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I converted 2 of my drives to be a mirrored storage space on windows 10. I am using ReFS. This drive is d drive.

When I create a restore point the dialog that comes up does not have d drive in it.

enter image description here

Thus I cannot configure the shadow copy space allocation for that drive, or turn system protection on or off. I used to be able to do this when the drives were separate and NTFS.

My aim is to schedule a daily restore point using the powershell Checkpoint-Computer command. But I assume that this drive won't be included if I can't configure it in the system restore dialog?

Why is it missing? Is there some kind of issue with storage spaces or ReFS? I suspect not because my backup program is creating a snapshot of that d drive when running a backup.

I found some information about enabling drives for system restore in powershell,

enter image description here

But again no luck. I found others online saying that I should run powershell as administrator, which I am doing, and also to check the drive exists, and this follows,

enter image description here

Update:

I tried this command as suggested. I double checked I was using an elevated command prompt,

vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=D: /on=D: /maxsize=100GB

And this is what I get,

enter image description here

Looks like this is only for server versions of windows.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43276093/windows-10-how-to-create-shadow-storage-on-another-drive-without-vssadmin-create

peter
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  • Perhaps you simply need to enable Volume Shadows on the "D" partition with elevated command such as: **1.** `vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=D: /on=D: /maxsize=100GB` to define it, then **2.** `vssadmin create shadow /for=D:` to create it? You can always change it once created such as: `vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=C: /on=C: /maxsize=50GB`... Give it a shot and look over https://ss64.com/nt/vssadmin.html when you get a chance. – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Oct 16 '17 at 06:04
  • This doesn't work on windows 10 as per the above. Maybe I am out of luck. – peter Oct 17 '17 at 07:17
  • Be sure you are running the command from an elevated command prompt with run as administrator. Maybe try creating with **#2** first but be sure to change the `C:` to `D:` or whatever you need as well as the `50GB` value to whatever you need—this will accept percentage too. It should work with Windows 10 just fine. Tag me back if you find out otherwise and I will do testing later but specify what `winver` you are running. I could be wrong but tag me back as I'm gonna be busy for a few and will forget otherwise/ – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Oct 17 '17 at 12:25
  • I don't think System Restore evaluates drives formatted as anything other than NTFS, possibly with exceptions for the System partition. What file system is your C: drive formatted as? A good test would be to add two new drives - one as NTFS and the other as ReFS. – root Oct 17 '17 at 19:35
  • This was working with my d drive when it was a single drive as NTFS. But since then I have made it ReFS, and added it to a storage space. Either one of those two things must have caused this. Yes I am running it as elevated command prompt. Shadow copies do work with ReFS and storage space as my backup program is creating a temporary shadow copy of that drive when backing up. This seems to be a MS imposed limitation which is not present on server versions of the OS. – peter Oct 19 '17 at 20:14

1 Answers1

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1 Create shadow storage

1.1 The System protection tab in System Properties

  • this GUI only lists NTFS volumes, so you can't create shadow storage for ReFS volume there
  • instead try one of:
    • vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=D: /on=D: /maxsize=100GB (Windows Server only)
      • alternatively for non-server Windows editions try vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=D: /on=D: /maxsize=10% that will add shadow storage if it does not exist and thus is comparable to vssadmin add
    • wmic shadowstorage call create Volume=D:\ DiffVolume=D:\ MaxSpace=20
      • if this command returns ReturnValue = 10 (which is Unknown error) workaround follows
    • wmic shadowcopy call create Volume=D:\
      • creating shadow copy on disk without shadow storage will create one automatically
      • you can resize the shadow storage with vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=D: /on=D: /maxsize=10%

1.2 List shadow storages

  • make sure the shadow storage is there and configured using one of:
    • vssadmin list shadowstorage
    • wmic shadowstorage list

2 Create shadow copy

2.1 Create shadow copy

  • you want to use scheduled system protection feature, but for now just take a snapshot manually:
    • wmic shadowcopy call create Volume=D:\

2.2 List shadow copies

  • verify the snapshot was created:
    • vssadmin list shadows /for=D:

3 Mount shadow copy

  • since you are using Storage Spaces, you won't see snapshots in Previous versions tab in disk/file properties
  • but the snapshots exists and can be mounted as a folder
  • this shortage apply for both NTFS and ReFS Storage Spaces
  • to mount a snapshot you will need shadow ID, shadow path and temporary folder

3.1 Get shadow copy ID

  • vssadmin list shadows /for=D:
    • look for something like this Shadow Copy ID: {5cc29315-0379-415e-8496-69923618e3de}

3.2 Get shadow copy path

  • wmic shadowcopy where "ID='{5cc29315-0379-415e-8496-69923618e3de}'" get DeviceObject
  • or vssadmin list shadows /for=D:
    • look for Shadow Copy Volume: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy624

3.3 Mount shadow copy as folder

  • mklink /j %tmp%\shadow \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy624\
    • note the extra \ at the end
    • the shadow copy is now available in %tmp%\shadow
Vlastimil Ovčáčík
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  • This was successfully tested on [Windows 10 Pro v1607 b14393](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_version_history#Rings) on [ReFS 1.2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReFS#Version_history_and_compatibility) formatted 3 disk Storage Space in two-way mirror configuration with integrity streams enabled. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Oct 23 '17 at 13:45
  • Also tested on [Windows 10 Pro for Workstations v1709 b16299](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_version_history#Rings) with [ReFS 3.3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReFS#Version_history_and_compatibility). – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Oct 26 '17 at 12:03
  • @peter thanks. It got bit long, but there are some useful bits. The tldr for you would be just this: `vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=D: /on=D: /maxsize=10%`. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Nov 11 '17 at 10:06