Vista - Backup Fails "The shadow copy provider had an unexpected error..."

Yesterday I decided it was about time I used Vista backup (after all I
recommend it to all my customers) so I uninstalled NortonGhost 12 and did a
Complete PC Backup to my external hard drive and manually scheduled one to
occur weekly.

Soon after I scheduled daily file backups for 12 noon and did the first one.
When 12 noon came around the scheduled file backup failed, details as follows:

"The backup did not complete successfully. A shadow copy could not be
created for the following reason:
The shadow copy provider had an unexpected error while trying to process the
specified operation. (0x8004230F). "

I thought this may have occurred because I took the first backup a few hours
earlier so I ignored it. However, when 12 noon was reached today the backup
also failed with the same error.

Can anyone help?

"Dell Boy" <Dell Boy@xxxxxxam> wrote in message
news:C5D105D2-3940-4AE1-B89E-5C10DDDC3269@xxxxxxAre there any processes running at this time that may need exclusive access
to the hard drive?

I forgot that I had defrag set to run at 1AM and set backup to run at 1AM as
well. They basically "butted heads" and the backup would fail. Once they
were set to different times all worked just as advertised.

I've since switched to Acronis for backup, I like it better than the Vista
backup because it doesn't backup every single file of certain types on the
hard drive like Vistas does. (IE: Vista will backup jpg files in any and
all folders, not just the user folders.)
Vista Backup also ignores all EXE, script and batch files, even the ones in
your User folder(s) and since I write a lot of scripts, and have saved some
stand-alone programs, this practice makes the Vista Backup useless to me.

Mic

Thanks for your input Mic. There's nothing running that I'm aware of that
requires exclusive access to the hard drive.

I'm not to 100% about this but I think the error indicates that there is a
problem with creating a shadow copy of the files that are about to be backed
up.

Thanks for the info on the files that aren't backed up.

"Michael Palumbo" wrote:

"Dell Boy" <Dell Boy@xxxxxxam> wrote in message
news:40A46722-B493-4CA7-A4C5-CB044FA30FCF@xxxxxxThat's the same error I was receiving .

With defrag running, the shadow copy service wasn't able to "lock" the drive
to make the shadow copy it needed to create the backup. (just thought of
this, make sure the shadow copy service isn't disabled, and make sure all of
its dependencies are able to run as well.)

Mic

Hello,

Thank you for using newsgroup!

From your post, I have performed further research but I cannot find any
similar issues reported on Windows Vista. However, I found the same error
reported in Windows Server 2003 in the following article. Also you may try
the steps in the article to see if it can help.
940032: Various issues may occur on a Windows Server 2003-based computer
that is running the Volume Shadow Copy Service
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940032/en-us

Thanks & Regards,

Ken Zhao

Microsoft Online Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

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Hi Ken,

Thanks for your reply. I followed the steps in the article typing in the
commands at an elevated command prompt. All of the regsvr32 commands failed
with the following message;

"The module <dll_name> was loaded but the call to DllRegisterServer failed
with error code 0x80070005."

Note that <dll_name> varied according to the DLL specified in each step in
the article and that the error number was slightly different for a couple of
the DLLs (but most returned the error above).

I've searched the Knowledge Base but haven't been able to get any further
with this, can you help?


""Ken Zhao [MSFT]"" wrote:

Hello,

Thanks for your reply. Please try the following steps:

Step 1
============
Apply the latest version of VSS KB931312 as below:
931312: Windows Server 2003 may not start when the Volume Shadow Copy
Service is enabled
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931312

Step 2
============
I know you have register some VSS related DLLs. However, I still suggest
you try to re-register all VSS-related DLL files with a batch file
including the following lines (A reboot is required)

%systemdrive%
cd %SYSTEMROOT%\system32
net stop vss
net stop swprv
REGSVR32 /i SWPRV.DLL
regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\vss_ddu.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\ES.DLL
regsvr32 /I %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\EVENTCLS.DLL
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\vssui.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\wbem\vsswmi.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\Cluster\vsstask.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\Cluster\vsstskex.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\vss_ps.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\vssui.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\ole32.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\msxml.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\msxml2.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\msxml3.dll
regsvr32 %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\msxml4.dll
%SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\Vssvc.exe /Register
Net Start vss
Net Start swprv

Note:
If "Regsvr32 eventcls.dll" doesn't run in C:\WINDOWS\system32, Ntbackup may
fail.

Hope that helps!

Thanks & Regards,

Ken Zhao

Microsoft Online Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security <http://www.microsoft.com/security>
====================================================
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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
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Hi Ken,

Thanks for your last posting on 20/11 PST.

After my last posting on 18/11 I noticed that when the backup failed both
the Microsoft Shadow Copy Software Provider service and the Volume Shadow
Copy service were both set to Manual and were in the Stop state when the
backup failed. I started both services and changed them to Automatic and the
backups ran successfully on 19/11 and 20/11.

The backup failed again today (21/11) and I've noticed that both of the
above services are again in the Stop state. I restarted them but the backup
still failed.

I downloaded the Windows 2003 Server KB931312 patch you linked to in your
last post and tried to install it. It failed with a "Not enough storage"
error.

I also created a batch file as you suggested and ran it. The majority of the
DLLs failed to register, most with this error....

"The module "C:\Windows\system32\vss_ddu.dll" failed to load.
Make sure the binary is stored at the specified path or debug it to check
for problems with the binary or dependent .DLL files.
The specified modules could not be found."

(Note: I couldn't find this DLL on my Vista Ultimate system anywhere)

.... and a couple with the error that I gave in my previous post.

However, a small number of DLLs did register so I rebooted. When my machine
came up the Volume Shadow Copy service was set to Automatic and had Started
but the Microsoft Shadow Copy Software Provider service was Manual and
Stopped (I'm not sure if this is normal for these services?). I set the
Microsoft Shadow Copy Software Provider service to Automatic and started it
and the backup ran fine.

I'll post again if it fails again.

Many thanks,
Malcolm

""Ken Zhao [MSFT]"" wrote:

Ok no problem. If any updates, please feel free to let us know.

Thanks & Regards,

Ken Zhao

Microsoft Online Support
Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security <http://www.microsoft.com/security>
====================================================
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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
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Ken, backup failed again yesterday and the Microsoft Shadow Copy Software
Provider service and the Volume Shadow Copy service were both stopped.

Looks to me as if something is messing about with these services but this is
my main machine and I really don't have time to start uninstalling apps and
seeing if it improves things. Any ideas on how I could track down what's
interfering?


""Ken Zhao [MSFT]"" wrote: