System Restore & WU not working

[Snapafun]

Basically System Restore stopped working and Updates will not complete across a reboot.

Both worked up till about two months ago on a clean install early last year.

Have no idea as to what I may have done and it is too easy to suspect a recent update cause ~ though you never know.

I've read heaps on a lot of forums and as a result tried a few things to see if they work ~ nothing yet.

Other than TrustedInstaller.exe hanging the system on 100.5% at times this system actually still works.

My posting here is to try to understand what " net mapping " is and its effect on Vista Ultimate as it appears that this may well have something to do with these problems.

If I recall correctly, I changed a stand alone ( usb ) 100GIG hard drive ( for storage ) to a 320GIG unit. Since then these problems started.

Problem 1. System Restore will not 'create' with "Windows cannot create a shadow copy due to internal error in other system components. For more information view the event log. (0x81000109) Please try again." As said above, used many forums but cannot fix this at present.

Problem 2. I have my updates set to notify me but always install the relevant ones ( Usually not the optional type unless I'm using them ). The updates appear to download and install OK ~ but upon the reboot I get "configuring updates...." then another reboot happens on its own that gets me back to the login screen. After the system loads I get a ballon stating that the updates failed and to click on the task bar icon to find the cause ~ this only takes me back to the update prompt to start the process all over again. I have tried many suggestions found, usually involving renaming the %windir% file and starting again.

Problem 3. The "TrustedInstaller.exe" hanging the system at times, lately, killing this process results a delayed reboot of about 2 minutes. Suspect this is related to the update stuff.

As said above, I'm beginning to suspect the the " Net Mapping? " thing is at fault, this gleaned from forums that only touch on the subject.

I'm quite capable of finding stuff on my system so please, if it helps, just ask.

For a complete system spec ( not the latest as yet ~ will try to update tonight ) try HTML Log

So, anyone got the time to hammer this system into shape ?

[Steve]

Hi Snapafun,

it seems that the shadow copy error can be due to a PC not booting up on the drive Vista is installed on. What way is your disk/s configured?

For problem 2 can you post any errors you have in Event Viewer.

Try this for the TrustedInstaller problem...

Start > Control Panel > Classic View > Problem Reports and Solutions > Clear Solution and Problem History > (Confirm that you want to clear the history) > Close the control panel

This may only keep it at bay for a while until we get your update problem sorted.

Let us know how you get on,

regards

Steve

[Snapafun]

Thank you for your interest Steve.

My system is a dual boot with PCLinuxOS 2007 and initially ( for months ) I did have System Restore and WU working fine.

Just curious ~ is there a way to actual record the following info in printf form?

Disk 0

RECOVERY (G: )
1.86 GB FAT32
Healthy (Primary Partition)

(C: )
36.19 GB NTFS
Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

<this is either a ext2 or ext3 partition>
996 MB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

<this is either a ext2 or ext3 partition>
18.78 GB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

<this is a swap partition>
533 MB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

<this is either a ext2 or ext3 partition>
1.98 GB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

<this is either a ext2 or ext3 partition>
7.84 GB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

<this is either a ext2 or ext3 partition>
3.42 GB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

<this is either a ext2 or ext3 partition>
1.99 GB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

SHARED (D: )
19.60 GB FAT32
Healthy (Primary Partition)

DISK 1

ntfs-150 (L: )
146.66 GB NTFS
Healthy (Primary Partition)

<this is either a ext2 or ext3 partition>
151.43 GB
Healthy (Primary Partition)

As to the WU problem ~ hopes this helps:
Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x800f0826: Security Update for Windows Vista (KB941644).

This is repeated 7 times ( One for each KB I suspect ) with only one difference with the error number - being 0x80004005

Now, I've tried heaps gleaned from other forums that seemed to apply to my system but I suspect we are attacking the wrong problem. Also my system is running OK otherwise.

