11-03-2010 06:37 AM
On a particular server in my environment I have somehow lost the ability to back up System State or Shadow Copy. I have been backing this up for several years now with no prior problems. About a week ago I got this error on the backup job backing up this server:
Final error: 0x8000ffff - Catastrophic failure
Backup - AOFO: Initialization failure on: "Shadow?Copy?Components". Advanced Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).
V-79-10000-11253 - Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) snapshot provider returned the error: "Catastrophic failure". To make sure that the VSS is not disabled and can be started, click Control Panel, and then click Administrative Tools. Open the Services, and start Volume Shadow Copy. Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.
- AOFO: Initialization failure on: "System?State". Advanced Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).
V-79-10000-11253 - Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) snapshot provider returned the error: "Catastrophic failure". To make sure that the VSS is not disabled and can be started, click Control Panel, and then click Administrative Tools. Open the Services, and start Volume Shadow Copy. Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.
Upon looking into this further is when I noticed that I could not even browse the System State or Shadow Copy sections of that server and I got the following error:
An error was encountered while attempting to browse the contents of System State.
A failure occurred initializing the Volume Snapshot Service.
I figured a reboot would fix the problem but it hasn't. This is a Windows Server 2003 box running a few different applications and databases and I am running Backup Exec 2010. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
11-03-2010 07:13 AM
Hi there,
I'd start by uninstalling the RAWS agent on that server, and then reinstalling it. After doing this, see if you can browse the System State.
It is possible that the agent is corrupted.
Laters!
11-03-2010 08:38 PM
Install the VSS Rollup fix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940349 on the problem server, reboot and try the backup again.
11-05-2010 07:52 AM
Thanks for the help thus far. I followed both of your suggestions but I am still getting the same error. To my knowledge nothing changed on the problem server prior to the beginning of the error. Any other ideas would be appreciated!