I believe the instructions in Symantec technote 319367 for Backup Exec are incorrect. I recount my experience below when I attempted to follow the technote as it was written as of 9/13/10 (last updated 5/24/10 at 5:29am GMT, according to the document).
I was searching for instructions on how to move an installation of Backup Exec from one server to another. Both servers were Windows Server 2008 Standard SP2 x64 and Backup Exec 2010 SP1 x64. I found Symantec technote 319367 regarding the solution for this issue.
I performed all the steps in 319367 as directed and everything seemed to be going fine until I got to step 6 in section IV: “Start all Backup Exec services – Start all the Backup Exec services which were stopped in Step 1”. I was unable to start all of the Backup Exec services. The Backup Exec Server service seemed to be the source of the trouble as it would not start and several other BE services depend on it.
When I tried to start the Backup Exec Server service on the new server, Windows would tell me that the service started and then stopped. When I went into the Windows application log, I found instances of event 57802 from Backup Exec corresponding to the times I tried to start the Backup Exec Server service. The error text was “The Backup Exec Server Service did not start. An internal error (1627652097) occurred in object -1.”
I searched Google for this error and located another Symantec technote: 318577. This technote stated that the issue was caused by an incorrect collation setting for the database and the solution was to install another SQL Server instance with the correct collation setting or to allow Backup Exec to install its own instance of SQL Server Express. Both the old and new installations of Backup Exec used the default SQL Server Express instance as installed by Backup Exec, so this was not the problem.
I attempted to completely uninstall Backup Exec and SQL Server Express and then follow technote 319367 again but I ran into the exact same snag at step 6 in section IV. Unable to proceed, I contacted Symantec technical support.
The problem with the technote seems to be in step 3 in section IV: “Copy Files – Copy the Backup Exec files from the temporary directories, overwriting the data, catalogs, and Intelligent Disaster Recovery (IDR) folders on the new system”. First of all, Symantec’s instructions in this step are dangerous because if there is a problem and Backup Exec does not work as it did not in my case, one cannot use the default installation’s files to fall back on because they get overwritten at this step. A better idea would be to rename the original directories and then copy from the temporary location. Other Backup Exec installation move technotes for other situations tell you to do this, just not 319367. In any case the problem seemed to be the copy of the Data folder. Instead of doing that, the support tech had me rename the MDF and LDF files in the new installation’s Data folder and then run BEUtility.exe and copy the database files, using the old installation’s database and log files in the temporary location as the source. After the copy was complete, I had no trouble starting the Backup Exec Server service and seeing all my jobs, history, and catalogs.
My support case was #412-741-674 if you wish to verify any of this.
Please fix technote 319367 so that it is correct and others don't waste 3.5 hours of their day on a support call.
