View existing jobs in NTbackup

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MobileTechie

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I've inherited an SBS 2003 server with a tape drive. It's got tape backup software but not sure that is being used. SBS2003's Backup reports a lot of failed backups but these are to an external HDD.

I'm informed that NTBackup has been set up to do the tape backups but I need to know exactly how it's been set up.

Anyone know of any easy way to view NTBackup's existing jobs? I'm sure there is a way but if there is I can't for the life of me remember how to do it. Or maybe the jobs just don't exist and it's not working which might explain it.
 
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Not sure about everyone else but whenever I've used NTbackup, I create a batch file with the various options and then schedule a job in Windows to run.
 
That's where I'm getting confused.

They've got a tape drive and an external HDD attached. Backup from SBS Server Manager shows a list of failed backups to the HDD back to early Jan. No mention of tape backups. However ntbackup restore shows a tape drive as an option but cannot restore from it. All backups I can find in the wizard are set to 11pm. The backup Queue in tapeware says it's set to 11pm too. There are sporadic logs of what look to be successful backups in Tapeware. But the previous support people say it was all done through ntbackup and not the old Tapeware s/w.

I'm struggling to find out what exactly is happening with this tape backup.
 
SBS native backup is monogamous in jobs to a device.
It won't split between devices by defaults.
Although I've seen a hack to make it do multiple jobs to different devices.....

Check HKLM\software\Microsoft\smallbusinessserver\backup and look for the Backup Location and/or Backup Path keys


Also drill into C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\Backup and look for any .REG files (should not be any there by default)...and open up the Small Business Backup Script.BKS file in notepad (should only be one of those). By default this only has the inclusions/exclusions of what's being backed up...but may be customized by the prior tech doing some SBS backup hacks.

It would be normal for SBS Backup to show the tape drive as a restore source....it's a valid backup device. Manually run NTBackup from the start button and do an inventory of a tape. But when configuring backups....do it through the SBS console....not by launching NTBackup manually.

Yosemite tapeware eh? Yuck!
 
Thanks.

The path in that key refers to the external HDD F:

Is it not possible to set up ntbackup to do two different backups to two different locations? I've never been 100% sure of the relationship between Backup in SBS and ntbackup?

Looking forward I think I should just set it up again from scratch so I know exactly what is going on. I don't wanna use Tapeware since it doesn't look to have Exchange restore functionality and it's not supported anymore.

At the moment they change the tape every morning (they have stickers labelling them Mon-Fri) and take the last night's home with them, leaving one in the drive and 3 on the shelf. Not entirely sure what the thinking is since I don't know the plan.

Given they have a Freecom Quantum tape and 5 tapes, what is the best way to proceed would you say?

5 Normal backups and have then keep them at home and bring each day's in to swap?
 
SBS Backup is a "wizard" that leverages NT backup, with some canned scripts already built into it.

By default SBS backup will only work with 1 backup device for the job you setup. In other words....you setup 1x job with SBS backup. It doesn't allow you to get granular. Always been fine with me since I prefer 100% full backups each and every night, I was never a fan of doing 1 day full, remaining several days differential, that whole grandfather/father/son backup thing...hated those. (try restoring servers during an emergency with that kind of whacky backup strategy).

You can get fancier running NT backup manually, without the wizard...if you really need to setup multiple backup jobs to different devices.

Or you can leverage more power out of NTBackup by purchasing the excellent and affordable "Backup Assist" program. But since this is SBS2003....dunno how much money you or your client want to keep investing in this.
 
I found this log in C:\Documents and Settings\SBS Backup User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows NT\NTBackup\data

What do you make of that?

Backup Status
Operation: Backup
Active backup destination: File
Media name: "Small Business Server Backup (04).bkf created 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"

Volume shadow copy creation: Attempt 1.
Backup (via shadow copy) of "C: SBS2K3"
Backup set #1 on media #1
Backup description: "SBS Backup created on 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"
Media name: "Small Business Server Backup (04).bkf created 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"

Backup Type: Normal

Backup started on 2/5/2013 at 11:06 PM.
Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\bin\GER\logoff.asp.GER" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\bin\GRK" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\bin\HEB" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\HELP\POL\IE3\Composenote.htm" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\HELP\POL\IE3\Contactview.htm" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\HELP\POL\IE3\copyright.htm" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\HELP\POL\IE3\CreateRecurringTask.htm" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\E3SP2ENG\setup\i386\exchange\exchweb\HELP\POL\IE3\CreateTask.htm" - skipped.
Reason: Data error (cyclic redundancy check).


