Backup and Restore fails when volumes are re-ordered or extended

I decided to upgrade from my 250GB SSD to a 500GB one due to running low on space. I'm using Acronis True Image 2017 to do this. I'm using Acronis "Recovery" with drive signature (rather than disk cloning directly). The normal drive layout on the original SSD (and backup image) is like this:



And once the image has been recovered to the new drive, it's like this:



The issue I'm having is that whenever I extend C: to use the rest of the unallocated space, or even just having the unallocated space between C: and the 450MB Recovery partition - backup and restore fails. The error codes are different for each case.

With the unallocated partition moved to the left of the 450MB recovery, and then C: extended to use the unallocated space - Backup spits out the error: Windows Backup encountered an internal error. Please review your settings and retry the operation. Details: Incorrect function. Error code: 0x81000001.

Even with the unallocated space being left between C: and the 450MB recovery but not being utilised, it fails with the error: Windows Backup failed while trying to read from the shadow copy on one of the volumes being backed up. Please check in the event logs for any relevant errors. Error code: 0x81000037.

What's even more interesting is that when using "AEOMI Partition Assistant" to move the unallocated space back to the end of the drive - it slightly increases the recovery partition to 454MB. But despite this - the backup then succeeds. I expected it to fail due it not recognising the recovery as a 450MB partition.

After trawling through google for hours on the first error code I came across a couple interesting pages which stated that Backup has some sort of 150GB (roughly) file size limit. Any single file beyond this size, and backup and restore fails. Someone suggested that perhaps Backup is seeing the additional 227GB of free space as a "file" and hence the error code?

In both cases the backup fails right at the end (pretty much gets to 99%). Anyone got any ideas? I'd like to carry on using it if possible.

Hi Ed,

Moving the partitions around isn't the issue, or extending the C:. The issue is that when the unallocated space is used to extend the C: volume, or even when it's just placed between the C: and Recovery partition ("ahead/left of it") - Win backup fails. I want to know why, and what the solution to that is.

Cheers

EdTittel said:

OK, then: I completely missed the boat on that one. So sorry. I have no clue why moving partition boundaries, or moving partitions around would cause backup (I assume you mean the utility known in Win10 as "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)," yes?) to quit working. I've never encountered that problem. Here's an article that talks about how keeping earlier backups around can mess with current backups, and more: Fix: System Backup Failed on Windows 10.
HTH,
--Ed--

Thanks for getting back to me :) Yes it's Backup and Restore (Win 7) in Win 10 Pro x64.

So I ran a couple more experiments last night. I moved the unallocated partition to between C: and 450MB reserved, this time using MiniTool's app instead of AEOMI's, and creating a system image worked. (I've no idea why this failed last time around, other than perhaps using a different tool didn't do it "properly"). This gave me hope so...

The next experiment was to extend the partition (I used MiniTool for this again) to use the full space and see what happens. I rebooted, ran the Create system image but unfortunately it failed, with the following errors:



Windows Backup encountered an error when writing data to the backup target. (0x80780166)

Incorrect function. (0x80070001)

I've got a feeling that Backup just isn't working with the previous backups that already exist - rather than it having a problem with the partition being extended. So my next experiment is to create a System Image to a different/fresh location where there are no prior backups and see if it succeeds. I will report my findings.

EdTittel said:

Very interesting. I hope your experiments lead to a successful conclusion. Sorry for your trouble.
--Ed--

My second backup hard drive (a backup for the backup) arrives tomorrow, so I can do some testing then.

dalchina said:

Windows Backup and Restore is rather easily confused, apparently. People here tend to regard it as not being robust, and prefer maintained, supported, updated 3rd party programs which are more robust and feature-rich.

If you scan the forum for threads on this feature, you will be lucky if you find one that's been resolved.

It's great you're using disk imaging; too many don't to their cost. Best stick to a 3rd party tool.

Yeah, I'm beginning to learn about it's quirks. It seems to be pretty fickle. And disk imaging is a life-saver - can save days/weeks of re-config if an OS ever needs reinstalling.

It occurred to me that the whole time I've been running these experiments - every time I've re-imaged my OS to the new drive - I've been using an Acronis image I took (from the bootable USB) - not the Windows Backup image!

So for the time being, I've decided to use Acronis Backup to image my SSD, and continuing to use Win Backup & Restore for my files (it works fine with files, it's just been falling over on imaging since the SSD upgrade).

I do still plan on trying Win Backup to image to a fresh location - but purely for science at this point. I think I may eventually move over to Acronis for my file backups too - it's far more flexible (options to create a copy of the backup to another drive/location for some extra automated backup).