Volume shadow copy error after moving to MSATA SSD on R7-572

A while back I cloned the default 1TB SATA drive on an MSATA SSD plugged into the MSATA slot of the device.

At the time I had been unable to design the MSATA as the boot drive while the original (also bootable drive) was in the system as it did not appear in the BIOS boot list.

http://community.acer.com/t5/S-and-R-Series-Laptops/cloned-SSD-in-Boot-manager-but-not-Boot-priority-list/td-p/413060

As I did not need the 1TB, I just removed it and have been using the system fine with just the MSATA SSD.

Today I tried to make a Windows System Image backup, and I ran a Volume shadow copy error (below)

Volume shadow copy service operation failed.... (0x807800A1)

The writer experienced a transient error ...(0x800423F3)

I check all the main remedy online making sure all the VOlume shadow copy servies are running, but without sucess. I have the feeling that the fact I am on the MSATA SSD which was not visible in the BIOS boot list may be related to the backup crashing.

Is anyone running the R7-572 on the MSATA port able to do a system image backup?

Thanks for your input

Accepted answers

scrambler

It took me a while, but I finally figured out what was preventing the creation of the system image.

Looking in the event viewer, there were a lot of errors, the first one a CAPI2 error with event 513, then there was a VSS error with the event ID 8228 mentioning invalid character in an XML file.

Error said:
Fail to parse XML file.
Reason An invalid character was found in text content.
Line 0x000003c0
Position 0x000009c8, The file below is corrupt.
Errorcode 0xc00ce508
Problem text <WRITER_COMPONENTS xmlns="x-schema:#VssComponentMetadata" instanceId="f96e4a86-3bfc-4ab7-a4d6-5cf3a3e429a5" writerId="be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4" backupSchema="0"><COMPONENT logicalPath="ASR" componentName="ASR" componentType="filegroup"><BACKUP_METADATA

Searching through dozens of threads and trying a number of fixes without luck, I finally found one that mentioned their issue came from bad characters in some of the partition names after cloning with EaseUs Todo Backups.

As this is the tool I used to clone my drive onto an SSD, I decide to check it out.

The thread mentioned using GPT fdisk utility found on sourceforge, so I downloaded the tool.

You simply run the executable in Administrator mode. Finding how to use it was a bit hard, but basically the commands below did the job

0: -activated the disk 0 which is my disk.

i -allows you to see the information on each partition

It will ask for the number. This allows you to see the names. Some of my partitions had very strange names some had none, one had a quote.

I checked what names where used on another laptop, and decided to name mine as follow (I believe you can use any name)

first 600MB partion: Basic data partition

Second 300MB partion: EFI system partition

thrid 128MB partion: Microsoft reserved partition

fourth 205GB partion: Basic data partition

fifth 17GB partion: Recovery partition

To change the partition name use the command

c -will ask for the partition number, then the name

Then save with

w -writes the revisions and exits

I rebooted, tried the system image backup, and no problem this time.

I wasted a full day on this, so hopefully it can help someone else in the future Smiley Happy

All comments

philetus

Did you shrink the System partition enough that all partitions were smaller than the SSD?

The reason I do this is if you let the clone tool decide and it shrinks the Recovery partition enough, it will not work.

I don't know if this is related, but I have never had a problem and I always test Recovery after I get through cloning the drive so I know it works. Do you still have the 1TB drive intact?

scrambler

I dont remember the original drive, but the current cloned drive has 4 partitions.

In disk manager they show up in order as
Simple Basic Healthy recovery partition 600MB, free 600MB
simple basic Healthy EFI system partition 300 MB free 300MB
Acer C: Simple Basic Boot, Page file, crash dump, Primary partition 205GB free 173GB
Simple basic Healthy Recovery Partition 17.07GB free 17.07 GB

So only one has a drive letter.

When doing the system image it says it will backup the EFI partition and the C: partition

I suspect the last recovery partion (17GB) was the Acer recovery one, and i dont care about it so will eventually delete that to recover the space.

