Removing Corrupted Shadow Copies

Sometimes, corrupted shadow copies cannot be deleted by issuing the "vssadmin delete shadows /all" command. Instead, you receive the error:

"Error: Snapshots were found, but they were outside of your allowed context. Try removing them with the backup application which created them."

Corrupted VSS stores in C:\System Volume Information and might taken up large amount of disk space.

 

Solutions:

Launch an elevated command prompt on the Agent machine(s) involved and type the following:

# diskshadow

# list shadows all

# delete shadows set  {id of shadow to be deleted if selective deletion is to be performed}<enter>

OR

# delete shadows all {if all shadows are to be deleted}.

 

This will delete the corrupted shadow copies.