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Exclusively Open - Deferred

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 3:12 pm
by mart
Hi Barry,

I just ran AIS for the first time on a clean Windows 8.1 install on an Asus VivoTab ME400C tablet. I ran it from a desktop icon.

It got stuck at file 85321 of 85353, just hanging with the message "Exclusively Open - Deferred". It has been sitting like that for 20 minutes and the external hard drive turned itself off due to lack of activity. This is something I've never seen before running AIS on my laptop.

The abort button on the process window doesn't respond.

Any idea what's going on and how to resolve it?

Thanks again for this great software, I just bought another licence for the tablet.
Martin

AISBackup hang

Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 3:54 pm
by Barry
I guess you are using the latest version of AISBackup? This is version 3.3 build 446.

I think the problem may be with the 64-bit open file support module failing to initialise correctly and there may be a message in the Windows Application or System event log that gives more information.

If there is a problem with Microsoft's Volume Copy Shadow Service you may be able to fix this by running sfc /scannow from the command prompt running as administrator. Right click Windows 8.1 version of start (bottom left) and choose Command Prompt (Admin)

A re-boot may fix the problem.

Barry

Re: Exclusively Open - Deferred

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 3:56 am
by mart
Thanks for the reponse Barry.

I put the tablet to sleep overnight while it was still hung, and in the morning the message "Exclusively Open - Deferred" was gone and in its place just "BCD". It was still stuck on the same file though. I had to kill it with task manager as the abort button doesn't work.

I ran sfc /scannow and it found no integrity violations.

I rebooted and tried the backup again. I had to delete all of the existing backup files as AIS wouldn't recognise them as an existing backup, I assume because I had to terminate it.

The exact same problem happened again.


There are two VSS errors in the Application event log:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error querying for the IVssWriterCallback interface. hr = 0x80070005, Access is denied.
This is often caused by incorrect security settings in either the writer or requestor process.

Operation:
Gathering Writer Data

Context:
Writer Class Id: {e8132975-6f93-4464-a53e-1050253ae220}
Writer Name: System Writer
Writer Instance ID: {101d340a-657a-4df9-8d34-53c90fd74775}
The XML of the events looks like this:

Code: Select all

<Event xmlns="http&#58;//schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
 <System>
  <Provider Name="VSS" />
  <EventID Qualifiers="0">8194</EventID>
  <Level>2</Level>
  <Task>0</Task>
  <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-09-13T13&#58;47&#58;49.000000000Z" />
  <EventRecordID>1548</EventRecordID>
  <Channel>Application</Channel>
  <Computer>vivo</Computer>
  <Security />
 </System>
 <EventData>
  <Data>0x80070005, Access is denied.</Data>
  <Data>Operation&#58; Gathering Writer Data Context&#58; Writer Class Id&#58; &#123;e8132975-6f93-4464-a53e-1050253ae220&#125; Writer Name&#58; System Writer Writer Instance ID&#58; &#123;bb7abbef-0458-44ba-b4f6-3a2676858c2a&#125;</Data>
  <Binary>2D20436F64653A20575254575254494330303030313330302D2043616C6C3A20575254575254494330303030313235342D205049443A202030303030313234342D205449443A202030303030303137322D20434D443A2020433A5C57494E444F57535C73797374656D33325C737663686F73742E657865202D6B204E6574776F726B53657276696365202020202020202D20557365723A204E616D653A204E5420415554484F524954595C4E4554574F524B20534552564943452C205349443A532D312D352D3230</Binary>
 </EventData>
</Event>
There was also an error from System Restore earlier saying it failed to create a restore point:

Code: Select all

<Event xmlns="http&#58;//schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
 <System>
  <Provider Name="System Restore" />
  <EventID Qualifiers="0">8193</EventID>
  <Level>2</Level>
  <Task>0</Task>
  <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-09-13T23&#58;10&#58;20.000000000Z" />
  <EventRecordID>1555</EventRecordID>
  <Channel>Application</Channel>
  <Computer>vivo</Computer>
  <Security />
 </System>
 <EventData>
  <Data>C&#58;\Program Files\Aquarius IS Consultancy\AISBackup\AISBACKUP.exe Files\Aquarius IS Consultancy\AISBackup\AISBACKUP.exe" -elevated -AU "PC &#40;VIVO&#41; to External Drive &#91;EXTERNAL&#93;|MZ" -S30&#58;00-00|Z</Data>
  <Data>AISBackup Restore Point</Data>
  <Data>0x81000101</Data>
  <Binary>01010081510200003B0200004902000022CE28677C6DDA79E28C1C000000000000000000</Binary>
 </EventData>
</Event>
The tablet has an Atom Z2760 processor which is only 32 bit, so I doubt the problem is anything to do with 64-bit open file support module.

Any idea how I might get this to work?

Regards
Martin

Re: Exclusively Open - Deferred

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 5:51 am
by mart
I tried running the backup from the main interface instead of from a shortcut, which gives me a bit more information.

When it hangs it says "preparing open exclusive file support" on volume \\?\HarddiskVolume2\

Diskpart lists the following partitions:

Code: Select all

Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
Volume 0     C   Windows      NTFS   Partition     49 GB  Healthy    Boot    
Volume 1                      NTFS   Partition    300 MB  Healthy    Hidden  
Volume 2         SYSTEM       FAT32  Partition    100 MB  Healthy    System  
Volume 3                      NTFS   Partition    450 MB  Healthy    Hidden  
Volume 4         Recovery Im  NTFS   Partition      8 GB  Healthy    Hidden  
The Disk Management UI lists them in a different order:

- 300MB Recovery partition
- 100MB EFI System partition
- 49.51 GB primary partition (Windows)
- 450MB Recovery partition
- 8GB Recovery partition

So I'm not sure which one is actually HarddiskVolume2, but I would guess it is the primary partition.

