Solved Partition Nightmare

Hello all,

This is my first post on the forum, so please forgive me if this is in the wrong area.

I bought a new Dell Inspiron 17R SE 7720 a few weeks ago for work/school. This was my first Windows 8 machine, and I was excited to get everything up and running. One of the first things I like to do after I get all of my programs installed is a system image. I navigated to the Windows 7 File Recovery to start my system image. I began the image, and everything seemed to be going smoothly.

An hour later, I came back to see how it was doing. I was greeted with a "Failed Backup - Not enough storage" message, error code 0x81000033.

After a little research, I found out that this has to do with the OEM reserved partition that Dell is placing on their machines - apparently, they are not making it big enough for any backups or system images to be performed.

After the Windows 7 backup and image failed, I figured I'd give Acronis a try, but received the same error: Not enough space.

I called Dell, since I have "Premium Phone Support" for a short time after purchasing a new PC, but they weren't much help. I asked to send the laptop back to have the drive partitioned correctly, but they refused, and told me that this was how all of their systems were partitioned - undoubtedly a ploy to get users to purchase the Premium version of their backup and restore program.

So, I am left with what seems to be two options: 1) Clean install of Windows 8, and 2) Deleting the OEM reserved partition entirely.

Right now I am leaning toward the clean install, but I am worried about getting the mSATA SSD to function as a dedicated cache again (it utilizes Intel RapidStart and RapidStore) - I've heard horror stories about this.

Anyways, I was just hoping somebody might have some advice for me, as this makes me a bit nervous.

Try performing the backup to an external storage device.

Deleting the OEM partitions is a great way to temporarily ruin your life later in the future when you end up needing it. Plus a clean install of windows 8 will create 3 hidden partitions anyway so... effort for nothing if you ask me.

Yah - The System backup is not supposed to be stored in that "recovery" partition, unless you do it the moment you get the machine. That's how they design em, they make the partition just big enough to store the recovery files that came on the thing to begin with.

XweAponX said:

Yah - The System backup is not supposed to be stored in that "recovery" partition, unless you do it the moment you get the machine. That's how they design em, they make the partition just big enough to store the recovery files that came on the thing to begin with.

Click to expand...

The Recovery image has already been made by dell, & place in the Recovery Partition.

You obviously want to make an image which includes updates, your own settings, installed programs, etc.

Try excluding the oem recov partition from the image backup.

The oem may have cut it so tight there isn't room for vss.

If Acronis is having trouble even after excluding the oem partition, then try another solution.

I would use a 3rd party program for that - there are several free ones - macrium free is popular.

If you are considering buying one - Paragon works very well.

Thank you for the replies!

Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear enough in my first post. I have been trying to perform my image/backup to an external device, with more than enough storage - so the error message doesn't really make sense. It's just everything that I've found online that is telling me that the 40 MB reserved partition is causing the problem. I'm going to try Hiren's with Ghost tonight - I'm hoping that this is a Window's permission issue and that Hiren's will ignore it.

The trouble-making partition is the second from the left on the first hard disk.

(I hope this doesn't turn out as tiny as it looks as I'm posting)

I'm going to try Hiren's with Ghost tonight

Click to expand...

Ghost has NO SUPPORT for Windows 8, you would need to use the Ghost replacement SSR Desktop Edition

* Now Released * Symantec System Recovery 2013 | Symantec Connect Community

same problem with samung too

You will have to exclude the 40mb partition if you are using vss snapshot technology.

There may be something similar on samsung - partition must have enough space for vss to function. Even a large partition can be too full.

Imaging programs will usually have their own snapshot drivers to use instead:




AOMEI Backupper ? free disk imaging and cloning software, backup and recovery for your computer.


Alternatively, if you want to image the entire hd - do it from outside windows using boot media which includes the imaging program.

There is already an existing recovery partirion on your HD created by the manufacturer. It is always better to have an image backup to an external hd because if you had a hd failure, you may have difficulty accessing the image backup from the same hd.
Don't forget also to create a USB recovery media just to be on the safe side.

