System Image Backups Failure

I am facing a strange issue here. My OS is running smoother and faster and there is no issue whatsoever. The only thing that is bugging me now is that I cannot create backup no matter what I do. I had a very bad experience with Acronis and several other programs in the past. So for a reliable backup I always use Windows own recovery feature and till now it has worked flawlessly. The problem at the moment is that I just cannot make any System Image Backups. The OS reboots in the middle of the process while windows is creating backup and when it has rebooted, there is nothing to be found. This is very strange as the OS itself has no issues at all (double checked with Avira and Malwarebytes). I guessed that it might be some sort of corruption so I ran SFC Scan. Bingo, SFC Scan detected the component corruption and I was glad that at last my problem would be solved. I rebooted OS when SFC Scan displayed a message that it had repaired the system. What happened next was totally unexpected, THE OS didn't boot at all. My sony Vaio laptop just kept on blinking the blank screen. I then clicked on VAIO ASSIST button in order to start Recovery Environment. To my surprise, even the Recovery Partition had been screwed up. In order to perform System Restore (I had created one manually), I had to insert and use WindowsRepairDisk. Having restored my system I decided to run DISM Scan.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

This command found and fixed errors and suggested system restart

I was expecting my system to freeze up at boot in the same way as it had happened with SFC command. But this time the OS booted normally and everything seemed normal. Thinking, that the problem must have been resolved by DISM, I ventured to create System Image Backup again. But the problem is still there and every time I try to create backup, the OS just reboots, making it impossible to create backups. As a blind shot, I also tried Macrium Reflect & Paragon Hard Disk Manager. But the results were same every time. Right now, I have an old windows Image Backup which I could just restore and resolve this issue once and for all. But I wish to know that why this strange thing is happening. If installing new software has created this issue, then only Chrome and Opera are to be blamed since I haven't installed anything apart from that. Besides, I use security products like Sandboxie, TimeFreeze, Avira and Malwarebytes. As far as web surfing is concerned, I use SandBoxed FireFox with advanced safety features and security Addons activated. I just don't get it. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

SONY VAIO
OS: Windows 8 64bit
RAM 4 GB
HDD 1 TB

Winkey r
services.msc

If volume shadow copy is not running try to start it

If it starts, try your image backup. You can back up a running system because vss diverts system changes to a cache file while the real system files are being accessed. If it doesn't run or work properly you have to boot an OS to back up the HD.

If things still won't work I would advise going with your instinct and restoring your good image file. If you do automatic Windows Updates that could be what hosed things. If not then you need to look elsewhere for the cause.

MilesAhead, thank you for the suggestion. I enabled VSC service and tried to create backup, first using windows backup and then with Paragon Hard Disk Manager. But the results are same. I think the only solution would be to restore my previous image. Thank You.......

You are welcome. Thanks for posting the results.