Error 'Unknown Status' failure after 2021 Upgrade

Have given SONYSYS a drive letter but cannot run a CHKDSK as just get 'Access Denied as you do not have sufficient privileges or the disk may be locked by another process'  'Access is denied'  error when trying to view content in Explorer, however I can see the content in the partition from when the backup was working (up until 4 days ago) by looking in the backup and it consists of a single 'EFI' folder containing 'Acronis', 'Microsoft' and 'Boot' folders so doesn't look like a Sony Tools partition. (Could it be the partition used when using the VAIO's assist button to boot?)

The system was originally Win 8.1 but has ben upgraded to Win 10. There were issues with VAIO Control Center (power settings, keyboard and touchpad settings, display settings) but these were resolved and everything was running well.

When I tried to backup just the SONYSYS partition I got the error 'Already locked'.

Really looking for something that changed between Saturday, when the backup ran, and Sunday, when it didn't. Not sure how that could be anything in the SONYSYS partition, as no updates performed to that partition, but rather a process (an Acronis one possibly?) has locked it. Don't know how to track that down though!

Doing a full shutdown and restart should resolve any locks held by an application as these don't normally survive this type of reboot.

Steve, still not able to access SONYSYS partition in File Explorer and getting 'Already Locked' in ATI Backup even after shutdown and restart. 

Try the following to see if this will allow the partition to be unlocked.

Open an Administrator level Command prompt, then type diskpart

list disk

select disk 0   (or the disk number for where the locked partition is)

list partition

select partition ?  (where ? is the SONYSYS partition number)

delete partition override

exit

The above advice came from webpage here.

After selecting the SONYSYS partition, you can issue the command:

detail partition  to see the current information about the partition before deleting overrides. This will show you the partition label to confirm you have the correct partition.

Steve, according to the DISKPART help, this last command deletes the partition rather than 'unlocks' it.

Sorry, you are correct that the command will delete the partition in the process of removing the locks held for it!  Not quite the solution wanted to just remove the lock!

Looking at your earlier images from MPW, if you have never used / needed to use any Sony tools for this PC, then it may be an idea to remove the partition altogether if you have a full backup that includes it.

You have 2 x 260MB partitions shown, the SONYSYS tools partition, and the expected EFI System Partition, of which only the latter is really needed here.

The options to suggest would be:

Do the delete partition in diskpart then test booting the PC to ensure that all is still OK.

Delete the partition, then restore it from your full backup image.  The downside to bringing it back again may be that it will become locked again!  Not sure either why there should be an Acronis folder shown on this partition either?

DrMopp,

Sorry for the delay in getting back here, life gets in the way sometimes.

I have had success in fixing locked volume/partition issues by booting Windows into Safe mode and then simply restarting the the PC from the Start icon on the desktop.  This is simple to do and I am attaching a link to an MS article giving instructions for you.

In these instructions you should select the "From the sign on screen" method if it does not display automatically when you click on the link.

Win 10 Safe Mode

ATI will lock a disk/partition/volume during the VSS snapshot process of a disk/partition backup task.  Since you have two identical sized partitions this somehow may confuse the app and therefore unlocking the partition does not always happen.  I would think this is unlikely however, given you have experienced this a number of times I believe Acronis support would be interested in what the cause is.

After you restart your PC from Safe Mode try running the backup task again.  If it succeeds then you will know it is definitely the SONYSYS partition at root of the issue.  You will also know that the partition has been unlocked and you can therefore assign a drive letter to the partition and run chkdsk /f against it to fix any errors.

Looking forward to your outcome.

Thanks for all your suggestions, but things have taken a bizarre turn.  I had a thought that restoring an older version of the SONYSYS partition might do the trick, so I attempted to dos so using ATI. I validated the backup before running a partition restore to the same location. ATI stayed 'In progress for several hours and didn't complete. Although there was a 'Cancel' button it had no effect.  In the end I had no choice but to power down the machine. Following that the PC started normally and all seemed well. I tried to run the Entire PC backup (obviously including the SONYSYS partition) and... it ran successfully.

But then the next one, a monthly backup to a different USB disk (same port) failed with the 'Unknown Status' error! 

