Failed to Initialise Volume Shadow Copy Service for Drive

[ais@rkelly.me.uk]

Running AISBackup 2.9.0.395
OS Windows Server 2008 R2 (therefore 64bit)
Two drives in system

My PST files are stored on the F: drive and are therefore locked whenever AIS backup runs. It attempts to call VSS but 19 times out of 20 it fails with the above error.

In the system Application log there is a message
09:00:58 - The VSS service is shutting down due to idle timeout
and then in the AIS log
09:01:15 ERR Failed to Initialise Volume Shadow Copy Service for Drive: F:\

Scheduled snapshots on the same (or other) volume never fail!

Any thoughs or ideas as to how I resolve this?

Thanks,

Richard

[Barry]

Following your report problems have been found with AISBackup's handling of VSS on server 2008 and a fix is being made:

If there is a mounted TrueCrypt drive on the system: A mounted TrueCrypt drive causes a Microsoft VSSADMIN command to fail unless the drive is mounted as a removable drive; this problem has been reported to TrueCrypt. It has been found that this problem need not affect server 2008, however the problem will continue to affect 64bit Windows 7 and Windows Vista after this bug fix.

There is also a problem if open exclusive files are not on the same volume, so Volume C: would work and Volume F: would fail. Is it possible that the 1 out of 20 times there were no open exclusive files on the C: drive?

Barry

[ais@rkelly.me.uk]

Barry,

You may well have hit the nail on the head. The drive is encrypted with BitLocker (not trucrypt) but otherwise sounds right.

I suppose from time to time Outlook might not have been running at the time of the backup, so no open files.

Do I read your reply correctly that there is a fix for AIS backup coming?

Thanks,

Richard

[Barry]

An update to AISBackup has been uploaded to:

http://aiscl.co.uk/dl.php?d=396

This fixes the problems with VSS on Server 2008 where more than one drive containing open exclusive files is selected for backup and the failure of Microsoft VSSADMIN commands when a TrueCrypt volume is loaded.

Please let us know if this fixes the problem.

Barry

[ais@rkelly.me.uk]

Barry,

Very many thanks - that certainly seems to have fixed it.

Richard