SSR 2013 Trial - VSS_E_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE error

[KenIsaacson]

Just downloaded SSR 2013 trial. (I was a Ghost 15 user, but upgraded to Windows 8 so can no longer use Ghost.)

On my first attempt to do a backup of my drive, I got a VSS_E_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE error. A bit of online research made me think I had to go to System Properties|System Protection and increase the amount of disk space available for system protection, which I did. I increased it from about 9GB to about 100GB.

That did not help.

FWIW, my hard drive is about 923GB, with about 760GB free.

Any guidance?

Many thanks.

Ken

[criley]

The customer that I am working with is only seeing the issue on Windows 7.

It's too early to say if the issue on Win 7 and Win 8 is the same. If it is, I will update the TechNote to list both operating systems.

[KenIsaacson]

Uh, but I'm seeing it on Win 8... Are there more steps I need to take to classify it as a Win 8 problem? I'm glad to do what's needed (within reason!).

Thanks.

[criley]

I would say wait until we get more news on this once our engineering team have analyzed the issue.

Chris

[criley]

Quick update for everyone...

The issue for the customer I was working with is now resolved and the solution has been added to this TechNote:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH205081

Hope it helps.

[JohnTech]

Chris, I looked at your TECH205081 which involves assigning a drive letter to the  System Reserved Partition, etc.

Which is the "System Reserved Partition" on this new Dell pc?  See my Disk Mgmt screen print earlier.  Dell has 5 partitions on the Win 8 hard drive:

EFI System Partition
OEM Partition
Recovery Partition
OS c:
Recovery Partition

[tomaszec]

I am having the exact same problem and from some other forums out there, it seems to be that the WINRETOOLS partition needs to be resized.  Windows requires more free space than what is currently allocated for a 500MB disk.   The folks that have resolved this issue have reduced the size of the 500MB partition to 490Mb using a partition manager program (ex. partitionwizard, paragon partition manager).   Going under the 500Mb limit reduces the free space required from 320Mb to 50Mb and magically you can now backup the WINRETOOLS partition with Symantec.   

My problem is:  none of these partition products will let me resize the WINRETOOLS partition.

5/6/13 Update:

I have been able to resolve this problem via 2 procedures gathered from various different sources:

1) Must resize the WINRETOOLS partition to be less than 500Mb.   I was able to finally use Paragon Partition Manager to eventually resize the partition to 450MB.   I had to get Paragon to help and they were able to release the hidden partition somehow.    In any event, i then proceeded to step #2

2) Next the ShadowStorage of the WINRETOOLS partition needed to be resized.   I first assigned a drive letter to the newly sized WINRETOOLS partition and issued the following command where "G" was the new drive letter.

 vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=G: /On=G: /MaxSize=UNBOUNDED

After this command was successful, i removed the drive letter "G" and then was able to perform all backups with no more errors.

Chris

[criley]

Which volume is causing the problem?

The customer I was working with only saw the problem when he included the Win7 system reserved partition so this is the solution mentioned in the TechNote I referenced earlier.

However, I can see from various different people that this problem is not limited to the system reserved partition.

[KenIsaacson]

Chris,

I've been away, so I'm only just getting around to trying this solution. However, Windows 8 will not let me assign a drive letter to this reserved drive.

In Computer Managment (right-clicking My Computer), Disk Managment, I've located the drive I need (It's a 500 MB "Recovery Partition"). If I right click on that volume, the only option is "Help". Unlike, for instance, if I right click the Primary Petition, where I get a list of options, including "Change Drive Letter and Path".

So how do I assign a drive letter to the WINRETOOLS drive?

Thanks.

Ken

[JohnTech]

Chris,

As shown in my previous post and screenshot, Disk Management shows 5 partitions on this brand new Dell XPS 8550 (Windows 8 64bit):

EFI System Partition

OEM Partition

Recovery Partition

OS c:

Recovery Partition

Today I attempted to define INDIVIDUAL partition backups (one at a time)  with SSR 2013 in an attempt to identify the problem partition(s).

