# Device Mgr: 98 Generic volume shadow copy, 5 Generic volume entries



## EdTittel (Sep 15, 2008)

Hiya! I'd originally come aboard with the intention of asking why I see one or two "Generic volume shadow copy" driver installs EVERY DAY in perfmon/Reliability Monitor. After reading other threads on this topic, I'm now convinced this is related to my leaving a USB drive plugged into my PC 24/7 for ReadyBoost, and ditto for an external USB-attached hard disk (for backups).


My questions have now become:
1. I have 98(!!!) Generic volume shadow copy entries in the "Storage volume shadow copies" element in Device Manager (and my rebuilt Vista install is about 5 weeks old, installed on 8/7/08). Should I be concerned? What can I do to get this number down? How do I keep it down? The obvious bonehead answer appears to me to be "Delete them all, and keep it up every day, or write a script to do likewise." Is this even reasonable?
2. I have 5 "Generic volume" entries in the "Storage Volumes" element in Device Manager. Same questions as before...
3. I can't get any meaningful info from the Properties windows under either heading, though complete coverage of "Storage Volumes" and random sampling of "Generic volume shadow copy" entries all say "The device is working properly"

Any input, ideas, advice, or references that will help me understand how to proceed from here will be greatly appreciated.

TIA for your help and support,

--Ed--


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## EdTittel (Sep 15, 2008)

Just FYI in scanning elsewhere on the Web I've found other posts that report this same behavior. For example: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-gener...opy-version-6-06000-16386-reinstalling-s.html (no resolution). This posting may offer some relief, and recommends uninstalled the USB Root Hub drivers so they can be rediscovered upon bootup: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/135929-generic-volume-driver-not-working-recognized.html. Haven't tried this yet, though, so I don't know if it helps or not.

HTH,
--Ed--


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## EdTittel (Sep 15, 2008)

OK, so now it gets even more interesting. In other forums on the 'net, I saw advice to go into device manager, uninstall the Generic Volume Shadow Copy entries, then use "Scan for hardware changes" to refresh the listing. I uninstalled 98 Generic volume shadow copy instances, scanned for hardware changes, and Presto! 97 new instances appeared. Now I'm really curious: why do I need so many freakin' generic volume shadow copy instances? Where is this data stored? When I check VSSadmin I have nowhere near enough writers to account for even 10% of this number of devices.

Bizarre!

--Ed--


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## EdTittel (Sep 15, 2008)

Problem solved, thanks to Windows Wizard Mark Russinovich, whom I emailed on Facebook about this sitution. A generic volume shadow copy entry is created in Device Manager for each current storage volume snapshot that Vista knows about. These are most commonly created at least once a day as part of the System Protection behavior when a Restore Point is also captured. Installing some applications, drivers, and updates also cause Restore Points to be created, for which each one gets a generic device. Numbers don't track history precisely because Windows caps total storage for Restore Points, including volume shadow copies, so that when the cap is hit, one or more old restore points get deleted to make room for a new one.

Case closed. Problem solved. Thanks for listening!

--Ed--


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