Can you click on details for failed to see exactly why it fails?  Yo can also try manual save from client which will also give you more details.

HI Hrvoje. Sorry for the late reply. There is no logged message in the Networker console that explains the failure. I did try a manual backup using the client but it does not complete. Error is:

98519:winwork: Unable to setup direct save with server: retry needed.

Everything looks configured correctly. The host client can reach the backup server through Networker client fine.

It sounds as if the backup of the system specifc save sets never worked before.

It is weird that the disks can be backed up but not the DR save sets.

Possible issues:

  - compatibility of client OS & NW version

  - VSS system writer is missing (you say that all others are stable but are you sure all are present?)

  - wrong pool (although I would expect another message)

  - client direct (will these save sets go to a DDBoost device) which you don't have?

      try to save without the 'client direct' option

ChristianFC ,

         This is because the "All" saveset is being resolved into only "DISASTER_RECOVERY:" saveset. This is mostly because Windows assume that all the partitions on this system are critical(Run a probe job to confirm this). This is the reason why you don't see any messages against the other drives for the system in question and this is by design.

      As for the troubleshooting, I see only the windows recovery partition being backed up. Incase you have retries set to more than 0 then set it to 0 and retry the backups. You could also list the drives instead of All as the saeset and observer how the backups behave.

Thanks Bingo. Client direct is configured. Yes they go to a DDBoost device (Data Domain). I think if I remove the client direct option it will go to the tape media storage.

Thanks CrazyRov for the explanation. That makes sense.

What I decided to do is run a manual save command ( save -D5 -s -j -b options) to back up one of the partitions. That was successful. Now I will add the server back to the save group and see how it works.

Thank you all.

ChristianFC wrote: HI Hrvoje. Sorry for the late reply. There is no logged message in the Networker console that explains the failure. I did try a manual backup using the client but it does not complete. Error is: 98519:winwork: Unable to setup direct save with server: retry needed. Everything looks configured correctly. The host client can reach the backup server through Networker client fine.

Error itself seems to suggest that direct save (eg, to Data Domain) is not possible so try to rerun the test with direct save disabled.

If you have an problem with the backup of the VSS save sets the most obvious reason is that there is an issue with the appropriate VSS writer on the client.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to see it because to 99% it is just missing while the other writers are fine.

To verify that, you should run the command "vssadmin list writers". Then search the output for "Writer name: 'System Writer'".

As I said - it will obviously be missing.

Repairing it is an easy issue but the procedure depends on the OS Version.

For Windows 2008R2 and later, this method should work - run with the appropriate admin rights:

Takeown /f %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\* /a

icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(RX)"

icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant "NT Service\trustedinstaller:(F)"

icacls %windir%\winsxs\filemaps\*.* /grant BUILTIN\Users:(RX)

net stop cryptsvc

net start cryptsvc

net stop nsrpsd

net stop nsrexecd

net start nsrexecd

net start nsrpsd

Fortunately, VSS errors do not appear that often any more as they did up to Windows 2003.

I think the reason is compatibility of client OS & NW version