Virtual Driver - Save problem

I assume you are talking about "drives" not "drivers".

Before you do anything else please answer the following questions:

  -  Does a back wor at all? - just run "save C:\temp" to test

If successful:

  -  Do the preconfigured backups of the server work (Policy: Server Protection work)

If yes, your configuration seems to be wrong. So please provide more info to assist you.

Hi Bingo,

you are right i mean drives (sorry for my bad english )

I can save C:\temp and the Server Protection works fine too.

What infos do you need to assist me?

So the backup of a local disk is not a problem.

The next step would be to run a manual backup of the network disk.

Please run the following command:   save [-b ] -L -o "vss:*=off" \\ \

to see if this works

If yes - fine.

But please state the exact error message to better assist you.

Hi Wallace,

here is a screen from my Windows Explorer:

I cant backup volume E: it is a virtual drive.

bingo:

With your command i can save the virtual drive, but if i start it on the "NetWorker Management Consol" it failed

3817:save: Using NETWorkerSvr.dom.lan as server

129292:save: Successfully established Client direct save session for save-set ID '1351349813' (SERVER.dom.lan:\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$) with Data Domain volume 'data1.001'.

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-790525478-1085031214-839522115-500\desktop.ini

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-790525478-1085031214-839522115-500\

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\$RECYCLE.BIN\

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\5462_boot.iso

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\afasfas.txt

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\ibm_fw_imm_yuoo57h_windows_32-64.exe

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\ibm_fw_uefi_d6e162a-1.20_windows_32-64.exe

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\sdasfasf.txt

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\System Volume Information\WPSettings.dat

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\System Volume Information\

\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$\

/

save: \\SERVER.dom.lan\E$  1569 MB 00:00:22     12 files

7167:save: save completion time: 20.02.2018 11:19:49

94694:save: The backup of save set '\\SERVER.dom.lan\E$' succeeded.

.

Umut47

  Well, generally this is called a network mount point. You can trying using the backup command as save -xL That should help get the mounted network share backed up.

Hi CrazyRov

i typ it as a network mount because bingo give me a command with a network mount (save [-b ] -L -o "vss:*=off" \\ \ ).

On the pic you can see its a virtual drive and not a network mount.

Please explain why you say E: is a virtual drive.  From your screenshot, I do not see what the difference between D: and E: drives.  What is "virtual"  ?

Back to the original problem:  are you still getting the error "savefs: nothing to save"?  Is the client's saveset field set to "All"?

Hi Wallace,

i created in Windows Server 2016 a virtual hard disk drive ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHD_(file_format) ) and drive E: is for me a virtual drive.

If i set the saveset field to "All", i can save all drivers (C: D:) but not E:

If i try to Save it solo (E:) i get the same error "savefs: nothing to save"

If i am on the computer and typing on cmd "save -L E:\" it works

I dont unterstand why i cant run it solo or as a all saveset, but it work if i typeing it in cmd...

Sorry for so much images, but i think its easy to show you guys it.

Thank you for the explanation on what you mean by a virtual drive. (.vhd or .vhdx)

The reason why NetWorker does not back this up when you are performing a scheduled backup is because of the following reasons:

1. Scheduled backups will contact the client's nsrexecd to run savefs command.  This will check with Windows to see what disks are auto-mounted at boot time, and this list is then returned to NetWorker for processing.
2. However, Windows "doesn’t have a built-in ability to automatic mounting of VHD files when you reboot your system."  (This is stated from many different sources.)  Because of this, savefs does not return the virtual drive in that list.  Therefore it is not automatically backed up if you use saveset=All.
3. The virtual drive is manually mounted using, for example, diskpart utility. Or can be done by the Disk Management GUI.  In either case, this drive is mounted locally by the person and account that launched these utilities.  This does not mean that other users or processes on that host, such as NetWorker, will see and access this virtual drive.  This is likely why it fails when you try a savegroup backup of only the virtual drive.  It also explains why you are successful when you start the backup manually on the client itself.

Also since this is a virtual drive, there is is actually a container file that is on the Windows file system.  For example:

     C:\windows\system32>diskpart

     DISKPART> list vdisk

       VDisk ###  Disk ###  State                 Type       File

       ---------  --------  --------------------  ---------  ----

     * VDisk 0    Disk ---  Added                 Unknown     C:\temp\test-vhd.vhdx

Here, you can see that this virtual drive is actually stored on:  C:\temp\test-vhd.vhdx.

So, if you backup up the C:\ drive, then this virtual drive container will also be backed up by default., although you are then limited to backing up and recovering the entire disk.  And backups would only be possible if that file is not open and locked.

If you want the ability to perform file level backup and recovery, then your only option is to perform manual/local backups using the save command.  You have already confirmed that this works.

Thank Wallace for the information. But what's really weird is that in version 8.2.4 we were able to save virtual drive. Since we use the version 9.1.x it is no longer possible. Then I will probably install the old version again.