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Recovery Tool for .bkf Files?

taglerock
Level 3

Hello.  We have a server that crashed and it was being backed up using backup exec.  I have no idea when it was installed as it was on there when i started.  It appears that the .bkf files it created have been split up into fragments, so when trying to use ntbackup or a similar program to recover data the folders don't have everything in it.  I tried downloading a trial of Backup Exec but its giving me all kinds of problems and its the full blown server version.  What I am looking for is just a basic backup extraction/recovery tool from Vertias so I can pull files out of the backups, or if there is some other way to do this that i'm not aware of. 

Backups were made of a Server 2008 R2 server, my workstation I am attempting the recoveries on is Windows 10 Pro

5 REPLIES 5

taglerock
Level 3

Update:  I tried making a rescue disk and booting off of it, but it wants a file with a .dr extension to do the recoveries, i don't seem to be able to open the .bkf directly.

I spun up a VM and got Backup Exec working on a Server 2008 we had on there, but the recovery option is greyed out?  Many this software is weird.  Any help is appreciated.

 

backupexec_ss.PNG

Ok so after some research I have figured out that I have to add the storage containing the .bkf files and catalog them in the backupexec software.  I have tried this but it doesn't show anything i can recover.  I have also tried inventory, and inventory and catalog and nothing happens.  When clicking on catalog it asks for the name, I leave it as default, then click ok, it pops up and says "Cataloguing Disk 00001" or something along those lines for about 2 or 3 seconds, then that little pop up disappears and nothing appears to happen.  I did notice that after doing the inventory and catalog the drive now has a folder on it called BEData that I can't modify in any way, even with the domain admin.

This software is truly infuriating....I have tried inventorying the drive, catalogin it, inventorying and cataloging it, and nothing.  I even pulled the failed drive from the old server, used a data recovery program, managed to find program files on the old server, copied the old symantec folder (turns out they were running version 12 i think), and then copied the catalogs from the old server to the server i have backup exec running on right now and nothing.  There is several hundred gigs of bkf files, and they are completely useless to me because of how picky backup exec is.  I'm going home now before i start ranting on the forums and throwing hard drives and computers across the office.  I hope someone can help me.  Thank you.

Well I managed to figure it out.  After going home last night and having some food and....beverages I calmed down and decided to start trying to recover it again and doing some research.  I found a BackupExec Administrators Guide and in that guide is a section on restoring legacy backups.  Below is a link for anyone else who is having this issue.

https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/59226269-99535599-0/v62908496-99535599

As a side note, I realize this is a free service but I didn't recieve any help from anyone on this, I saw other posts that were replied to within minutes to a couple of hours.  Its unfortunate....