Thursday, March 8, 2012

Windows Backup, fixing error code 0x81000037

Had this problem, figured I might as well make a quick post about it.

It appears the Microsoft Security Essentials (and probably any other realtime AV program) causes the backup to fail because it sees the backup access a file it considers a virus. The end result is that interruption causes the backup to fail with that error message (which isn't really that much information).

The simple fix is to do have MSE do full scan on your hard drives, which will pick up the file(s) that causes the interruption problem. Remove it and your backup should work fine.

The error code 0x81000037 is probably a generic access failure error, and if it's not antivirus it's probably something else interfering with the backup programs access to a file. If your problem isn't with anti virus programs getting in the way, and you still get the error, look for any other programs you have running that are always on and actively scanning your file system ( such as dropbox, other backup programs, sync tools).

Giving credit where it's due, this guys page explains it better and gives you screenshots:

http://www.pagestart.com/win7br0x8100003701.html