First of all, SSR 2013 showed ONLY 4 partitions, not 5 and they are labeled this way:

os c: (918gb)
ESP (500MB)

PBR Image (12GB)

WINRETOOLS (500MB)

Results:

os c: by itself backed up fine

ESP (500MB) by itself backed up fine

PBR Image (12GB) got error E4F3000E.  Also when defining the backup this SSR did not find any other associated partitions that it wanted to backup with it??

WINRETOOLS (500MB) also got VSS error (VSS_E_Insufficient_Storage)

See attached screen shot, same for both PBR Image and Winretools image

Now what?

1. Is this being addressed in SSR 2013 SP1 (whenever that comes out)?

2. Is every Dell purchaser of a new XPS 8500 Windows 8 pc and SSR 2013 calling you for assistance?  I hate to start modifying partition parameters and drive letters on a brand new PC that otherwise is running fine.

3. I'm using Windows 8 File History right now for file backups and SSR 2013 for c: partition backup.  However that is NOT adequate for recovering from a total drive failure.

Help!

John

[criley]

Are you able to assign a drive letter using diskpart (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415)?

Be aware that the solution I found for my customer may not necessarily apply to you as well, seeing as you are running a different operating system.

[criley]

I think you need to open a case so the issues can be investigated fully. Unfortunately there is only so much I personally can help with via these forums.

Chris

[KenIsaacson]

Chris,

First, I want to thank you for the attention you've been giving this. So please understand that my comments in this reply are not in any way directed to you and are not meant to take away from the efforts you have put forth.

That being said, I'm extremely dissatisfied. I downloaded this product on a trial basis seven weeks ago, and have not been able to use it even once. Almost seven weeks ago, I started this thread to report the problem I'm having on my Windows 8 machine.

Since then, on the thread I started, I've seen people trying to solve similar problems on other operating systems. I simply cannot believe that I am the only person experiencing this on Win 8. I cannot devote my time and effort day after day trying out possible solutions in the hope that I might stumble upon the answer.

I call upon Symantec to figure out what the darned problem is with this product on a Win 8 machine and then to advise me of the way to fix it. And, Chris, if there's anything you can do to facilitate this, I'd truly appreciate it.

In short, on this thread, which I started almost 7 weeks ago, seeking a solution to a problem on a Win 8 machine, what's happened is that I'm told "We figured out how to make it work on a different OS." Great.

Thanks for letting me have my mini-rant.

Best,

Ken

[criley]

Ken,

I understand your frustration and wont take your comments personally.

All I can say is that the customer that I personally was working with, saw the issue on Windows 7 and we were able to find a solution. Whilst the error is the same as what you are seeing, the underlying root cause may (or may not) be different.

I would say that it's unlikely that you are the only person seeing this issue. However, I am not in direct contact (via a support case) with anyone experiencing this issue at the moment. If this changes, I will update this thread with details.

My recommendation to you would be to open a formal support case so that this can be investigated further. As you are in trial mode, you may not have a support contract. If this is the case, please contact your local Symantec sales office for assistance.

Hope that helps.

[KenIsaacson]

Chris,

The first thing I did when I encountered this problem was to contact support. Because I am on a trial, they refused to help and suggested I try here. I found this quite peculiar, since the refusal to help does not encourage me in the least to PAY for the product without knowing if it will work--which is, of course, the very reason that free trials are offered in the first place.

I'm sorely tempted to just throw in the towel, if this is the way that Symantec "supports" its product. Frankly, I think it's ridiculous.

[criley]

I believe that we are looking at support options for customers in your situation but I don't know the current status of this at the moment.

As I mentioned in my last post, you may want to consider contacting your local sales office for help. They may be able to open a courtesy case for you. There are some things that cannot be fixed via the forums and I think your issue falls into this category.

