Migrate Easy breaks Volume Shadow Copy Service

[rlincoln]

MESSAGE TO ACRONIS

We downloaded a trial version of Migrate Easy and installed it a customers Windows SBS 2003 server. This has caused the volume shadow copy service to fail. The outcome of this is that we can no longer do backups and the VSS service is not performing shadow copies. We have uninstalled the product, reregistered the VSS DLLs and carried out such remedies as we have been able to find on the internet but none of those steps have resolved the problem.

We have asked for technical support a few days ago and were given the above number but have not heard anything except for the computer generated email with the incident number.

This is an URGENT and SERIOUS issue that we need you to fix immediately ! OUR CUSTOMER CANNOT PERFORM ANY BACKUPS !!!!!!

[Max Barry]

Was this issue resolved? We have the exact same issue!

[rlincoln]

We found a solution... The issue is that imaging the hardisk changes the Windows volume information in the registry...

Clear data entires for the following keys: (not don't remove the actual keys)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\STORAGE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Then reboot and the keys will reinitialise. TEST the shadow copy service and NTBackup to determine if that fixes 'everything' look through the event log to be sure. I suggest you also use vssadmin and check the status of everything.

With our own issue, we had messed around so much trying to fix it (without being able to backup anything) that in the end we had to rebuild from scratch.

I think this issue applies to any sort of imaging software and breaking the vss service is a given. Possibly a workaround would be to - PRIOR to imaging, disable the shadow copy service for all drives and disable the vss service in system services. Then turn everything back on once the new hard disk is deployed... (thats an untested theory)

Cheers
R