file with a smaller one and realized the one on Clean Installs (no prior OS) had probably been modified also during the install... so maybe not possible.

    The problem seems to occur because the file is being modified and including files from the previous install, probably drivers, to the update. 

    Thanks, and good luck with it working for you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-10-31T15:54:53+00:00

    I have to wonder if Microsoft has considered giving us an update that would replace the augmented Winre.wim file in the Recovery partition with the original one.  That would solve the problems and you would have a file not modified during the update just as you would with a clean install.

    Since Microsoft was made aware of this problem during the Pre-release of 8.1, I am disappointed they have not amended the 8.1 clean installs to increase the size of the Recovery partitions.   Another option might have been to not allow the Winre.wim file to be augmented during the update, so it would not be around 50 MBs larger.

    Hi Saltgrass, could not agree more and hope Microsoft do help us out, Users have managed to "fix" this by extending system partition as you can see but I hope this does not come back to bite me in the *** at a later stage, I am going to backup my image (8.1)on Sunday night as I normally do then try another RESTORE on Sunday also, I hope the restore will again be successful!?

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