In the last few days, our Vista computer backups have started failing. The message is always the same: "A shadow copy could not be created for the following reason: The creation of a shadow copy has timed out. Try again this operation (0x81000101)" I am convinced this is related to a worm/virus or a recent Microsoft patch/update, but so far I can find no evidence of any infection on the computers in question. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hi, thanks for the post. As the issue can be caused by shadow copy, I suggest we first try the steps below to disable system restore and see the result: 1. Click Start, type "sysdm.cpl" and press Enter. 2. Under System Protection tab, disable restore points in each disks. Note: all previous restore points will be lost. 3. Press OK. 4. Restart the computer and see if the backup function works. If so, we can then re-enable system restore. Hope this helps!Sean Zhu - MSFT

Sorry, Sean I have tried all the easy stuff. (But an interesting thing was that vssadmin list shadows was MISSING the C drive, even though it was checked in System Restore). Actually my computer is working again (for the moment at least) after I tried a parade of things. (Could this be somehow DNS-related? I've been fighting some DNS issues with group policy as well). Perhaps resetting the repository worked in combination with turning system restore off and on) I have several other computers here all with the same issue, so I am trying different things on them trying to find the right combination of events. We have determined that this all happened after we updated our Windows 2003 servers with a huge number of patches (they hadn't been connected to the internet ever), and rebooted them. Still looking for the definitive answer, though so further input would be appreciated

Thanks for the update. Have you installed Service Pack on those Windows Vista computers? If not, please install it and see the result. If this issue still occurs, we can try to repair the system: 1. Insert the windows Vista DVD and reboot the system. 2. Press the space bar when Press any key to boot to CD or DVD appears 3. When the system comes to the option to install windows, there are two links at the bottom; choose the option Repair your computer 4. The system will locate the Windows Vista installation and show you drive it is located on. If it is not showing, and you have a non-standard SCSI or RAID controller, you will need to load the drivers for it to show. Once it is there, highlight it and click Next. 5. On the menu that appears, click Startup repair. The window will state that it is checking for problems, and prompt you to continue when it finds one to correct. Once it is done, it will prompt you to click finish to reboot. Remove the DVD from the drive and click Finish.Sean Zhu - MSFT