Windows 10: Cannot clone or image drives, or create restore points Volsnap and VSS errors

Hello all, after days of doing research and what seems like countless attempts to fix I'm at a complete loss. I wanted to update my hard drive from a SATA ssd to a M.2 so I have both drives installed booting to the SATA drive. I initially tried to use Macrium Reflect to Clone the SSD onto the M.2 and got a failure. Doing the research I saw that Reflect uses VSS to run so I restarted the computer to run a system restore. That ran for about 30 minutes with no visible progress then failed.I have a whole slew of error codes depending on which software I'm attempting to use but the ones that co

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VSS / System Restore Points not working

I tried to run Casper 10 Backup yesterday and it returned errors about VSS timeouts. Since then, I have been trying everything I can think of to get it working, but nothing has worked. Also, in the process, I discovered that although system protection is switched on for my C drive, if I try to create a restore point, the create dialogue just stays on screen but nothing else happens (I eventually have to use Task Manager to shut it down). Also, VSS says that it is running in the services list, as are the two other services it depends on. This is what I have tried so far:-

1. Running repairs using the tweaking.com repair tool.
2. Using DISM.
3. Tried a different disc image backup program (Active Disk Image) - that also fails.
4. Tried running a backup in safe mode - that also fails.
5. Tried running with a clean boot - that also fails.
6. Tried switching off and on system protection - restore point still fails to create.
7. Tried turning off my (Webroot) antivirus - backup still fails, as does restore point creation.

I don't know whether this is just a coincidence or not, but I only noticed these problems after trying the new Acronis True Image 2017 program (but that was backing up to the cloud, so maybe that's why that didn't throw up any errors). I don't know what else to try.

 

Volsnap Error 25 and 36 deleted restore points

Twice now my computer has deleted restore points, once with a Volsnap error 36 last month and once with a Volsnap error 25 today.

I wouldn't say this is a problem so far since this has only happened twice, but I would say it is at least concerning.

Does anyone know the cause of these problems and how to fix them? It is already set to take up 2% (11.67 GB).

 

volsnap event id 95

What triggers volsnap event id 95?

Any way to manage volsnap behavior?

Both restore points and my backup software create shadow copies. Looks like windows is monitoring the space used by shadow copies and deleting all but the newest copy with volsnap ID 95. The backup shadow copy is temporary and deleted as the backup completes
leaving me without my restore points. Any suggestions?

Steve