Windows 10: Cannot backup to Macrium Reflect Free

Hi, thanks, good advice.

 

I bet your system disk is to full which means that there is not enough free space for VSS to do its work. You could delete some older restore points and see if that helps. Better consider upgrading to a larger disk is space is low.

 

I thought of that too.
However when I looked back at my Macrium log from when I had that exact disk space problem last month, the error message was different to the one in the OP's first post. In my case I had an error message which mentioned 'Insufficient Storage'. So my current guess is it's a different problem.

That said, it would be worth checking the disk space on the drive - note that it's the drive being backed up FROM which is the potential issue here, not the drive which will hold the backup.

 

Shadow copies take place on the volume on which the backup is being taken. In other words the disk being backed up.

 

Railtech, I still have 88GB spare space on my C: drive, should be enough.

Dalchina, I ran Tweaking.com repair twice and sad to say the faults still exist, namely Macrium crashed within a few seconds of starting an image backup. And the registry anomaly still exists, still no visible values under Providers. System Restore still crashes when I try to open and configure it. So for my next trick, I mean step I will swot up on the in-place repair upgrade install.

I had read the long thread mentioned but the only conclusion I could see was that it was the upgrade install wot fixed it. I had been hoping to have been able to avoid doing that but in the absence of other options I expect that is what I will do.
I have attached my chkdsk results, looks OK to me.

 

An in-place upgrade is pretty reliable- just make sure you do the image backup beforehand using a Macrium boot disk as a precaution. And having the Win10 boot medium to hand can be useful- so that's what I prefer to use (DVD-RW).

 

88GB sounds like a lot but might not be. How big is an image backup when completed? Go ahead with the in-place upgrade, it won't hurt but if you have a system writer that is bad you could fix it SFC /SCANNOW.

You could run vssadmin list writers to see what status all installed writers are on your machine. Any showing as having errors?

 

Bertie11 said in #1

 

Exactly my point, nothing found so what is the magic in an in-place upgrade then? Better to troubleshoot VSS first and see if any errors show. Most of the time VSS issues can be fixed by a Restart of the machine. In Windows 10 I suggest a hard shutdown (admin command prompt shutdown /s) followed by cold start power on.

 

1. That fixed it in that very long thread I quoted where major effort was made, otherwise unsuccessfully. = Evidence QED.
2. An in-place upgrade repair is not the same thing as SFC /Scannow.

That said, of course if there is a specific fix that solves this, so much the better.
We've tried one- any more please?

Otherwise., sorry, you've missed the point.

 

The user could try this:

In Windows 10 Search box type Services and look for a gear icon with a Desktop app reference.


Click on that entry to open the Services app.


Scroll through the list and locate the following services. It will be necessary to restart each one individually.


COM+ Event System

COM+ System Application

Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider

Volume Shadow Copy


To restart the COM+ Event System left mouse click on the entry in the Services window to select it then, right click on that entry and select Restart.


To restart the remaining services is a bit different as these services should all be set to start manually. The procedure here is to proceed as described above except for these services you will select Start from the right click menu then after the service starts right click again and select Stop.



If you you encounter any of the last 3 services that are already running or are paused Stop the service first, then start the service and after it has started again then stop that service again.


This should fix most VSS writer errors and solve 90%+ of such issues where VSS writers are at issue.

 

An image is around 50GB. When I 'run vssadmin list a box opens then disappears immediately, I assume because there aren't any providers available on my system.

 

That indicates that the Volume Shadow copy Service is in a hung state and unable to run this the error. Restart the services outlined in my post number 25 and see if that solves the issue.

 

I've probably done that at least a dozen times. In other threads the advice is to set them to automatic but what ever I do makes no difference.

 

I would suggest you open an elevated command prompt and type this in the prompt before pressing enter.
Code: vssadmin list writers[/quote] Then you'd be able to see the results.

You might also try
Code: vssadmin list shadowstorage vssadmin list shadows vssadmin list providers[/quote] But I'm not sure whether or not they'd be helpful