Good Lord, why is there a 500GB Recovery partition and another ~20GB partition? Is the 500 the target? That drive map does not make any sense, the OEM partition probably contains the Boot Loader, so you can exclude it. The Backup Image MAY be adding that 500 GB Recovery partition to it, which would make it gargantuan.

Thank you all for your input. I was able to successfully image my system by creating a bootable disc in Acronis Backup and Recovery (instead of True Image). I am unable to access the backup data using the installed Acronis application in Windows, but I can get to it using the boot disc, so at least I know it's there now. Well, that's a relief. Thank you guys.

I think you boot using the disk, and it will prompt you for where the backup is located.

XweAponX, yes that's what I ended up trying, but the Windows-installed application gave me the option to restore from backup while my desktop is running. I can live without it, just thought it would be cool if that worked. I have no qualms about booting/restoring from disc though.

I do have an update though - Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 doesn't seem to work with Windows 8. It imaged the drive fine, but I was unable to write the files back to my hard disk after creating the image. Scary!

I've read about Acronis True Image 2013 working with Windows 8, so I created a boot disc and will be giving that a shot (I have not had success with a previous version of True Image, but this will be my first time giving 2013 a shot).

So, it looks like Dell (and Samsung, apparently) haven't left us with many options when it comes to backing up and recovering data. At least Acronis didn't have any issues with imaging the OEM reserved partition, which was the main issue all along. So I suppose that issue is solved. Now it's down to finding a program that is compatible with Windows 8.

I'll post an update when I find something that works, in case anyone runs into this issue down the road.

Hey guys, thats not a 500GB partition, its a 500MB partition.

A system image is @ 31GB , I recommend creating a new partition in your data drive of about 50GB and make your image there.

Thank you for your reply. I was really hoping to get the image onto an external drive. I'm not so much worried about wrecking the OS as I am my laptop being damaged/stolen.

True Image 2013 couldn't have gone much worse. The bootable media wouldn't even entertain the idea of imaging my disk.

Guess I'm off to NERO 12. I wasn't really looking to spend this much just trying to image my drive

I'll report back.

Is your ext harddrive listed in the Disk Mgmt? Is it the D: 931GB drive?

Make a smaller partition on it 50-60GB and try again, theres no reason for that not enough space error,,

Hi Brooklyn,

My laptop has two hard disks, that's just the other one.

I've tried backing up to an external 1TB hard drive with around 700 gigs of free space, which is definitely more than enough.. Also tried an empty 3TB. The "not enough storage space" has something to do with the 40 MB OEM reserved partition. From what SIW2 is saying, it sounds like Dell crammed the small partition too full of data for vss to work, which is causing the entire disk image to fail.

I've decided to try Macrium Reflect 5.1 before I go over to NERO. I created the recovery media in a Windows PE environment from which I will try to execute the image. It gives the option to image while Windows is running, but with everything that's been going wrong I would prefer cold imaging now. From everything I've read, it seems to be working for people, though there is not a lot of information out on the newest build of Macrium.

Thank you all for your continued help...

I'll post back with results.

Dont give up the ship!

How big is the external drive?

Have you attempted to make it on your D: drive just to see if its a size issue or an external device issue?

I believe your partition is too big for making an image, could be some safeguards built in, please try making a small partition 50 - 60 GB and try the image then..

Troubleshooting can be frustrating, but im willing if you are..

Oh trust me, I'm not giving up anytime soon! Having an image set aside is pretty much necessary for me. One external is 1TB, the other 3TB. I haven't tried it on the D:, but I can verify that both external drives are undamaged - they're practically brand new.

I can create a partition, but isn't the image just saved as a file (or two)? I'll give it a shot, though.

I was able to create an image of all drives excluding D: with Acronis Backup and Restore, but it would not write the data back to the drive, which I believe to be a Windows 8 compatibility issue with the version of Acronis I was using.

I haven't had a chance to try the Macrium rescue disk with Windows PE, but I have high hopes. If I have enough time I will try it tonight

Thanks for your help.