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Tom2009's avatar
Tom2009
Level 2
16 years ago

Backupexec .bkf files password.

Dear users,
I am going through a very dificult time, last night my main server crash with an unrecoverable hardware failure among 2 drives and a SCSI controller. After trying to rebuilt the drive it appear to failed, now I switch all drives in the box and install a new controller, yet the backup data is storage in a NAS. I install the backupexec software back in the server with the intend to recover the data from backup, the problem is that the data was being encrypted by backup exec and it has a password I can't remember, is there a way to get a around the password. I can inventory the files, yet I am unbable to buitl the catalog because I forgot the password. Please help. Tom2009

I can see all .bkf files in the NAS, but the password is not allowing me to do anything. I am using Backupexec 12.5 fully patched.
12.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec

1 Reply

  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    16 years ago
    Assuming you were using the encryption mode that is part of Backup Exec versions 11D or greater then this was designed so that if anyone managed to somehow steal your media  that there would be no way to restore without knowing the password. If you are using this typre of password (passphrase) then I belive you need either the passphrase used to create the encryption key, or a copy of the Backup Exec Database files from before your hardware problem to enable the restore of your data,

    There is a way to accidentally end up with the old style media passwords enabled even though you ware running 12.5. If it is this type of password there is still no way to decrypt the password, (http://support.veritas.com/docs/267323 ) but the data iself is not encrypted so a data recovery company might be able to help.
    The causes for this scenario are in http://support.veritas.com/docs/325611
    As far as I know you get a different error state for this type of password compared with the encryption type.
    Note you can ONLY end up in this state if the server was originally upgraded from Backup Exec 10D or earlier. If it was not an upgrade then you are stuck with full data encryption and there would be no point in going to a recovery company as they will not be able to recover the data.