DrMopp,

Are you still seeing the "locked" error? 

No matter what you have experienced here with your attempted restore you should try the Safe Mode boot/restart procedure.  If that process allows you to complete a backup then you should assign a drive letter to the partition and run chkdsk /f on it.  After that remove the drive letter and run the backup again.  If it succeeds, run it again.  If that succeeds, then it is likely the issue is resolved.  If it fails then I would delete the partition.

Backup failed after the safe mode/restart procedure.  I have an remote login session with Acronis tech support booked for early next week so won't delete the partition just yet.  Thanks for all your time.

Don't quite know why, but having assigned a drive letter to the SONYSYS partition I was finally able to run a CHKDSK /f on it.  Following that, a backup of the SONYSYS partition in isolation ran without the 'already locked' error. I then ran the full backup which again ran with no problems. I have now run two backups without issue, but will wait until a full weeks backups have been successful before considering the issue solved. Thanks once again for your time and interest.

OK so that didn't last long, same issue  backup fails with 'Unknown Status' .  Two different backup tasks, two different backup disks. Faith in Acronis Support at an all time low as they are insisting that CHKDSK on the target drive 'can't run in minutes' (1TB capacity drive just over half full running on USB 3) it did in 246ms to be precise, with no errors found, and that an error 51 on the target drive was the problem, even though that error pre-dated a successful backup, and the Acronis issue occurs with more than one USB hard drive. 

DrMopp,

Event ID 51 is a generic error indicating that an error on disk occurred during a paging operation to or from the disk.  My first question is, which disk is giving you the error? 

There are several reasons for the error.  The link below is a great guide to resolving such issues. Give each suggestion a try depending on what your specific situation is.  This error is a new result and is not related to your previous issues.

Event ID 51

Post back with your findings.

@Enchantech - that's a good question, and apparently not as easy to answer as I thought. I Only have two disks attached at any one time, the C: drive and a USB HDD, which in Disk Management show as Disk 0 and Disk 1 respectively. The event log entry refers to Harddisk1\DR1. I assumed that was Disk 1, but I have seen suggestions that might be a false assumption, but if not, then the problem is with the USB drive, and there are three separate USB drives which are swapped in and out as required for the different backups, and I could not say for certain which one was attached at the time of the error.  There have been several successful backups since the single occurrence of this event so doesn't seem to be related to my current issue, as you say.  All the more annoying that Acronis Tech Support claimed that it was the cause, on the strength of it showing in the System Report..

DrMopp 

Your assumption of the problem error being on disk 1 is correct.   Disk 1 is of course your external drive.   So the question becomes, which of your three external drives is generating the error, and are more than one drive generating the error?

I suggest testing each one.  I would do testing as follows:

1 With PC off, attach a drive and boot the PC and once Windows is fully loaded, check the event viewer for any errors including the code 51. 

After noting errors use the USB icon in the Sys tray to eject the disk.

Repeat with all drives.  

Frustrating outcome I'm afraid. Tested all three drives as suggested, and there were no Event 51's logged.  There are still just the two Event 51's recorded back on the 3rd October both at the same time 10:45:15. Backup is running at the moment but at ridiculously low transfer speed - less than 1Mbps (usually > 100Mbps)

My suggestion, replace the USB cable for the drive.

If the PC is a desktop use a USB port on the mobo i/o panel.

If you have more than one port available on a laptop, try another one.

Hi, Each drive has it's own USB cable, so the only factor common to all backup tasks is the USB port, and unfortunately that is the only USB3 port on the machine (a laptop).  The nightly backup did run to completion though, and validated, averaging 122Mbps which is not too far away from what I was experiencing before. So, because the failures have not been specific to backup task, USB drive or cable, the prime suspects have to be the port, the C: drive or of course the ATH software. One other factor that might be significant is that I have recently changed from Kaspersky to Bitdefender security software  any thoughts? I will try one of the USB 2 ports try check out the port theory.

DrMopp,

Yes, the USB port you're using is suspect.  If you can get a  consistent success result using the  USB ports then that would further suggest the USB 3.0 port being faulty.