Booting up this morning I took the opportunity to change my boot order within bios setup from cd-ide-usb to cd-usb-ide and once logged in and TrustedInstaller.exe had settled down ( about 5 minutes ) I attempted another System Restore Point ~ no change unfortunately, the error codes mentioned above are the result.

So, any ideas ?

A full system listing is available at HTML Log

[Steve]

Hi Snapafun,

you are up early this morning a few questions...

What BIOS do you have and what version is it?

I wonder if your RECOVERY drive is the first seen by Vista as this has been involved in "Windows cannot create a shadow copy..." error, some people have reported that a BIOS upgrade fixed the problem, other people rearranged the booting so that the Partition with Vista was the first seen when the PC booted.

Can you change the boot up to IDE first and see if this has any effect. The fact that a rearrangement worked for the TrustedInstaller problem may indicate what i mentioned in the paragraph above has some bearing all right..

The 0x800f0826: Security Update for Windows Vista (KB941644) error is mentioned here Error message when you try to install Microsoft Update on a Windows Vista-based computer: "Could not install Microsoft Update on the computer" and there is a resolution you can try. See how it goes.

regards

Steve

[Snapafun]

Re bios

BIOS Version A M I - 7000705
BIOS Date 07/05/07
BIOS Vendor American Megatrends Inc.
Version 300
Release 07/05/2007
BIOS Size 512 KB

This appears to be the latest according to the Asus site.

I'm not sure how to check if windows see the RECOVERY partition first because I use grub bootloader to get my system started ~ so what is the very first file needed for windows to boot ? Should this actually be on the C: drive then I could look at extending the C: partition so as to overwrite the Recovery altogether. Just a thought at this stage as I know this will require some work if I do not wish to go for a complete re-install.

As mentioned earlier, I did have the ide booting first but just this morning, changed to usb before ide, though usb in this case does not have a bootable OS ~ just file storage and hopefully this is where I'll eventually be able to store my 'shadow copy'. So I can change it back willingly but do not see any advantage here.

For now I'll visit your link and post back my findings.

Thanks for hanging in there Steve.

That was a quick visit: my problem happens whether or not I have UAC running or not, and I have opened the real Administrators account and within that I still get the same errors.

[Steve]

Hi Snapafun,

even with the real administrators account you need to run some applications and utilities using the Run As Administrator option when right clicking on the icon,

regards

Steve

[Snapafun]

I nice heads up but still the same result I'm afraid.

[Snapafun]

Update info

Earlier Steve, you mentioned that Vista might not be seeing my (C: ) drive first.

When I attempted to use my DVD to "repair" Vista from within Vista running, I got the 'not enough space' type error along the lines that Vista needed 392MB to run { from the DVD } and knowing I have more than 13.7GB unused on (C: ) drive, figured that the DVD at this point was looking straight at the recovery partition on this Asus Notepad.

So I tried to boot from the DVD and when attempting to head over to the repair option, had the Vista DVDn see the hard drive partitions as follows:

Recovery (C: )
508MB free of 1.85GB ( This is obviously the first primary partition )

Local Disk (D: )
13.7GB free of 36.1GB ( This is the real C: partition )

Shared (E: )
6.25GB free of 19.5GB ( This is a FAT32 partition I share between Vista and PCLinuxOS )

ntfs-150 (G: )
122GB free of 146GB ( This is my half USB connected hard drive I use for storage and backups )

Boot (X: )
30.8MB free of 33.2MB ( This was the DVD default choice and I have no idea what this is ?? )

So it is quite obvious that Vista is looking at the first partition first and whatever changed things to do that for all vista means that there is no way that System Restore will work because of a lack of space.

Now I'm familiar with re-partitioning and general saving of data without formatting, re-setting boot loaders etc ~ but this is Vista, an OS that does not understand partition tables, volume info, etc. that relates to anything else other than maybe FAT32 and ntfs systems only.

Not really a problem, I am just not sure how to get all of Vista onto the correct (C: ) without having to re-install everything, an exercise that would rob me of months of computer time.

Any suggestions ?

( The real partition table is mentioned in my earlier post to this thread. )