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\newemail[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\newemail[2].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\news_bg_leftmiddle[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\news_bg_rightmiddle[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


WARNING: Portions of "\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\NewTabPageScripts[1]" cannot be read. The backed up data is corrupt or incomplete.
This file will not restore correctly.
Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\officelogo[1].png" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


WARNING: Portions of "\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\oneMscomBlade[1].css" cannot be read. The backed up data is corrupt or incomplete.
This file will not restore correctly.
WARNING: Portions of "\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\onemscomcomponents[1].css" cannot be read. The backed up data is corrupt or incomplete.
This file will not restore correctly.
WARNING: Portions of "\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\onemscomfooter[1].css" cannot be read. The backed up data is corrupt or incomplete.
This file will not restore correctly.
Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\onemscomsearch[1].css" - skipped.
Reason: The specified network resource or device is no longer available.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\outbox[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The specified network resource or device is no longer available.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\outbox[2].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The specified network resource or device is no longer available.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\owastyle[1].css" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\owsbrows[1].js" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\partgrad[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\pdec30[1].js" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\pg-prev[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\pg-prev[2].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\preload[1].htm" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\prev-right[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Warning: Unable to open "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A\prev[1].gif" - skipped.
Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.


Could not access portions of directory C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\0UWFJ86A.
You may not have permission to open the file, or the directory may be missing or damaged.
Please contact the owner or administrator.

Backup completed on 2/5/2013 at 11:11 PM.
Directories: 798
Files: 12592
Corrupt: 4
Bytes: 2,345,731,789
Time: 4 minutes and 46 seconds
Backup (via shadow copy) of "D: "
Backup set #2 on media #1
Backup description: "SBS Backup created on 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"
Media name: "Small Business Server Backup (04).bkf created 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"

Backup Type: Normal

Backup started on 2/5/2013 at 11:11 PM.
Backup completed on 2/5/2013 at 11:26 PM.
Directories: 3209
Files: 42037
Bytes: 15,836,440,963
Time: 15 minutes and 19 seconds
Backup (via shadow copy) of "F: Expansion Drive"
Backup set #3 on media #1
Backup description: "SBS Backup created on 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"
Media name: "Small Business Server Backup (04).bkf created 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"

Backup Type: Normal

Backup started on 2/5/2013 at 11:26 PM.
Backup completed on 2/5/2013 at 11:26 PM.
Directories: 5
Files: 5
Bytes: 177,984
Time: 1 second
Backup (via shadow copy) of "System State"
Backup set #4 on media #1
Backup description: "SBS Backup created on 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"
Media name: "Small Business Server Backup (04).bkf created 2/5/2013 at 11:00 PM"

Backup Type: Copy

Backup started on 2/5/2013 at 11:26 PM.

Error: Could not access portions of directory System State\COM+ Class Registration Database.
You may not have permission to open the file, or the directory may be missing or damaged.
Please contact the owner or administrator.


Error: Could not access portions of directory System State\Registry.
You may not have permission to open the file, or the directory may be missing or damaged.
Please contact the owner or administrator.

Backup completed on 2/5/2013 at 11:26 PM.
Directories: 74
Files: 37
Bytes: 45,179,506
Time: 8 seconds

----------------------
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
SBS Backup is a "wizard" that leverages NT backup, with some canned scripts already built into it.

By default SBS backup will only work with 1 backup device for the job you setup. In other words....you setup 1x job with SBS backup. It doesn't allow you to get granular. Always been fine with me since I prefer 100% full backups each and every night, I was never a fan of doing 1 day full, remaining several days differential, that whole grandfather/father/son backup thing...hated those. (try restoring servers during an emergency with that kind of whacky backup strategy).

You can get fancier running NT backup manually, without the wizard...if you really need to setup multiple backup jobs to different devices.

Or you can leverage more power out of NTBackup by purchasing the excellent and affordable "Backup Assist" program. But since this is SBS2003....dunno how much money you or your client want to keep investing in this.
Click to expand...

Given people will miss swapping tapes and probably put the wrong ones in sometimes I think a simple full backup to a different tape each night of the working week makes sense assuming it gets done in time for the next morning.

Now I just need to remember all that media pool stuff to set up the tapes in Computer Management - or will the SBS backup wizard handle that?
 
re: the errors in the log you posted...

The *.gif files....appears someone has OWA open on the server...perhaps in another console session. Temp internet files anyways...who cares if they get skipped.

However, some of the system state..that would concern me.

I would double check all the antivirus exclusions, and file extension type to scan (in real time)..SBS2003 has a LOT to do properly.
Run a good defrag of her, including an offline ESEUTIL /D
Reboot...re-run a brand new SBS Backup job....and kick it off and monitor for a while.
Since NT backup has been running ...you will have recent "snapshots" (sort of) of the registry HIVE in Windows\repair. (if you've ever done manual restorations of Windows XP...sorta that approach.
 
I've done full backup to the external HDD so I'm good for a backup. I've also taken an image too just in case.

What I'm trying to figure out is how to set the tapes up for the new backup.

