Is there a resolution for the VSS / locked PST problem?

[Digidt]

A lot of people seem to have this problem but I never see a resolution stated.

For those of you who don't know, there's a bug/issue/problem with VSS and Outlook PST files. VSS (Volume Shadow Service) is supposed to allow backup programs like VV to copy open/locked files like databases and PST files, but for some reason VV fails when trying to copy open PST files.

Here's my configuration, errors and outputs:

Configuration
Client - Windows XP Pro SP2, NTFS, Outlook 2003
Server - Windows Server 2003 SP2 R2, NTFS
VV - VV Pro2 build 2018
Network - gigabit

Errors
[WARNING] "\\<servername>\Users\" file system does not support file security attributes. File security attributes will not be copied.
Creating Volume Shadow Copy for C: ... [Volume Shadow Copy creation failed for C:. The system cannot find the path specified.]
[Volume Shadow Copy creation failed for C:. The system cannot find the path specified.] Error
Copying file C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\Mail\<username>.pst <to> \\<servername>\Users\<username>\My Documents Backup X64\Mail\<username>.pst (1.35GB) (Overwriting) ... [Can not read data. The process cannot access the file because another process has locked a portion of the file.] [ERROR].

Output
U:\>vssadmin list shadows
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.

No shadow copies present in the system.


U:\>vssadmin list writers
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.

Writer name: 'MSDEWriter'
Writer Id: {f8544ac1-0611-4fa5-b04b-f7ee00b03277}
Writer Instance Id: {e90dde6c-a85b-497d-8be2-4a095fffe9fc}
State: [1] Stable

Writer name: 'Microsoft Writer (Service State)'
Writer Id: {e38c2e3c-d4fb-4f4d-9550-fcafda8aae9a}
Writer Instance Id: {808c73d6-7a13-4ab7-a790-432219fd3244}
State: [1] Stable

Writer name: 'Microsoft Writer (Bootable State)'
Writer Id: {f2436e37-09f5-41af-9b2a-4ca2435dbfd5}
Writer Instance Id: {f69897a9-6d6f-4461-a94f-de93533201dd}
State: [1] Stable

Writer name: 'WMI Writer'
Writer Id: {a6ad56c2-b509-4e6c-bb19-49d8f43532f0}
Writer Instance Id: {a6e529ba-220e-4f9d-83e6-ce9033101117}
State: [1] Stable

U:\>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.

Provider name: 'MS Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7


Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
-Dell

[TGRMN Software]

Hello

Can you try this test, please, thanks.

The following is a Microsoft tool which creates Volume Shadow Copies in the same manner ViceVersa PRO does:
http://www.tgrmn.com/web/downloads/test/vshadow.exe

Please download it and from the command line type

vshadow c:

This command will create and then remove a shadow copy.
Please paste output here, thanks!
_________________
--
TGRMN Software Support
http://www.tgrmn.com
http://www.compareandmerge.com

[digidt]

Sorry about the delay. Here's the vshadow.exe output:

VSHADOW.EXE 2.2 - Volume Shadow Copy sample client
Copyright (C) 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

(Option: Create shadow copy set)
(Gathering writer metadata...)
(Waiting for the asynchronous operation to finish...)
Initialize writer metadata ...
Discover directly excluded components ...
- Excluding writer 'MSDEWriter' since it has no selected components for restore.
Discover components that reside outside the shadow set ...
Discover all excluded components ...
Discover excluded writers ...
Discover explicitly included components ...
Verifying explicitly specified writers/components ...
Select explicitly included components ...
* Writer 'Microsoft Writer (Service State)':
- Add component \Content Indexing Service
- Add component \Config Directory
- Add component \Event Logs
* Writer 'Microsoft Writer (Bootable State)':
- Add component \COM+ Registration Database
- Add component \Registry
* Writer 'WMI Writer':
- Add component \WMI
Creating shadow set {190aba3d-b115-4aac-aeeb-b69ef4208f2e} ...
- Adding volume \\?\Volume{c8063ec4-780e-11dc-9d94-806d6172696f}\ [C:\] to the shadow set...
Preparing for backup ...
(Waiting for the asynchronous operation to finish...)
(Waiting for the asynchronous operation to finish...)
Creating the shadow (DoSnapshotSet) ...
(Waiting for the asynchronous operation to finish...)
(Waiting for the asynchronous operation to finish...)
Shadow copy set succesfully created.

List of created shadow copies:

Querying all shadow copies with the SnapshotSetID {190aba3d-b115-4aac-aeeb-b69ef4208f2e} ...

* SNAPSHOT ID = {6785cd56-a096-41ed-8e10-fb1bab52be5e} ...
- Shadow copy Set: {190aba3d-b115-4aac-aeeb-b69ef4208f2e}
- Original count of shadow copies = 1
- Original Volume name: \\?\Volume{c8063ec4-780e-11dc-9d94-806d6172696f}\ [C:\]
- Creation Time: 11/6/2007 4:25:24 PM
- Shadow copy device name: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy1
- Originating machine: (null)
- Service machine: (null)
- Not Exposed
- Provider id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
- Attributes: Auto_Release

- Mark all writers as succesfully backed up...
Completing the backup (BackupComplete) ...
(Waiting for the asynchronous operation to finish...)
(Waiting for the asynchronous operation to finish...)

Snapshot creation done.

[digidt]

bump

[digidt]

So I attempted to repair the problem tonight to no avail.

Here's what I did:
First I tried reinstalling Volume Shadow Services 7.2 from microsoft. Nothing.

Then I tried running the vssreset script. Nothing.

Then I did an XP repair. Nothing.

Here's the thing though; sometimes it works. I'll attempt a backup, it will fail, I'll close Outlook and VV pro and then start them backup and the backup will go through. But if I do that same procedure with VVengine, it doesn't work. Which doesn't make sense since vvengine is just a scheduler and is using vvpro on the backend.

But now I think VSS is hosed because I'm getting an error that says "vss_e_provider_veto" and the causes for this error don't apply to my configuration (a FAT32 partition, etc).

It's not a problem that I'm copying from a hard drive (source) to a network share (destination) is it?

Anywho, my next step is to wipe everything out and start fresh. Which, believe me, I do not what to do. But it's the bosses' computer and it's gotta work. sigh.

[TGRMN Software]

Could this error be due to some other software installed on this specific machine? I am thinking of a volume that contains a Microsoft SQL Server database and the recovery model of the SQL Server database is configured to use an option that is different from Simple.
_________________
--
TGRMN Software Support
http://www.tgrmn.com
http://www.compareandmerge.com

[TGRMN Software]

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