I am not sure what the first one (600MB) is, wonder if the boot is on there, and that because it is not being backed up by the system image it prevents it to work

philetus

Boot is in the EFI partition.

If you haven't made a Recovery drive and If you don't care about being able to recover the laptop to the way it was when you first started it, With drivers, apps, and programs, just save all your personal things, format and do a clean install of what O/S you have.

scrambler

Well I dont care about restoring the Laptop to the initial Acer Windows 8 config with no programs, but I do care about restoring it to its current Windows 10 with all my programs installed Smiley Happy

So no desire to redo all that from a clean install. If I cant make the windows system image backup work, I can always use 3rd party programs like EaseUs Todo-Backup which I used to clone the drive.

Was just wondering if that issue was another pointer to a slight mis configuration of the cloned drive.

scrambler

It took me a while, but I finally figured out what was preventing the creation of the system image.

Looking in the event viewer, there were a lot of errors, the first one a CAPI2 error with event 513, then there was a VSS error with the event ID 8228 mentioning invalid character in an XML file.

Error said:
Fail to parse XML file.
Reason An invalid character was found in text content.
Line 0x000003c0
Position 0x000009c8, The file below is corrupt.
Errorcode 0xc00ce508
Problem text <WRITER_COMPONENTS xmlns="x-schema:#VssComponentMetadata" instanceId="f96e4a86-3bfc-4ab7-a4d6-5cf3a3e429a5" writerId="be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4" backupSchema="0"><COMPONENT logicalPath="ASR" componentName="ASR" componentType="filegroup"><BACKUP_METADATA

Searching through dozens of threads and trying a number of fixes without luck, I finally found one that mentioned their issue came from bad characters in some of the partition names after cloning with EaseUs Todo Backups.

As this is the tool I used to clone my drive onto an SSD, I decide to check it out.

The thread mentioned using GPT fdisk utility found on sourceforge, so I downloaded the tool.

You simply run the executable in Administrator mode. Finding how to use it was a bit hard, but basically the commands below did the job

0: -activated the disk 0 which is my disk.

i -allows you to see the information on each partition

It will ask for the number. This allows you to see the names. Some of my partitions had very strange names some had none, one had a quote.

I checked what names where used on another laptop, and decided to name mine as follow (I believe you can use any name)

first 600MB partion: Basic data partition

Second 300MB partion: EFI system partition

thrid 128MB partion: Microsoft reserved partition

fourth 205GB partion: Basic data partition

fifth 17GB partion: Recovery partition

To change the partition name use the command

c -will ask for the partition number, then the name

Then save with

w -writes the revisions and exits

I rebooted, tried the system image backup, and no problem this time.

I wasted a full day on this, so hopefully it can help someone else in the future Smiley Happy

philetus

I'm impressed.

IronFly

nice find!

DrTomBlinn

That is an EXCELLENT analysis and solution. I was seeing a similar problem on our new Dell 5767 after migrating the system disk to a Samsung EVO 500GB SSD using the EaseUS Todo backup "free" clone software. It turned out that partition 1 had a totally garbage label. This was causing Retrospect backups to fail when they tried to invoke the ASR writer to save the system state. GPT fdisk worked flawlessly, especially since you had honed in on the specific commands that were needed to apply valid labels to all of the disk partitions.

I have no idea why Microsoft's DISKPART tool is apparently unable to either display or fix partition labels. Since having valid labels on both the disk volumes AND ON THE PARTITIONS is critical for system stability, you would think the supported tools would be able to check them and fix them as needed. They don't.

It's worrisome that the EaseUS cloning tools generate garbage partition labels, especially since it can break critical parts of the Windows and third-party backup solutions. I can't imagine they do it to force people to use their software to be able to do "bare metal" system recovery.

DrTom

oceanscrashing

Excellent, thanks! After much searching, I came across your post. Sure enough, I had used EaseUS also. I didn't have any strange characters in the GPT partition names, but the first partition was named while the second one wasn't. I used gparted live to rename the partitions, and VSS started working right away.

urrutia

+1 Thank you @scrambler.
Used EaseUS for mechanical to SSD cloning. My backups were failing to start with VSS errors in the event log (8228). Booted up GParted Live, the names (not labels) for the partitions were blank. Added some meaningful names, booted back to Windows 10, backups started without error.