My own experience with a similar situation on my own laptop was an internal cable to a USB port becoming loose.  A little disassembly and re-attachment of the internal cable solved the problem. 

Hmm, was just about to add a further post when yours arrived, to the effect that I have run another backup today to another disk (and its cable) connected to the same USB3 port. It flew - relatively, at 392.9Mbps. so either an intermittent fault on the port or back to the 'dodgy disk' theory!

You might try swapping cables, this fast with the slow one and test on the slow drive for comparison.  That would help in determining if it is cable related.

If the problem exists internally (inside the laptop) then swapping cables and disks between themselves can help determine that.

Can't swap the cables as you suggest since the 'slow' disk cable plug is one with the depression in the middle (Type Micro B?), whereas the other is a normal USB Type A plug (but with blue insert so USB 3).  Found another compatible cable and tried that but no improvement in speed.  The slow disk is a Seagate Expansion disk and has always been identified, strangely, as a SCSI disk.  It also appears in Seatools twice, once as SCSI and once as USB. 

Sorry ,this is way off the topic of Acronis, so thanks all for your time and contributions.  At least backups are running now, albeit slowly on one disk :-). 

OK, so back again having drawn a blank with Acronis Support.  The current situation is this, I:-

• Replaced the USB disk cable
• Deleted the daily backup settings (using remove entirely so that backup files were also deleted)
• Re-entered the Backup settings in ATI
• Ran an Entire PC backup

All went well, the backup completed and validated with a speed recorded at just under 495Mbps.

So, convinced the cable was the problem I refitted the old cable, went through he same procedure and immediately got the - Backup failed Unknown Error again. This I thought confirmed it was the cable, BUT I suspect you all know what's coming, I refitted the new cable, went through the same procedure and got the same error.

Before the successful run I had run Seatools tests and HDTune tests on the USB drive which passed all, and the successful backup suggests that the disk is not the problem.

At this point thinking maybe an intermittent connection on the USB port, I moved the disk to a USB 2 port. (only one USB3 on laptop) - same error!  So at a complete loss at this point - any pearls of wisdom appreciated!

Do you have another PC where you could confirm that the USB drive and cable are working fine by creating an equivalent backup task to write to it repeatedly?  That would point the problem to being internal to the first PC, either in hardware or in ATI 2021.

Steve, subsequent to my last posting I tried another disk (and cable) with another backup task (same procedure as before) and got the same error - so chances of it being backup disk, cable or port or pretty slim

Are you still including the SONYSYS partition in your backups here?

Yes, but it was in the successful backup as well.

Have you tried excluding / deselecting that partition again to see if the issue continues?

I haven't yet, no.  Why would it backup successfully once but not the next time?  I'll give it a try though.

DrMopp wrote:

I haven't yet, no.  Why would it backup successfully once but not the next time?  I'll give it a try though.

It shouldn't make a difference but it may do!!

See the paragraph below from another open topic in this forum earlier today:

5) 15Oct(today), Support found that when an OEM partition of Lenovo was included in the backup, backup would fail with error message "Already locked". When this partition was not included (just C: and D:), backup would work.

Terrible feeling of deja-vu here Steve,, I really should have read through my own thread before posting! Yes a disk/partition backup runs just fine if the SONYSYS partition is excluded. So now the speed issue seems to have been resolved (went away when space was freed up on the target drive) do I have a problem? Well, yes - an Entire PC backup which I have been running for months/years without issue suddenly isn't possible, presumably because the SONYSYS partition is corrupt.  I don't know if I need it, but it has a Microsoft/Boot folder and a Boot folder within it, (screen dump attached) so my guess it is used when starting the machine using the 'Assist' button (?). Really would like to repair it rather than just ignore it if at all possible.

Ok, glad that you have established that the SONYSYS partition looks to be at the core of this issue.

Looking at the dates of the folders in that partition going back to 2012 & 2014 predominently suggests to me that the data here never changes and therefore you do not need to include this in every backup providing that you have a good backup of it, either separately or as part of an earlier backup image.

One suggestion would be to boot from the Acronis Rescue Media and try making a backup of just that one partition to an external drive.

