Implementing a new DPM solution in Santas new workshop, and instantly ending up in problems!

Here I am wrapping scripts in all joy when I stumble upon a few DPM errors in a new envirorment, and instantly I thought "Wait? What, an error already? But I haven't done anything yet!"

Here is the error(s) I received:
DPM cannot create a backup because Windows Server Backup (WSB) on the protected computer encountered an error (WSB Event ID: 521, WSB Error Code:  0x17663A0). (ID 30229 Details: Internal error code: 0x80990ED0)

DPM cannot create a backup because Windows Server Backup (WSB) on the protected computer encountered an error (WSB Event ID: 546, WSB Error Code:  0xD317E0). (ID 30229 Details: Internal error code: 0x80990ED0)

From those error messages I can understand DPM, Cannot, .. you get the point.

After some reasearching it seems that this is cuases by the recovery volume being too small. You know that recovery volume that's supposed to be 350MB in Windows Server 2012 R2? It seems that it's only 300MB and that is too small for DPM and a BareMetal Restore backup option.

So, dig out your command prompt and assign a new location for the shadowstorage for the recovery volume by first listing where you have the recovery volume with vssadmin list volumes that will give you a something like this:

Volume path: C:\
    Volume name: \\?\Volume{7815fed2-f917-44b3-b3af-f9bb2bdb86fa}\
Volume path: N:\
    Volume name: \\?\Volume{9e3e1356-d856-11e3-80b7-00155d016606}\
Volume path: F:\
    Volume name: \\?\Volume{9e3e135a-d856-11e3-80b7-00155d016606}\
Volume path: \\?\Volume{d02c7a79-db9b-4a55-99df-f697a3dc2b6c}\
    Volume name: \\?\Volume{d02c7a79-db9b-4a55-99df-f697a3dc2b6c}\

After that, either shrink an existing volume or add some more space, where doesnt matter as long as you can spare it. 

Then execute the command vssadmin add shadowstorage /for:<the volume path for the only volume with no drive letter, i.e \\?\Volume{d02c7a79-db9b-4a55-99df-f697a3dc2b6c}\> /on=S: /maxsize=900MB (You can pick from a range from bytes to Exabytes or UNBOUNDED)

If you get an error message saying Error: The specified shadow copy storage association already exists. Then you have to delete the existing association before readding a new one.

Hope this helped anyone! Besides me that is!

Have a great day out there!

/Joseph