GGOOS

Hello Scrambler, I know it's an old story but observe the same issue with VSS on a windows 10 pc. Iinstalled Gdisk to looup the GPTnames of the partitions and indeed most are empty while the RE Recovery partitions has a some strange characters (Chinese). I also made an attempt to change and write which seems to work but in the end the new name was not accepted after a reboot. Any Idea why windows refuses to make the GPT-name change?

scrambler

Are you saying that using GPT Fdisk utility found on sourceforge, you can change the partition name but after you save them they don't stick?

If so, make sure you try simple names without any special characters.
You may want to detail the exact process and names you used to change the name and save them, and precise what you mean by "new name was not accepted after a reboot"

MaximillianC

scrambler said:

It took me a while, but I finally figured out what was preventing the creation of the system image.

Looking in the event viewer, there were a lot of errors, the first one a CAPI2 error with event 513, then there was a VSS error with the event ID 8228 mentioning invalid character in an XML file.
Error said:
Fail to parse XML file.
Reason An invalid character was found in text content.
Line 0x000003c0
Position 0x000009c8, The file below is corrupt.
Errorcode 0xc00ce508
Problem text <WRITER_COMPONENTS xmlns="x-schema:#VssComponentMetadata" instanceId="f96e4a86-3bfc-4ab7-a4d6-5cf3a3e429a5" writerId="be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4" backupSchema="0"><COMPONENT logicalPath="ASR" componentName="ASR" componentType="filegroup"><BACKUP_METADATA

Searching through dozens of threads and trying a number of fixes without luck, I finally found one that mentioned their issue came from bad characters in some of the partition names after cloning with EaseUs Todo Backups.

As this is the tool I used to clone my drive onto an SSD, I decide to check it out.

The thread mentioned using GPT fdisk utility found on sourceforge, so I downloaded the tool.
You simply run the executable in Administrator mode. Finding how to use it was a bit hard, but basically the commands below did the job

0:        -activated the disk 0 which is my disk.
i           -allows you to see the information on each partition

It will ask for the number. This allows you to see the names. Some of my partitions had very strange names some had none, one had a quote.
I checked what names where used on another laptop, and decided to name mine as follow (I believe you can use any name)

first 600MB partion:         Basic data partition
Second 300MB partion:   EFI system partition
thrid 128MB partion:       Microsoft reserved partition
fourth 205GB partion:      Basic data partition
fifth 17GB partion:            Recovery partition

To change the partition name use the command
c          -will ask for the partition number, then the name

Then save with
w         -writes the revisions and exits

I rebooted, tried the system image backup, and no problem this time.
I wasted a full day on this, so hopefully it can help someone else in the future

I do not currently use an Acer computer, but I just wanted to thank you for posting this, as you've saved me some time and frustration, which apparently was also caused by my use of the EaseUS partition/disk products (Disk Copy 3.8, and/or Partition Master 16.0) to manipulate/clone drives and partitions recently. I'm wondering if you contacted EaseUS support to report this issue, because it hasn't been fixed yet, apparently 4+ years later (based on the date of your solution above). I am definitely reporting it to them now. In my case, I used the EaseUS tools to clone/move my C: drive from a SATA SSD RAID1 to my new NVMe SSD RAID1, and afterwards, my Veeam Agent for Windows would no longer function, resulting in my system backups failing. I am about to try GParted to see if it'll help me rename my partition, similar to how you used GPT fdisk. I'd use GPT fdisk, but I'm not familiar with it, and am a little nervous using some unfamiliar tool on my system that doesn't seem to have much public adoption, especially since I can't take backups right now. Thanks again for sharing the solution to this strange problem.

Regards,

Maximillian C.

Jai123

Bingo - thanks so much - had Chinese characters and blank and up arrow on partitions. All renamed and backup working again- you're a star!

Just a note - I missed the : (colon) when entering 0 (zero) for my drive in case that helps others.