SBS 2008 backup issues on Dell servers with OEM partition

I purchased a Dell T110 Server approximately 6 months ago with SBS 2008.  Trust me they have NOT figured this out!  I have had problems from day 1 with backing up to an ESATA connected drive.  I have spoke to Dell numerous times and not once did anyone at Dell suggest this was the problem, but it clearly is still happening.  Where is the fix?

i dont have SBS to try, but if i use Dell's SMTD dvd to install w2k8 x64 R2, openmanage reboots, then I insert the w2k8 OS disc. I get to the point where I can see the partitions that are available to use for os installation. If I delete the 40gb(?) partition 0, this leaves the entire disc available to me. Then, if I tell windows to create a partition using the entire disc, it still creates a partition 0, and then the OS is installed on partition 1. Does SBS do the same? Could it be that windows is creating the partition 0 on SBS as well?

Well you will end up with a 100MB partition whether it is installed by Dell media or Windows Retail media.  If you install with a retail Windows DVD, it will create a 100MB Reserved Partition.  If installed by Dell or using a Dell-branded Windows DVD, it will create the same Reserved Partition, just labeled as OEM.  Either way you will get this, so I'm not sure it is a Dell thing.

It's not a recovery partition like what you find on desktops and laptops for factory reinstallation of the OS ... it is a Reserved partition for Windows (not Dell).

I think we are talking about something different.  The OEM partition is put there by Dell. MS is not an OEM. Nevertheless, the problem is that unless you can mark the OS partition as active, Winbackup and some 3rd party backups will fail because VSS need the system partition to be active. Bootloader resides on the active partition.

BTW, neither my Recovery nor my OEM partitions is 100M. I suspect  the partition Windows creates (Recovery) is a percentage of the HD, prolly 2%. It also assigns it a drive letter. The OEM partition is for the boot up into recovery mode (F keys at boot) from Dell. It allows the diagnostics and other things to load and is its own OS independent of Windows. (I suspect it is Linux). It does not have a drive letter and is not accessible in Windows.IIRC, it also will handle loading the OS (from the DVD/CD disks, it is not in that partition for me).

However, I also made a mistake in calling it the Recovery partition...I could care less about the partition Windows created, it is the OEM partition that I do not need and would like to rid myself of along with having it truly boot for the OS partition which I and the OP would like to mark active without failing to boot..

My question is simple....I know that if I mark the OS partition/volume active, I will no longer be able to boot. I am hoping someone can tell me that running 'fixboot" (is it still there) on the 2008 dvd will allow it to boot again from the new active partition (the OS one, not the old OEM one). If so, then I will attempt this and it should also fix the WinBackup error with the VSS.

This was one of the few places this issue showed up on the forum, so I thought I would bump it for a correct answer. I pretty much understand the problem and I think I know the fix, but this is a production server and I cannot just "play" with a fix and perhaps bare metal it. I also cannot allow the issue to continue because the log files will overflow the disk space.

I realize MS is not an OEM ... I'm just saying that that 100MB partition gets placed there whether using OEM media or MS-branded media, and it is not a recovery partition like client PC's use.  There are ways around it being placed there (and/or getting rid of it), but it is created by default.

www.mydigitallife.info/hack-to-remove-100-mb-system-reserved-partition-when-installing-windows-7

I know what you're talking about now.  Dell's partition is called the Utliity Partition, and diagnostics do run from it, but that is the extent of its functionality.  It is installed from the factory and installed when using SBUU to assist in the OS install.  I have also seen this integrated as part of the same partition that holds Windows RE information in a single, over-sized (200-300MB) partition.

For what it's worth, I installed 2008 R2, changed the System Reserved partition to Inactive and deleted it (from the RE Command Prompt), then changed the OS partition to Active, after which of course it did not boot (bootmgr missing).  I again booted to the RE, Command Prompt, and ran the following:

bootrec /rebuildbcd

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

After running these commands, it successfully boots to the C: partition.

I don't know why doing this on the Utility Partition would work any differently than on the Windows "reserved" partition, but I'll try it on my test server when I get home if I get a chance.

Thanks for trying this. It took me a bit to get back, sorry.

I think your solution should work too and while the OP may have fixed this, you solution should help others with this problem too.

The 'System Reserved' partition is part of the UEFI standard and is the boot/active partition on your system and is a nominal 100MB in size. No more MBR per sei and dual booting is now a quite different to what many are used to. EasyBCD can give you a simpler look into the boot side of UEFI style boot menus.

The 'System Reserved' partition not only contains boot files, it is utilized to provide full drive encryption via BITLOCKER and it seems can also contain other files.

Not surprisingly, there is a lot of chatter about windows backup functions failing for various reasons and it seems in part that the 'System Reserved' partition size may be to blame. Some have reported success by increasing it from 100MB to 200MB or even 400MB in size. The easiest way to re-size it is to use a windows partitioning tool like EASEUS Partition Manager or similar.

The Dell Utility partition, whether it is separate or integrated as part of the System Reserved partition, should have no bearing on the backup problems people seem to be having (other than maybe due to using some of that 100MB capacity of the System reserved partition).

The problem is likely one of MS doing in that they never seem to do enough testing before pushing their stuff out the door. There seems to be many issues related to volume shadow copies and system reserved partitions with system backup that should have been resolved before setting the system reserved partition to 100MB in size and releasing the OS.

In any case i have not yet implemented a strong system backup plan and i have not yet tried to create a Windows system image nor tried to restore from an image but in any case part of the image to be restores must be the System Reserved partition else i may have boot problems :).