Unable to backup up Exchange 2007 SP1 running on Windows Server 2008 with BE12

[jl]

Hello,

I am trying to backup Exchange 2007 SP1 that is running on Windows Server 2008 with BE12 running on another Windows Server 2008. So far no matter what I have tried the backup runs and fails with:

V-79-57344-34110 - AOFO: Initialization failure on: "\\hobbes.myserver.lan\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group". Advanced Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).

Snapshot provider error (0xE0008516): Resources specified for snapshot do not have any valid data on them. Check if files were deleted or renamed. Check the Windows Event Viewer for details.

I set the backup job for the above up with the same settings that I know work for backing up Exchange 2007 SP1 server that runs on Windows 2003 R2 SP2 x64 with BE12 running on a Windows Server 2008 server in a production environment.

So far I have:

Verified that all current updates and patches are applied to W2k8 and BE12.

Verified the installation of the Exchange agent option on the BE12 server.

Verified the installation of the remote agent on the Exchange server.

Verified the installation of the Exchange management tools on the BE12 server.

Verified that the backup account has the proper rights to the information store and local admin rights on the server itself.

Verified that I can see the information stores from the BE12 server.

Verified that I can backup the system state, shadow copy components, and a few other files on the exchange server.

Verified that I can backup files on another Windows 2008 Server using AOFO.

I have disabled AOFO and nothing was backed up (information store or system state).

I have disabled VSS consistency check before backup.

The only odd thing I have noticed during the install and trying to get it working, was that you cannot select the AOFO option when pushing out a remote agent to any Windows 2008 Server, so I assume that to mean the Symantec VSP is not compatible with W2k8 (not that I'd use it even if it was).

I've probably overlooked something in the setup somewhere, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe

[jl]

To add a little more information:

I verified that MAPI/CDO (latest and greatest version 06.05.8022.0) is installed on the Exchange server. *Make sure you download the msi package and not the exe package.

I verified that the backup account has Exchange Server Admin rights and local server Admin rights. I even ran a test backup using a backup account that has every possible admin rights for the Forest, Domain, and Exchange (Enterprise, etc...) and still nothing.

I verified that the MS VSS writer is available and working.

And as a last ditch effort I installed BE12 on the Exchange server itself and re-verified all of the above - still cannot backup the Information Store and still get the same AOFO error previously mentioned, as the result.

Granted this is all running in my test environment, but it is in preperation for an upcoming migration. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone from Symantec would chime in on this, I'm running out of ideas to try and just about to the point of opening a support ticket for this.

Thanks,

Joe

[jl]

And more to add:

I also tried running the backup without GRT and still no luck, same error.

If anyone is interested I turned on verbose logging for everything in BE12 and have the logs. I don't know what to specifically look for, but I didn't see any glarring errors.

Thanks