Sorry I cannot be of more help.

[JohnTech]

Chris, I opened a Symantec support case ticket today with summary and url reference to this thread.

[JohnTech]

Update:  After opening case ticket with Symantec, they contacted me, and collected some Symantec logs.  They are "aware of the problem with Windows 8", will analyze the logs and get back to me.

Also, note attached screenshot of SSR Backup wizard.  SSR2013 detects just 4 partitions, not 5 that Disk Management detects (see earlier screen shot of that).

Of those 4 partitions, I can individually backup OS, and ESP partitions.  The VSS error occurs on both the PBR Image and WINRETOOLS partitions.

Other posts and tech articles keep referring to System Reserved Partition.  I have no idea what that is because it doesn't exist on Dell XPS 8500 Windows 8 pc.

[tomaszec]

This isn't going to be a SSR 2013 problem.  They will eventually come back and tell you this is Dell and how windows 8 has changed it's file management protocols.  I went through this for 1 week.   As i indicated before this has to do with the size of the hidden partitions and the amount of SWAP space allocated to them.   The partition must be shrunken below 500mb and the Shadow Storage allocation for the partition needs to allow for more "temporary" space.  Setting it to unbounded for this type of partition is acceptable.   The 2 steps below will resolve your problem and SSR2013 will work.  The problem is step #1 is incredibly difficult to get done.   I have no idea how the paragon help desk support "unlocked" the partition for me but they did.  Once they did i was able to easily resize it, assign a letter to it and then issue the vssadmin command to set the shadowstorage limit to unbounded.    Once that was completed, i no longer had any issues with SSR2013.    SSR2013 support also told me this had nothing to do with this being a trial version of the software as i had the trial version as well.  Once i got everything working, i then purchased the official version.   I've read that these exact same problems are ocurring with Acronis as well on Dell machines because of how DEll sized the hidden partition and how windows8 manages its swap/shadowstorage space now. 

1) Must resize the WINRETOOLS partition to be less than 500Mb.   I was able to finally use Paragon Partition Manager to eventually resize the partition to 450MB.   I had to get Paragon to help and they were able to release the hidden partition somehow.    In any event, i then proceeded to step #2

2) Next the ShadowStorage of the WINRETOOLS partition needed to be resized.   I first assigned a drive letter to the newly sized WINRETOOLS partition and issued the following command where "G" was the new drive letter.

 vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=G: /On=G: /MaxSize=UNBOUNDED

[Tom_Francis]

This thread is the exact problem I am having with a brand new Dell E5530 Laptop running W8 Pro.

First my compliments to kenIsacson and others listed here for slogging through all this.

So there appears to be a solution but it involves buying another product, working through their tech support to change one partition, then manually changing another partition... and only then will Symantec's product work.

After using Ghost on dozens of PCs over the last 15 years, I would like to use a similar product going forward... but right now I have a customer anxious for their new PC.  Will be watching this thread to see  what Symantec comes up with now that you have defined the problem for them.

They really should consider compensating you in some way. You all deserve it.

Tomster2

[JohnTech]

Suggestion from Symantec tech support:  Boot from the SSR Recovery CD and perform a "offline/cold" backup of the WINRETOOLS and PBR Image partitions (or whatever ones are causing the errors).

Because you are using the stand alone CD, the VSS errors should not occur, and since those partitions don't change, just save those backup images.  In Windows then select just the other partitions for normal daily/weekly etc. backup which shouldn't produce the error.  If a disaster restore is needed, combine the two for restore.

This sounds like a promising workaround for now.  I haven't tried it yet, just got the feedback.  I'm interested though to hear if this solution works for you.  Please post your results.

At least this workaround doesn't require modifying the partition parameters, size, or drive letters and doesn't require purchasing any other software.

Symantec also said they are aware of this problem not only with the Dell XPS 8500 but with other model Dell's as well.  Seems related to the Dell-recovery partitions that Dell includes on their drive.