Windows 10: System Image creation fails with error

Hello. I recently bought an external 2TB hard disk for storage and backup purposes. I started a system image creation using the default utility in case something goes wrong, however it failed with the error 0x80780119, claiming that I don't have enough space on the backup destination which is absolutely wrong, I have 1.6 TB free or on the included volumes for shadow copy creation.





Now, I reinstalled my copy of Windows 10 recently due to a system failure, but in MBR mode, which creates the usual System Reserved and Recovery partitions, apart from the main C: volume. When I opened Disk Management to check the sizes of those two volumes, I found out that System Reserved is only 50 MB in size, with 20 MB free, while the bare minimum for volumes smaller than 500MB in size is 50MB. I don't know how this happened, as the partitions were created automatically during the reinstallation because the old partition map was corrupted.


Is the System Reserved partition the culprit? If so, can anything be done to "force" a system image to be created? I'd rather stick with the default utility, to be honest, but if it ultimately does not work, I'm open to suggestions for 3rd party utilities.

:)

 

Attempt to create a system image fails

I am new to Windows 10. I just tried, for the first time, to use the legacy "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" to create a system image on an external hard drive. The creation failed with an error:

The backup failed. A Volume Shadow Copy Service operation failed. Please check "VSS" and "SPP" application event logs for more information (0x807800A1). Additional information: The writer experienced a transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error may not reoccur (0x800423F3).
As suggested, I retried, but the operation failed again.

I used the Event viewer to check the SPP and VSS events:

SPP: Writer ASR Writer experienced some error during snapshot creation.

VSS: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: An invalid XML document was returned from writer {89374701-e2cf-4855-bd6e-6992c14fc30f}.

VSS: Fail to parse XML file. Reason An invalid character was found in text content.
There was an old (Windows 7) system image on the hard drive. In case Windows 10 was having trouble reading it, I deleted it. But I the operation still failed.

 

System Image Creation Failed

System Image is a Windows 10 backup program. It can be accessed through Win 7 backup but it is not a win 7 program. (Don't use win 7 backup for backups. It is just for restoring win 7 backups. Use File History for regular backups in win 10.) You must have
an external or second internal drive to store the image, not disks or thumb drives or a partition on the boot drive. What is Local Disk D? It is not listed in the drive list. Local Drive E is listed and seems to be available if you change the backup location
to E. Check Disk Management to see what you have. You can assign new letters and or names to the external backup drive such as Drive R or S etc. Use letters towards the end of the alphabet.

Remember that a system image is diff from regular backups. It is all or nothing. Restoring an image is for complete reinstallation of everything. The hard drive will be overwritten with the image--such as when you install a new hard drive. You cannot restore
individual files. It is for disaster recovery and does not get updated automatically. You should make a new image when there is a big change such as after a big upgrade of windows.

In a computer with a ssd and a data hard drive, the data drive should not be used for backups. It should be part of the system image. You need to access the image on an external drive to restore the image if the boot or data drives fail. A Recovery disk
will be your boot disk so be sure to make one on a dvd or thumb drive. It has to be on bootable media.

To get to system image backup, open File History and use the link in the lower left corner.

 

System Image Problem

[table][tr][td]Version[/td] [td]Date[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]5.05[/td] [td]8/03/2009[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]5.08[/td] [td]7/21/2009[/td] [/tr] [/table]
Which one is newer?
Only 5.05 was offered on HP for the machine I linked.
The description danced around some of the anomalies we're seen with drives.

Since only 5.05 was offered, I questioned 5.08
Guess we know the answer now - 5.05 failed to flash.
We could spend time trying to figure that out, but IMO it's better on the back burner for now

I think the next step is to try the Macrium sleight of hand to get the System Image restored.
I'd like to get the System Image up and running to do the follwoing

• Copy Nick's data to a folder off of the restored System Image C: drive
  
  
• run a Belarc Advisor audit to collect license keys for Nick's software
  
  
• there might be other data collection that Nick can do in preparation for the final step

The final step is a clean install, install up-to-date MS and 3rd party software, and restore the copied personal data.

Nick was having difficulty locating the outlook files in the System Image - so getting it back running live is the best I can think of.

Thoughts, suggestions, and objections are always welcome and considered