Shadow copy problem

I am running Vista Business Edition, and I am experiencing a Volume Shadow
Copy issue. System Protection is configured to make restore points for my
“C� drive, but I find that it is not generating them properly. On a given
day, one system restore point may generate properly, but it wipes out any
preceding restore point.

I checked my log files, and find the following error:


Log Name: System
Source: volsnap
Date: 11/10/2007 10:34:11 AM
Event ID: 36
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Description:
The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy storage
could not grow due to a user imposed limit.


I ran the “vssadmin list shadowstorage� command, and the system reports the
following:

Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.851 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.344 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 12 GB

Does anyone have an idea what is going on here?

Any assistance is much appreciated...

Hi RichG,

At a guess I'd say you might have a corrupt point, and deleting them all and
starting over may help. Also, have you tried a vssadmin resize yet?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"RichG" <RichG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4051151F-D417-4B90-8A3B-7351654E1E66@microsoft.com...
>I am running Vista Business Edition, and I am experiencing a Volume Shadow
> Copy issue. System Protection is configured to make restore points for my
> “C� drive, but I find that it is not generating them properly. On a given
> day, one system restore point may generate properly, but it wipes out any
> preceding restore point.
>
> I checked my log files, and find the following error:
>
>
> Log Name: System
> Source: volsnap
> Date: 11/10/2007 10:34:11 AM
> Event ID: 36
> Task Category: None
> Level: Error
> Keywords: Classic
> User: N/A
> Description:
> The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy
> storage
> could not grow due to a user imposed limit.
>
>
> I ran the “vssadmin list shadowstorage� command, and the system reports
> the
> following:
>
> Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.851 GB
> Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.344 GB
> Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 12 GB
>
> Does anyone have an idea what is going on here?
>
> Any assistance is much appreciated...

Rick:

Yes, I have. I tried a resize which did not seem to help.

I then disabled, and then re-enabled System Protection for drive C thinking
that it might clear up the issue. So far, no joy.

Any other ideas?

"Rick Rogers" wrote:

> Hi RichG,
>
> At a guess I'd say you might have a corrupt point, and deleting them all and
> starting over may help. Also, have you tried a vssadmin resize yet?
>
> --
> Best of Luck,
>
> Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
> Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
> My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
>
> "RichG" <RichG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:4051151F-D417-4B90-8A3B-7351654E1E66@microsoft.com...
> >I am running Vista Business Edition, and I am experiencing a Volume Shadow
> > Copy issue. System Protection is configured to make restore points for my
> > “C� drive, but I find that it is not generating them properly. On a given
> > day, one system restore point may generate properly, but it wipes out any
> > preceding restore point.
> >
> > I checked my log files, and find the following error:
> >
> >
> > Log Name: System
> > Source: volsnap
> > Date: 11/10/2007 10:34:11 AM
> > Event ID: 36
> > Task Category: None
> > Level: Error
> > Keywords: Classic
> > User: N/A
> > Description:
> > The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy
> > storage
> > could not grow due to a user imposed limit.
> >
> >
> > I ran the “vssadmin list shadowstorage� command, and the system reports
> > the
> > following:
> >
> > Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.851 GB
> > Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.344 GB
> > Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 12 GB
> >
> > Does anyone have an idea what is going on here?
> >
> > Any assistance is much appreciated...
>
>

> I then disabled, and then re-enabled System Protection for drive C thinking
> that it might clear up the issue. So far, no joy.

When you say the above, you're not being clear as to whether you've
successfully deleted the old copies. Disabling the Volume Shadow Copy service
(in SERVICES) doesn't delete old copies. Whereas turning off System
Protection (in SYSTEM) for a particular disk brings up the notice that "all
existing restore points on the disk will be deleted". Are you saying the
latter is a false message?

> Any other ideas?

I used to have Volume Shadow Copy service totally disabled. I did so because
I hated the grinding on my hard disk caused by the scheduled copying, and I
judge the copies to be worthless. I later found out I could disable the
scheduled copying without disabling Volume Shadow Copy by deleting scheduled
System Restore tasks (in Task Scheduler in Administrative Tools). Anyway,
it's my attitude that if you use your computer with Volume Shadow Copy
disabled it's very little to be worried about. Plus it improves the quietness
and responsiveness of the computer at times.

> > Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.851 GB
> > Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.344 GB
> > Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 12 GB

It's conceivable that your maximum storage space is too small. My own
machine reports the following and I don't have much data nor programs on my
machine and I've only had this Vista machine for a few months.
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 41.077 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 42.613 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 43.205 GB

It just occurred to me that Shadow Copy is used for user backups (in BACKUPs)
as well as system backups (in System Protection). If you're using it for
backups, I think it's quite likely that the 12GB max space isn't enough and
the message that "shadow copy storage could not grow due to a user imposed
limit" is correct. However, I personally don't know where the dialog for
changing the user imposed limit is.

[EdTittel]

VSSadmin includes options to reset the size of the shadow copy file store on a per-drive basis. This is well documented on the MS pages for the vssadmin command itself, particularly in the section on the vssadmin resize shadowstorage syntax and examples. I've also written about this on my own Vista site at "Warning! Volume Shadow Copy Sometimes Eats Excess Disk Space"

HTH,
--Ed--