Article ID: 833779 - Last Review: December 3, 2007 - Revision: 1.3

You receive an "Unable to create a shadow copy" error after you remove a volume in Windows Server 2003.

If you remove a volume when the Shadow Copies of Shared Folders feature is turned on, the application event log may log an event that is similiar to the following event for each subsequent shadow copy for that volume:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: VSS
Event ID: 7001
Computer: Computername Description: VssAdmin: Unable to create a shadow copy:
Either the specified volume was not found or it is not a local volume.
'C:\WINNT\system32\vssadmin.exe Create Shadow /AutoRetry=5 /For=\\?\Volume{volume}\'.

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CAUSE

The Shadow Copies of Shared Folders feature uses scheduled tasks to create shadow copies on a user-defined schedule. The application event log error occurs because the scheduled tasks cannot find the missing volume.

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RESOLUTION

To prevent this issue, turn off the Shadow Copies of Shared Folders feature before you remove a volume. To resolve this issue if it has already occurred, follow these steps:

Turn off the Shadow Copies of Shared Folders feature.
Open the Task Scheduler, and then remove any remaining shadow copy tasks. Shadow copy tasks appear similar to "VSSVolumeGUID" or "ShadowCopyVolumeVolumeGUID".

Note The name of the scheduled task is the same as the name of the Volume Shadow Copy service task resource that is associated with the scheduled task.
Turn on the Shadow Copies of Shared Folders feature.

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