Something else that might be relevant is that the VSS service was disabled by default on the tablet. Maybe that indicates it doesn't quite work right? There is however a system restore point saved so it seems to work ok.

Didn't a previous version of AIS have an option to use your own method of backing up open files instead of VSS? Or am I confusing it with another program? I couldn't find anything in the preferences.

I hope you can help me figure out how to resolve this.

Regards
Martin

VSS

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 12:40 pm
by Barry
I think the VSS service should be set to 'manual'.

Something else that appears to be contradictory is that EFI booting is only supposed to boot 64-bit versions of Windows.

What happens if you remove the FAT32 'SYSTEM' disk from the backup?

Barry

VSS

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 3:36 pm
by mart
Hi Barry,

Sorry yes I think VSS was just set to manual rather than disabled. I just saw that it wasn't running and jumped to the conclusion that was causing the problem.

The wikipedia article for GPT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table) says that Windows 8 32-bit does support EFI so it looks like this partition is necessary for booting. It is only the 32 bit versions of Windows 7 and earlier that don't support EFI.

The backup works when I exclude the EFI partition, but if I do that I don't think I'd get a bootable system when I restore.

In the AIS "select files for backup" window I can see all of the files in the EFI partition, but when I right-click the EFI partition and select properties, I get an error "Windows cannot find '\\?\HarddiskVolume2'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.". All the other partitions allow me to see their properties.

Only two files on the EFI partition are locked:
\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BDC
\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BDC.LOG

Is the solution as simple as enabling VSS on the EFI partition? I couldn't find any information about how to determine which volumes VSS is working on, let alone how to enable it on other volumes.

Regards
Martin

VSS

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 5:33 pm
by Barry
I guess VSS started correctly to backup the open exclusive files on the other partitions, especially the 'C' drive.

Actually it's not possible to use VSS on the FAT32 EFI partition and AISBackup works on desktop / laptop PCs when backing up the BDC files AISBackup uses BDCEdit to back up the BDC database). It looks like an update to AISBackup is required.

The PC would still be bootable following a restore provided the EFI partition is still working okay.

Is it possible to exchange disks in you tablet PC? I am just thinking about when it would be necessary or possible to do a worst case scenario disaster recovery restore.

Barry

VSS

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:28 am
by mart
It's not possible to exchange the eMMC storage in the tablet, but I'm not sure it shipped with the same partitions as I did a Windows 8.1 upgrade on it. The fact that it now contains two Windows Recovery Environment partitions makes me suspect that the upgrade created a new partition, especially as the WinRE.wim and ReAgent.xml files are timestamped with the date of the upgrade. Unfortunately I didn't look how many partitions there were before the upgrade.

If my assumption is correct then if this tablet dies and I need to restore to a new one I'll need it to restore all of the partitions and the BCD (sorry I accidentally called it BDC in my earlier email), otherwise I'd have to do the fickle Windows 8.1 upgrade again before restoring.

For the time being I'm happy to proceed with the backup I've got, but would appreciate it if you could release a new version that can backup the BCD as well. In any case it would be good if it didn't just hang in a completely unresponsive state requiring termination with task manager.

Your software is a fantastic piece of engineering and your support is second to none, so I think it's a shame if anyone tries to use it and discards it straight away because it hangs. I know I'm totally ruthless when I'm evaluating backup software, it has to be 100% reliable and predictable.

Regards
Martin

Installed BCD on a replacement tablet / PC

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 11:06 am
by Barry
If you were to restore the 'C' partition following a disaster you would be able to use the BCD that ships with the new tablet. The BCD only holds the boot files.

However I would recommend making the restore to a new partition initially and making a dual boot system, but this may prove difficult if disk space is limited.

It may be easier just to re-install programs on the replacement and just use AISBackup to restore your data files. I do this when setting up new Windows 8.1. PCs because Microsoft seem to have neglected their 'Easy Transfer Wizard'. Just ensure that if any software is installed via downloads that they are backed up too, and make a not of any product activation files in a text file on the same backup.

Barry

BCD

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 12:04 pm
by mart
Do you think you'll be able to resolve the problem of backing up the BCD in the next version? Or is it not that simple?

Martin

BCD Backup Tablet

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 12:46 pm
by Barry
Provided this works then yes:

make a folder on the desktop called BCDBackup then run from an elevated command prompt window:

replace YOURNAME with your username.

bcdedit /export "C:\Users\YOURNAME\Desktop\BCDBackup\BCD"

The problem is not backing up it's restoring as you would need an operating system running on the tablet to restore it and the contents of the BCD will have to be altered if it was restored to a new disk drive. That's the reason I said it is better to use the BCD that comes with the replacement drive. In fact AISBackup has built into it the ability to upgrade from MBR booting systems to GPT / EFI booting systems - in doing this it makes the BCD from scratch rather than restoring the previous MBR version.

Barry

BCD Backup Tablet

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:03 pm
by mart
That works fine as long as the BCDBackup folder already exists on the desktop.

The tablet is able to boot from a USB device so a full restore is possible without an operating system running on the main storage device.

I wouldn't want to rely on the BCD on a replacement tablet because I suspect the Windows 8.1 upgrade added a new partition. I wouldn't want to have to upgrade a new tablet to Windows 8.1 before doing a restore, as that involved downloading over 3GB of updates from MS. This is the very reason I'm doing a backup straight after upgrading, to avoid having to do it again.

There is also some sort of factory reset partition which I also want included in the backup, so that any tablet I restore to is still able to be restored to factory settings.