The reality of these OEM system partitions is that they are very rarely, if ever, used, and whenever I have replaced a disk drive in a laptop, I have opted to lose such partitions in favour of making a clean Windows install.

Thanks Steve, sounds sensible. I'm only reluctant in case that should I need to restore, problems could be caused by the SONYSYS partition being at a different 'level' (can't think of any other way to put it) to the rest of the disk. Expanding the Microsoft folder, which obviously you can't see in the screen print many were updated in Nov 19.  Also usually OEM recovery is triggered by some general purpose function key combination, whereas because this laptop has a dedicated 'Assist' button it feels more of an integral part of the system. Just wish I could figure out why the problem is intermittent!

If you have a spare disk drive available to use in this PC, I would suggest either recovering your disk backup to it or cloning it to the spare, then do some testing using the spare including removing the SONYSYS partition to see if it has any effect at all.  I expect that you will not notice any difference at all.

What is the size of that SONYSYS partition?
If it is 10GB or larger, then it is a factory restore partition to put the PC back to an earlier version of Windows such as Windows 7.
If it is a few hundred MB then it is just a diagnostic tools type partition.

Steve, the SONYSYS partition is just 260MB. I get the logic of what you say but I don't have a spare disk, and being an ageing laptop with brittle plastics I'm loathe to start pulling it apart!  Still perplexed why this partition gives Acronis a problem, given that CHKDSK detects no problems and it hasn't changed since 2019 - it has been backing up successfully nightly since then. One for Acronis Tech Support? (though no doubt they will as before just say 'there are disk errors'!)

Out of interest, what is the actual make / model of the laptop?  Some are a lot easier to change the internal drive than others but one issue might be that the drive is an older 50-pin PATA / IDE drive rather than the later 2.5" SATA commonly used in laptops (and being superceded by NVMe card drives).

It's a Sony SVE1513A4E - The disk is a Crucial  MX500 SSD which I fitted myself, cloning the old SATA drive with Acronis. That was in July 18, and as you can imagine it has been backed up many times since. I would have no qualms in reversing the process, but to be quite honest it must be easier to repair the SONYSYS partition mustn't it? If I can find how it is damaged in the first place that is! 

I can't find any information on how the SONYSYS partition could be repaired or rebuilt.

If you have any older backup images for earlier in the life of the laptop, you could try recovering just that one partition from that source.  The partition shouldn't have been changed since it was put on the drive unless any of the Sony Care update tools have caused an update.

I did try to restore an older SONYSYS from a backup (post #58) without success.  The SONYSYS partition must have been changed by something since the disk was installed as the date on the files is 2019. Just odd that it backed up just fine yesterday. (But I deleted that backup!)

To summarise this issue:-

• Backups fail if the SONYSYS partition is included
• The backup succeeds after I attempt to restore the SONYSYS partition from a backup even though that restore fails, but next backup fails.
• I have run CHKDSK /F on the partition which found no errors

Though not an expert I can't think of a logical reason for this behaviour, if anyone can please post back.

And today all backups work just fine.  Don't you just love computers! 

After working since my last post on 20 Oct, changed over USB disk for weekly backup.  Backup failed with 'Unknown Status' as before, and after changing back to the USB disk that has been working for days, it now won't run either (same error). Thinking of going back to 2020 version to prove if its software or my hardware/data related - any likely issues? 

I am uncertain that you will prove the problem is with 2021.  It could be mind you, but proving that is not likely on your part.

I know you have run chkdsk /f on the sonysys partition, I would suggest at this point that you run the following command from an admin command prompt:

fsutil repair state

This command will query all drives/volumes of your system for corruption state.  Volumes without drive letters are also queried.  This is all done with the disk online and without chkdsk.exe being involved and requiring a reboot.  Volumes that have no corruption will report 0x00 - Clean. 

I am thinking that the sonysys partition/volume may have some sort of corruption such as a dirty bit possibly that is reset in someway during certain actions you take yet becomes dirty again for some reason.

