Windows Backup error 0x81000036 "could not find backup devices" with a RAM FS volume
2 posts
Hi,
I would like to purchase your product, as it performed very well during my testing. However, I found one significant issue: the built-in Windows Backup and Restore feature does not work when a RAM FS disk is present.
The error displayed is:
0x81000036 - "Windows could not find backup devices on this computer."
Steps to reproduce:
- Make sure the computer has two separate physical drives:
- C: — system drive
- E: — data drive / intended backup destination
- It appears to be important that these are separate physical disks.
- In the RAM FS application, create any RAM disk.
- For example, I tested with drive letter T: and a size of 4 GB.
- Leave all other settings at their default values.
- In Windows 11 Pro, open Control Panel (control.exe).
- Open Backup and Restore (Windows 7).
- If you cannot see this option, change the Control Panel view from Category to Large icons or Small icons.
- Select Create a system image from the menu on the left.
- The following error appears:
- 0x81000036 - "Windows could not find backup devices on this computer."
- If I manually select On a hard disk and then click Refresh, I receive the same error again.
If I remove the RAM FS disk, the above steps work correctly. I can select my E: drive as the backup destination and create a system image.
Could you please investigate whether this issue can be fixed?
Kind regards,
Jacek
It's the RAM FS volume that stops the wizard, not your E: drive. Before Backup offers you any destinations it walks every fixed volume on the machine and asks each one about shadow copy support. A RAM FS volume is diskless, so there is nothing underneath it to shadow copy and it can't answer that query. Windows treats the refusal as fatal instead of just skipping the volume, so you get 0x81000036 even though that volume has nothing to do with the backup.
The way round it is to present the RAM disk as removable media instead of a fixed disk. Right-click the volume in RAM FS, choose Properties → Advanced and tick Mount as a removable drive. Windows skips removable drives when it looks for backup sources, so Backup and Restore will find your E: drive normally.
You'll be asked whether to remount the volume to apply the change. Remounting discards whatever is on it, so it's easiest to do this while the volume is empty. Once it's set, the Flags column in the main window shows R against that volume.
Bear in mind that a removable volume also looks different to other software. Explorer groups it with removable devices rather than drives, and some installers won't offer it as a target. Nothing else changes, and you can turn it off again just as easily if it gets in the way.