I've done this before on systems but usually with some 3rd party software.

I've also done it on Server 2003 a while ago and you had to do it like this:

Prepare the tapes in Removable Storage
Use NTBackup to label the first tape Monday - repeat for each day of the week.
Then set up a separate weekly backup job for each day of the week. E.g. the Monday-Job does a full backup to the Monday tape and so on - 5 separate scheduled jobs.

Is there any easier way of doing this with the SBS wizard?
Anyone know if I can label all the tapes with the same label (e.g. "TapeSet" and so just have one job that looks to back up to TapeSet?
 
Labeling the tapes is optional....but I like doing it too. But yes it's still done in removable storage, and a rather painfully slow process.

SBS backup wizard will not label them, if you don't label them NT backup will just automatically name them in some long unique yet sequential number series.

When reconfiguring SBS backup to backup to the tape drive...basically run through the wizard and early on you'll have an option to "change" current backup job, or "modify"..something like that. And you'll see the tape drive as one of the destination options as you follow the bouncing ball through the wizard.

I usually add some exclusions to save space, such as I have no desire to back up that massive WSUS directory.
 
I sorted all that out and got it running but after a while it failed with:

"Backup Type: Normal

Backup started on 2/15/2013 at 10:52 AM.

Error: The device reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported: Bad data.
There may be a hardware or media problem.
Please check the system event log for relevant failures.
The operation was ended.
Backup completed on 2/15/2013 at 11:50 AM.
Directories: 8070
Files: 86012
Bytes: 30,191,594,485
Time: 57 minutes and 43 seconds

Error: C: is not a valid drive, or you do not have access."

That's a little unspecific leaving room for the problem to be with the tape or with permissions on the C:?

I've tested the tape with small, single folder backups in ntbackup and they complete OK.
 
Why are you even using the tapes.? I'm betting that this system started with a tape drive and was moved to external HDD when that proved not be reliable.
 
Not according to the business owners. They've been faithfully swaping the tapes every day for years. Plus the USB drive didn't have any recent backups on it.

If the tape works then it's not a bad system. Lots of redundancy built into 5 tapes.

But you're right in that there is no need for the backup to be tape only. They could swap a couple of USB drives around instead. However I'm never 100% happy about people failing to eject them and them picking up errors.
 
MobileTechie said:
Not according to the business owners. They've been faithfully swaping the tapes every day for years. Plus the USB drive didn't have any recent backups on it.

If the tape works then it's not a bad system. Lots of redundancy built into 5 tapes.

But you're right in that there is no need for the backup to be tape only. They could swap a couple of USB drives around instead. However I'm never 100% happy about people failing to eject them and them picking up errors.
Click to expand...

There are scripts you can find that you can use to dismount the drives so the end users don't have to mess with it. You just run the script as a post backup job.
 
Yeah that's a good idea. Thanks.

I'm not even convinced the tapes are big enough. You know how they give you "compressed size" which is like double the actual size...
 
Yeah NT backup can be very unspecific, if the media it's writing to gets full or has a hiccup, it can give you that error and then complain no access to C drive. Almost like a domino effect causes VSS to flip out.

What's the capacity of the tapes? (uncompressed). I never factor in compression...get backup media with a native capacity of what you need to backup.

Looks like it backed up about 30 gigs of data until it puked.

What drive is it? (possibly update firmware of drive, as well as latest drivers)

Tape drive been cleaned in a while?
Are the tapes that are in rotation relatively new? Back when I used tape drives, I preferred to rotate new tapes on a yearly basis. I've seen too many businesses get burned when they had backup tapes that were like 3 or 4 years old....disaster strikes, and you go to restore the server from backups and they're bad. One of the many reasons I hate tape backup with a passion!
 
Tapes are 90GB/180GB. I cleaned the drive myself earlier today. I think the tapes are pretty old to be honest.

I did two SBS Backups to HDD recently. The first was 93GB, the next day was 65GB. Both were Normal's so don't know why they'd vary that much from one day to the next? Either way the tapes aren't really big enough so looks like USB drives are the way forward. I don't think size was why it crashed though since 30gb is nowhere near the capacity.

I tried backing up the smaller of these bkf files to the tape as a test to rule out permission problems with parts of the C:. It failed pretty quick with VSS errors. So I ran some VSS fixes. I'm running a full backup from ntbackup right now to see if the fixes changes anything. But given the tightness of the size/capacity I think it's time to switch to swapping between a couple of USB drives.

That would also have the advantage of being able to maybe have an image backup too to provide fast whole-system restoration in the case of a h/w failure.
 
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I support quite a few schools and moved away from tapes quite a while ago... the backups appear to work, but on testing a disaster recovery scenario, the recovery element would fail. I now use a combination of NAS and USB hard drives and rotate them weekly. Much safer in my opionion!
 
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