This problem was first encountered on an IBM x3650 in a cluster with an IBM x3550 for failover, however this problem is reproducible on a server running HyperV not part of a cluster. When I try to run a VM based backup from inside the VM using the server backup utility to E: drive(which is an attached vhdx file). It fails with this error
Backup failed to complete. There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. make sure that, for all volumes to be backup up, the minimum required disk space for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and volumes included in the backup. Minimum requirements: For Volume less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space. Recommended: At least 1 gigabyte of free disk space for each volume if the volume size is more than 1 gigabyte. Detailed Error: Insufficient storage available to create either the shadow copy storage file or other shadow copy data.
In the event viewer I see this error
EventID: 521 The backup operation that started at 'TIME’ has failed because the Volume Shadow Copy Service operation to create a shadow copy of the volumes being backed up failed with following error code '0x80780119'. Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.
This problem was not happening in our test setup using Server 2012 R2 MSDN copy, before rolling out to production using our Volume license copy of server. So as a test I installed two VMs on a Host(MSDN) server running HyperV, one VM using our MSDN copy and one with our Volume license copy of server, very simple install, install Windows backup, attach VHDx file as E: dive and attempt bare metal backup. The MSDN copy is able to perform the bare metal backup. The Volume license copy fails with the above errors.
Has anyone else run into this problem? Or any ideas on where to look to see the differences between the two VMs that is stopping the backup from completing?
EDIT:
I have since verified this on two different servers, VM installed with MSDN copy of server 2012 R2 work for bare metal backups, VMs installed with purchased Volume license copies of Server 2012 R2 do not work for bare metal backups, another bit of info on the server that cant perform bare metal backups, its able to back up C: drive fine, its not until I hit bare metal back up that it fails.
I found this post which is similar to my problem I think, but when I tried his fix, and attempted to recover the VM the Windows PE System image recovery said it couldn't find a image to recover. https://superuser.com/questions/663782/windows-8-1-insufficient-storage-available-to-create-shadow-copy