A Windows 8 machine was being backed up with the Windows 7 backup. The backup completed all the file level backup but it failed backing up the system image. I found various articles indicating that the problem was in creating the shadow copy, and apparently it tries to create the shadow copy on the system partition instead of the larger “C” partition (in this case). In this case, the system partition (partition #1 on the physical disk 0) was 1GB and the C drive (partition #2 on the physical disk 0) is about 450GB. [more]
I used the partition program Mini Partition Home Edition V7.7 (downloaded from http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html) to resize the C drive smaller, then shift it so the system partition can grow contiguously. I increased the system partition size to 2.5GB. Then, the Windows 7 backup program ran to completion and backed up the system image also.
In using the Mini Partition program, I had to remove all USB drives from the system. If USB drives are found, then the Partition Wizard will error out when it reboots to apply the partition changes. This problem is discussed in the FAQ’s for the Partition Wizard found here: http://www.partitionwizard.com/faq.html