SystemState -- Access is Denied.

[Chase_Tompkins]

Hi,

Recently 2 of my 6 servers have stopped backing up successfully. Of these 6 servers, I have 3 Windows 2000 servers, and 3 Windows 2003 servers. 2 of my 3 Windows 2000 servers have the system state fail nightly due to "access is denied" errors.

The exact error message is:

Backup- \\servername\System?State V-79-57344-33928 - Access is denied.
Access denied to directory Boot Files\.

These servers are remote to my main backup exec console which is running on a Windows 2003 server. The account used to backup these 6 servers is ONLY in the domain admin group. This account is used on all the servers, and is also added as a local administrator on all 6 machines.

I've recently upgraded to the new service pack for backup exec, and that did not help either. I have looked at numerous support docs (including the one stating to have the account ONLY in the domain admin group and local system).

If I run a test job, it will complete successfully 100%. This error started 2 weeks ago when we had to reboot our servers. Two of these servers system state backup failed from that moment on; However, all the other servers still worked properly.

I really would appreciate some help. This error has gone on for over 2 weeks and I really need to get this working again.

[tejashree_Bhate]

Hello,

We request you to take a backup with NT Backup utility and veriyf results.

Let us know if this works.


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[Chase_Tompkins]

NT Backup Utility completes successfully when backing up the system state on both of the affected servers. I ran the backup job as our backup account.

Server 1
------------
Backup started on 4/25/2006 at 11:53 AM.
Backup completed on 4/25/2006 at 11:53 AM.
Directories: 21
Files: 152
Bytes: 39,811,263
Time: 9 seconds

Server 2
-------------
Backup started on 4/25/2006 at 11:57 AM.
Backup completed on 4/25/2006 at 11:57 AM.
Directories: 21
Files: 218
Bytes: 43,291,843
Time: 11 seconds

Results verified and working properly.

How do I get my Backup Exec to backup these two servers succesfully??

[Swati_Joshi]

Hi Chase!

Please check if the registry key "Restrict Anonymous Support" which could be found at
is set to 1.on the servers in questions as well as on BEWS.

Thanks and regards,

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[Waleed_Khan]

Hi,

I seem to be having the same issue on my server. It's a local backup though.
I checked all the permissions on the specific folders which form part of the system backup. I found some crypto folders which didn't have access for Administrator account. I subsequently gave Admin full access, then tried to backup the system state again - still failed. My NT backup can successfully backup and restore the system state information.

Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[Chase_Tompkins]

I've changed it to 1 as you requested; however, it is still set to 0 on the machines that the system state is being backed up sucessfully on. So I am unclear how this will solve my problem

[Steve_TYiybg]

Try NTbackup on the server locally. It will default to backup to disk.
If you get the same byte count contact Microsoft.

[Steve_TYiybg]

On average the system state/shadow copy components should be 300mb + So if ntbackup reports the same byte count then its not a Veritas Issue

[Chase_Tompkins]

As per my second post, I have done a successful NTBackup of the System State of the affected servers. I've also used NTBackup on the Windows 2000 servers which are working properly. The backup file size is consistant on all the servers I've tried NtBackup on. Since they are Windows 2000 machines, there is no shadow copy.

[Waleed_Khan]

Some more information. My error refers to the permissions of the boot files portion of the system state backup. I restored my Microsoft system state backup and checked what files were under boot files. They were c:\Documents and settings\all users - some crypto files there
c:\winnt\system32 and the boot files in the c:\ root.
I checked the permissions of all of these files. A few of them had no permissions set for Administrator, so i gave Admin full access, but the same error still pop ups when i do a system state backup using BK Exec.

Any other ideas?

[STeve_O]

I would have to disagree on the NTBACKUP? System state should me more than 40mb.

[Chase_Tompkins]

I am unsure if the system state should be bigger or not. NTBackup says the backup of the system state was successful. I'm starting to think it should be bigger too; however, NTBackup shows no error messages, it says everything was completed succeessfully. I don't know how to solve the problem if it doesn't give me an error message.


And as a follow up to symantec's recommendations, changing the registery entry to 1 did not solve my issue.....

[Chase_Tompkins]

7 days later, still waiting for a resolution... tips? suggestions? anything????

[Owen_Iverson]

Tired of non-helpful tech support? I have yet to gain any helpful/useful information from the Symantec/Veritas techs. They want to move as many topics to the "answered" section as possible. The "two-day, automatically assumed answered" policy is absurd, in my opinion.

For these reasons, I have started a new backup exec group at google.

If you're interested, please check it out, and spread the word if you like it.

http://groups.google.com/group/backupexec

Since it's new, I need you guys to start the ball rolling by posting some questions. :)

Owen

[Chase_Tompkins]

thanks, I'll post on that group...

However, if anyone here can still help me, it would be greatly appreciated :)

[STeve_O]

I would suggest running filemon from sysinternals.com and see what the OS is returning to backup exec

[Chase_Tompkins]

I tried your suggestion and everything it's tried to backup has the status of SUCCESS. I didn't see many file not found or *error* type situations. It's almost like its completely skipping a section of the system state.

I'm still stumped, any other suggestions?

[Ashutosh_Tamhan]

Hello Chase!

Sorry for the inconvenience caused!
We are committed to helping you out with your Backup Exec issues.

Coming back to your issue:

- Does the ntbackup job log show any skipped files / does the event log show any errors?

- Have you made sure that the user with which you are logging on to the computer has full permissions on the local computer! The user must belong to the local admin (+ /Domain Admins) to be able to backup the system state.

- Also check the permissions in the registry everywhere, give the user + SYSTEM full control.

- What version of Backup Exec are you using?

This seems to be definitely a permissions issue: http://support.veritas.com/docs/240886


Regards,
Ashutosh

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[Chase_Tompkins]

I will try it tonight and state my results tomorrow.

The backup exec version is 10.1 w/ all service packs

As stated in my previous responses, ntbackup completes successfully with no errors/skipped files

the backup account has full control over all elements on the affected computers.

[Ashutosh_Tamhan]

Hello Chase!

Thank you for the update. We await the results of your backups.



Regards,
Ashutosh

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