Windows 7: Hello people, I have several questions(Back up related)

I read that link marsmimar suggested, it feels too dangerous for me =s

So basically, I am left with no other options other than to use a 3rd party software?

It looks a bit tight on your System reserved partition. I guess that is the cause. If you don't feell comfortable following Marsimar's suggestion the a third party backup solution is the preferable one. I use Macrium Reflect. It is highly regarded by many here. The link is in my signature. There is a good tutorial by WHS here. Imaging with free Macrium

I think there's enough room on the System Reserved partition. It shows 69MB (69%) free space. On my machine I've got 54MB (54%) free space. So I think System Protection needs to be checked. And it's relatively easy. If I can do it, anybody can do it!

-Click Start > type in Create. A list if items will appear.
-Select "Create a restore point". A new dialog box will appear called System Properties.
-Make sure "Protection" is On for C: System.
-Regardless if it's On or Off, click the "Configure" button.



-Another dialog box will open called System Protection for Local Disk C:
-Under "Restore Settings" select the first option (Restore system settings...)
-If "Protection" was previous Off it will now be On
-Check "Current Usage" and "Max Usage". As I understand it, Current Usage tells you how much hard drive space is currrently being used for restore points and Volume Shadow Copies. Max Usage tells you how much total hard drive space is set aside for restore points and Volume Shadow Copies.
-Use the slide control to set Max Usage. I think the default is 10% of total hard drive size. So on a 1TB (1000GB) drive you're looking at about 100GB being set aside. That might be overkill if you're running low on hard drive space. (I've got mine set to 2% and I have no problems using the Windows 7 built in imaging tool to create my system images. Right now I have 2 restore points set and 3 system images. I've used less than 2GB for all of that. You can play around with this setting and optimize it for your machine.)
-Click OK to save settings and close dialog boxes

It might also be worth checking the Volume Shadow Copy service.

type services in the search box and select Services from the list. Scroll down to Volume Shadow Copy and check that it is set to start manually.

One other option you have is to move the bootmgr from the system reserved partition to the C partition. Then you can get rid of the system reserved and it will not stand in the way. Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

If you use free Macrium (which I highly recommend), moving the bootmgr to C makes life a lot easier. Imaging with free Macrium

No luck for me, the system protection was already on, and I had 80GB+ of free space set aside left still, the shadow volume service was running too =(

I'm just wondering if you have any damaged or corrupted system files. You could try running a System File Checker scan from an elevated command prompt (option two, this tutorial.) If any problems are found, run the scan 3 times, rebooting in between each scan.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

I did that before doing a complete clean reinstall, then I thought of imaging the computer to save myself from future problems such as this =(

I tried a couple of other native backup options, all of them seems to point to the problem of unable to create a shadow volume, any ideas?

Please accept my apology for some clarification. I'm just trying to wrap my one brain cell around this problem.

OK, if I'm understanding this correctly, you ran SFC before doing a complete clean reinstall. Then after you did the complete clean reinstall you decided to try imaging the computer. I'm guessing that after you did the complete clean reinstall, you also installed all Windows Updates, added your personalized settings, installed various programs, etc.

At any time after doing all of this, and before trying to create a system image, did you check system integrity by running another SFC? It wouldn't be the first time that a clean reinstall suffered a glitch during the installation process, or that Windows Updates damaged some system files, or that any of the newly downloaded/installed programs messed something up.

You are correct, I did not run another check after installing all the updates, might as well try, then I plan on trying this:

Unable to create system image or restore point