Event Viewer details Event Type: Error Event Source: ESENT Event Category: Logging/Recovery Event ID: 215 Date: 10/2/2012 Time: 16:22:08 User: N/A Computer: EXCHANGE Description: certsrv.exe (1760) The backup has been stopped because it was halted by the client or the connection with the client failed. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Event Type: Error Event Source: vmwriter Event Category: None Event ID: 109 Date: 10/2/2012 Time: 16:22:18 User: N/A Computer: EXCHANGE Description: The description for Event ID ( 109 ) in Source ( vmwriter ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: VmVssWriter: stopping backup due to external request. I can perform backups of the exchange data store with no issues, attempting just system state results in this.

Check the below KB articles. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927654 I would have ask here. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverfiles/threads Thanks

Hello, Thank you for your post. According to the following KB article, the Event 215 can be safely ignored. You should verify that the backup did complete and you can teswt restoring a file. Event ID 215 is logged after you use the NTBackup utility to perform a system state backup on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927654/en-us If you have any concerns on the above, please feel free to post back and I am happy to answer any of your questions. TechNet

Hello, Thank you for your post. According to the following KB article, the Event 215 can be safely ignored. You should verify that the backup did complete and you can teswt restoring a file. Event ID 215 is logged after you use the NTBackup utility to perform a system state backup on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927654/en-us If you have any concerns on the above, please feel free to post back and I am happy to answer any of your questions. TechNet

I'll attempt this again, it hangs on the status, "Waiting to retry shadow copy..."

It successfully completed, thanks for your help guys.