TeraByte Unlimited

I'm trying to schedule monthly full backups at 2:45 AM. So far, I've gotten 3 failures. The IFW log says the error code is 207. The Windows Task Scheduler "Last Run Result" is (0xCF)

The scheduled task is set to "Run even if user is not logged in."

Note that:

1) This backup ran successfully in manual mode, and
2) I scheduled a very small backup with similar parameters that ran successfully 3 out of 3 times.

Here are the last few lines of the IFW log from the last attempt.

[01/13/2026 02:45:05 AM] \Users\Default User\Local Settings\Application Data\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache\*.*
[01/13/2026 02:45:05 AM] \Users\LogMeInRemoteUser\Local Settings\Application Data\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache\*.*
[01/13/2026 02:45:05 AM] \Users\Public\Local Settings\Application Data\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache\*.*
[01/13/2026 02:45:05 AM] \Users\test\Local Settings\Application Data\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache\*.*
[01/13/2026 02:45:05 AM] [VSS END]
[01/13/2026 02:45:24 AM] Backup: Drive 0 (RAID) ESP Partition (01) 150 MiB EFI System (FAT-32)
[01/13/2026 02:45:24 AM] Target File: D:\Image Win 11\Backup-w0-2026-01-13-0245.TBI
[01/13/2026 02:45:24 AM] Total Sectors:307,200 (150 MiB) Sectors to Process:183,160 (89.43 MiB)
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] 183,160 Sector(s) (89.43 MiB) backed up
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] Backup: Drive 0 (RAID) Microsoft reserved parti Partition (02) 128 MiB Microsoft Reserved
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] Target File: D:\Image Win 11\Backup-w0-2026-01-13-0245.TBI
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] Total Sectors:262,144 (128 MiB) Sectors to Process:262,144 (128 MiB)
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] 262,144 Sector(s) (128 MiB) backed up
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] Backup: Drive 0 (RAID) (C:) OS Partition (03) 459.19 GiB NTFS
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] Target File: D:\Image Win 11\Backup-w0-2026-01-13-0245.TBI
[01/13/2026 02:45:26 AM] Total Sectors:962,998,272 (459.19 GiB) Sectors to Process:533,727,936 (254.5 GiB)
[01/13/2026 03:01:08 AM] Deleting incomplete or failed backup.
[01/13/2026 03:01:08 AM] Deleting D:\Image Win 11\Backup-w0-2026-01-13-0245.TBI
[01/13/2026 03:01:18 AM] Elapsed 0:00:16:16
[01/13/2026 03:01:18 AM] Operation Completed with Error Code 207 (Failed)
[01/13/2026 03:01:19 AM] The VSS device is no longer available for use. This is probably due to a failure by a VSS writer or VSS provider.
[01/13/2026 03:01:19 AM] Stop

Any help getting this image backup to work in scheduled mode would be greatly appreciated.

The Windows Event Log would show more information vss reports. May just be running out of space - or something else interfering at that time creating another snapshot.

Also see:
https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/kb ... vent-4001/
https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/kb ... ng-backup/

I'm a novice in this area. Please help me understand the error messages below.

The Windows Event Viewer shows the following VSS error 2 seconds after the backup was scheduled to start.

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: {c5176bea-db36-4832-8837-8da39edf80c1}

There are 2 more VSS errors about 16 minutes after the scheduled start as follows:

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: The shadow copy could not be committed - operation timed out. Error context: DeviceIoControl(\\?\Volume{c53cc054-a5d3-4fa3-ac5e-2e069faf923e} - 00000000000003D8,0x0053c010,0000023D2F544C60,0,0000023D2F54A160,4096,[0]).

Operation:
Committing shadow copies

Context:
Execution Context: System Provider

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: The I/O writes cannot be held during the shadow copy creation period on volume C:\. The volume index in the shadow copy set is 0. Error details: Open[0x00000000, The operation completed successfully.
], Flush[0x00000000, The operation completed successfully.
], Release[0x80042314, The shadow copy provider timed out while holding writes to the volume being shadow copied. This is probably due to excessive activity on the volume by an application or a system service. Try again later when activity on the volume is reduced.
], OnRun[0x00000000, The operation completed successfully.
].

Operation:
Executing Asynchronous Operation

Context:
Current State: DoSnapshotSet

The first one you can ignore as shown in the second kb link.

The others are the problem. Maybe you have something running, like defrag or something else that does heavy writes at that time. presuming D: is a separate drive and not one of the ones being backed up. Also check freespace on your ntfs drives.

See what else is scheduled to run at that time. Or consider changing the time to run after whatever else is running.

An IFW image of my C: drive (which has my Win 11 OS, programs, and data) is scheduled at 2:45 AM. My D: drive is the target.

I have two 4 GB external hard drives (D: and E:). Every night I run Second Copy, which makes backup copies of all my data files on both external drives. There are Second Copy tasks scheduled at 2:35 AM and 4:45 AM. My Second Copy log indicates that the 2:35 AM task was completed at 2:35:15 AM (within 15 seconds). Therefore, none of my Second Copy tasks were running at the IFW backup scheduled start time of 2:45 AM.

I noticed that Carbonite uses the VSS service every 5 minutes or so. Could that be what's interfering with IFW?

Volume Shadow Copy Service information: Snapshot creation initiated for Snapshot Set {ed20e194-2230-461e-bdb3-ba4336a6c405}.
Process command line: "C:\Program Files\Carbonite\Carbonite Backup\carboniteservice.exe"
Process Caller Stack:
Process[0]: CarboniteService.exe
Process[1]: services.exe
Process[2]: wininit.exe

I just found a setting in Carbonite to pause backups for certain times of day. I paused it from 2:30 AM to 4:00 AM. Let's see if it runs tonight.

You might also consider switching from VSS to PHYLock...

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/kb ... o-phylock/

I've used PHYLock for years with no issues.

Thanks, OldNavyGuy. That's a great suggestion.

First I'm going to see if pausing Carbonite works tonight.

IFW backup image run successfully last night. Pausing Carbonite fixed the problem.

Thanks for all the help and support.