"Error 0x8000ffff: Catastrophic failure" when you try to change Shadow Copy settings for a drive in Windows Server 2008

This article provides a solution to an error (Error 0x8000ffff: Catastrophic failure) that occurs when you change Shadow Copy settings for a drive.

Applies to:   Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
Original KB number:   2973100

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• In Windows Server 2008, you open Windows Explorer, you right-click a drive, and then you click Properties.
• On the Shadow Copies tab, you select a drive letter and then click the Settings button.

In this scenario, you receive the following error message:

Failed to initialize the Settings dialog for volume O:\

Error 0x8000ffff: Catastrophic failure

Additionally, the following event is logged in the Application log:

Log Name: Application Source: VSS Event ID: 12311 Task Category: None Level: Error Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error pResource->get_Disk(&pDisk): hr = 0x80070490.

Cause

This problem occurs if there are disk resources in the failover cluster that don't have a physical disk resource associated with them. This behavior may occur if you take a disk resource offline and remove the associated disk from the server, but you don't delete the disk resource in the failover cluster.

Resolution

In the failover cluster, delete the disk resource that no longer has a physical disk associated with it.