NTBackup may return the following error on Windows Server 2003:
Error returned while creating the volume shadow copy:0xffffffff
This error is because the Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) service has an issue. To fix this, try starting NTBackup after each of the following steps:
- Reboot the server
- Patch your server, then install this hotfix (Details of the hotfix here)
- Set the following services to start automatically, then restart them:
- Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
- Virtual Shadow Copy
- Volume Shadow Copy (VSS)
- Remote Procedure Call (RPCSS)
- COM+ Event System (eventsystem)
- System Event Notification Service (sens)
- Run the following commands in an elevated command prompt (right click command prompt and click Run as administrator:
- Net stop vss
- Net stop swprv
- regsvr32 ole32.dll
- regsvr32 oleaut32.dll
- regsvr32 vss_ps.dll
- vssvc /Register
- regsvr32 /i swprv.dll
- regsvr32 /i eventcls.dll
- regsvr32 stdprov.dll
- regsvr32 es.dll
- regsvr32 vssui.dll
- regsvr32 msxml.dll
- regsvr32 msxml2.dll
- regsvr32 msxml3.dll
- regsvr32 msxml4.dll
- Reboot the server
- Try disabling your antivirus software
- Look through the event log and see if there are any other errors pertaining to Volume Shadow Copy or NTBackup and fix accordingly