DrMopp wrote:

After working since my last post on 20 Oct, changed over USB disk for weekly backup.  Backup failed with 'Unknown Status' as before, and after changing back to the USB disk that has been working for days, it now won't run either (same error). Thinking of going back to 2020 version to prove if its software or my hardware/data related - any likely issues? 

Please clarify what you mean by 'changed over USB disk for weekly backup'?

Are you using multiple drives for a single backup task or using different tasks, one task per each different backup drive?

@Enchantech, ran fsutil as advised, all disks clean except for the following entry:- 

Volume Name:     ?? (\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy1)
Corruption State:  0x11 - Full Chkdsk Needed

Steve, I am using one USB drive per backup task. One nightly, one weekly, one monthly. Each drive has is own lead so only removing drive from USB port (using Safely Remove) and plugging in required drive for the appropriate backup task.  I know it's messy but I did try with a powered USB3 hub and all three disks connected, and though I can't remember what the issues were, there were enough to stop me taking that approach. Have to suspect the USB port but tried another (only USB2 but good enough to prove theory) and that failed as well.

Thanks for confirming about the tasks and drives.

For the error with the volume shadow copy corruption, try using vssadmin list shadows to show where the actual physical drive location is?

See webpage: Windows 7: How to Run ChkDsk on Volume \Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy1 for more information.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>vssadmin list shadows
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2013 Microsoft Corp.

Contents of shadow copy set ID: {3b4eb4ee-3ef0-4bed-9629-f9e828ad753c}
   Contained 2 shadow copies at creation time: 02/11/2020 09:00:26
      Shadow Copy ID: {e2cdc866-7330-48bd-b2ad-59495b812d3c}
         Original Volume: (G:)\\?\Volume{0001321d-4fe0-2dbe-d8f6-f6193a640200}\
         Shadow Copy Volume: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy2
         Originating Machine: Steve-9OP3KKF0
         Service Machine: Steve-9OP3KKF0
         Provider: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
         Type: Backup
         Attributes: Differential, Auto recovered

Thanks both, I ran a CHKDSK /F on the C drive, and the fsutil command then reported no corruption.  The backup is now running. So does that back up (no pun intended) the 'dirty bit' in the SONYSYS partition theory, a problem with the VSS writer, or something else?      

Difficult to say what causes this type of corruption but both good that the CHKDSK of C: has resolved it and also worrying if this is happening regularly?!  Not sure how this directly relates to the SONYSYS partition as that is not C: as far as CHKDSK goes!

It sounds to me like the sonysys partition contains a corruption that is being copied to the C: volume shadow copy during the shadow copy phase of the the backup task operation and is causing the backup to fail.

My suggestion is this:

1. Assign a drive letter to the sonysys partition using the diskpart utility
2. Open the sonysys partition in Explorer and copy out all the contents of the sonysys volume to a different location such as a flash drive or another disk
3. Using disk management select the sonysys partition by clicking in it in the lower graphical screen then right click and from the menu select Delete volume
4. Once that completes, select the now cleared space again, right click on it and select New Simple Volume
5. Follow the wizard prompts by selecting Next from the initial screen
6. On the next screen (Specify volume size) click next to accept the default values
7. On the next screen (Assign drive letter or path) click on Next to accept the default drive letter assignment
8. On the next screen (Format partition) in the File system dropdown select Fat32.  In the Allocation unit size leave as Default.  In the Volume label you can leave it blank or assign a label that does not exceed 8 characters.
9. Once the steps in 8 above are complete click Next and you will be presented with a results screen of the Wizard where you can make sure all is correct.  Once you have confirmed your choices select Finish

Disk Management will now create the new volume by performing a full format of the partition which should only take a brief period of time.

Once the partition is created, open Explorer and navigate to the location where you copied the data from the original partition to.  If you find a "System Volume Information" folder in this location do not copy that folder back to the newly created partition.  All remaining data can be copied back to the new partition.

Once this step is complete you can delete the System Volume Information folder from the location if that folder was found there.  That folder, if it exists, may well contain the corruption we are looking for.  Next you can remove the drive letter assignment of the newly created partition again using Disk Management.

Whatever corruption exists on the old sonysys partition at this point should now be removed completely and your issue should be fixed.