NTBackup fails while creating volume shadow copy

[colin]

I have a problem that's driving me crazy! The server is running Windows
Server 2003 R2 x32 Standard Edition with SP2, I've installed all the updates.
The backup fails with "error returned while creating the volume shadow
copy:0Xffffffff". Here are the steps I've taken to try and get it working:
- vssadmin list writers
- it hangs for a 15+ minutes then finally indicates the 'system writer',
'removable storage manager', 'wmi writer', 'registry writer', 'event log
writer', and 'com+ regdb writer' are stable (though it has had failures
earlier)
- OK, so I follow Microsofts suggestions to register dll's as follows:
net stop vss
regsvr32 /s ole32.dll
regsvr32 /s vss_ps.dll
Vssvc /Register
regsvr32 /s /i swprv.dll
regsvr32 /s /i eventcls.dll
regsvr32 /s es.dll
regsvr32 /s stdprov.dll
regsvr32 /s vssui.dll
regsvr32 /s msxml.dll
regsvr32 /s msxml3.dll
regsvr32 /s msxml4.dll
net start vss
- rebooted, re-registered the dll's again
- installed the update rollup package 940349 (even though I have sp2
installed)
- rebooted, re-registered the dll's again
- the event log gives Event id: 6013 Source: VSS with error message 'SQL
Server does not exist or access denied'
- I'm getting no where here, it's very frustrating. When I google this
problem there are many people having similar issues.

2 things I've noticed:

1. The data volume is 3/4 full and quite fragmented, should I defrag? this
will probably take many hours
2. This server has SQL 2000 installed with no service packs, could that be
causing this problem? The customer has Docs Open installed and it requires
SQL but it just has the initial install of SQL Server Enterprise Edition
8.00.194. Microsoft id: 884012 talks about this

Anyway, it's late and I've been remotely logged into the server trying to
resolve this issue but no luck. Hopefully someone has a suggestion that can
get me out of this bind.

Regards,

Colin

[Meinolf Weber [MVP-DS]]

Hello colin,

Did you found this one about SQL 2000 on 2003:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913360

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
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[colin]

Yes, I did see this but it is talking about the x64 version of Windows Server
2003, could it be the same problem on the x32 version? And the symtoms look
identical. When I checked the registry as it suggests the SharedMemoryOn
entry was already at '1' so I can't try that. Should I apply the hotfix
913110? It seems to apply only to the x64 version so I'm reluctant. I'm still
wondering if my problem is just a SQL 2000 issue because the version this
server is running is unpatched.

Thanks for the suggestion or any others you can think of....

Colin

[Isaac Oben [MCITP,MCSE]]

Hello Colin,
You might have an application runnung that is taking a lot of memory and
ntbackup end up not having enough memory to complete, thus failed..

--
Isaac Oben [MCTIP:EA, MCSE]
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