Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[robesaw]

I am getting 'backup complete' using the backup software built into my Vista Home Premium OS, but if I look at the folders on the DNS-323, they show no data.  Is my data there or not?

Does the DNS-323 support the backup software with Vista?

[Zardoz66]

if the data is not where put it I would not assume that it's there. if you done see the files I would not assume that.

and yes it does seem to work. as I been using myself for the last week as a test although not fully tested.

[gotraut]

My DNS-323 did this also.  It must be normal.

[robesaw]

OK - I restored a file today as a test and it did indeed restore.  However, my DNS has now failed backups as the disk is full.  I have 1.5Tb!!  I can't check the backup folders as they read empty.  Also, I cannot delete the backup folders.  It says access denied.

HMMM.

What to do?

[fordem]

In a tape backup system, this is the point at which you'd insert a new tape - but with D2D (disk to disk) you have to make some changes to the backup concepts.

Here are couple of the points you need to consider...

With tape, the traditional methods use multiple tape cartridges, which are rotated - for example the simplest - grandfather/father/son - three tapes are used in a sequence which allows one to be stored offsite, one on site for immediate restore and one on site for a backup.  This allows you to have multiple versions of the backup so that if one becomes contaminated (a virus could be present and be backed up) there are others that can be restored, and if a tape becomes damaged, again there are others that can be restored.

Translating this to disk, you either need removable disk cartridges (they do exist - Imation Odyssey is an example) or you need to create three backup targets on your "fixed' disk and rotate the backups amongst them, overwriting the old backup, the same as would be done with tape)

The "translation" above assumes a full backup, as this is the simplest, but can be used with all forms of backup - full/incremental/differential, and all rotation types - it just becomes a matter of creating and selecting the targets - which can get quite complicated for the basic backup utilities, but can successfully be automated with the more complex (and expensive) ones such as BackUpExec - this is one case where you get what you pay for.

Now - an area that many people overlook when moving to D2D backup - and is vitally important
When you use a single tape drive - your backups are stored on different physical media, a drive failure can be dealt with by replacing the drive, you have the data on the removable media.

If you use a single fixed disk to hold all your targets - the same does not hold true - your backups are on the same physical media, and a drive failure takes your data with it - you need removable media or you need redundancy.

What to do?

Reformat the disks (consider RAID1 if you're not already using it) and reconfigure your backup utility so that it allows you to (a) select multiple target location and (b) overwrites the selected target location.

Can Vista backup do this - I don't know, but if it can't, you'll need to find a backup utility that does.

[bigclaw]

I'm not exactly sure what fordem was describing and how it pertains to this problem, but I remember I encountered similar problems backing up directly to the DNS-323 from a Windows Vista Ultimate box. I was doing a complete computer backup at the time.

It seems that my problem, not sure if it's similar to yours, is permission-related. It seems that Vista backs up the data using an administrator type of account (not the current user account), which may or may not have the right permission to write to the DNS-323 fully. In fact, if you back up to another medium, say an external HDD or a second internal HDD, and try to browse that folder, Vista will prompt you for not having the exact right permission. The reason is that the backup copy was created under a different (system) user.

What I ended up doing at the time was to back up to such an external medium and then copy the files to the DNS-323 manually for archival purposes, I think.

I use my external HDD to restore such an image later, so I haven't tried restoring from the DNS-323 directly.

[robesaw]

Well I think you are in the right direction.  I definately cannot access the folders with the backups, but I have an administrator account, I've opened up the LAN access on the GUI for the DNS, and I ran the backup software using my own user account.  I can't delete the files. 

I do realize that the incremental backups get large and you have to periodically delete and replace with a full backup to overcome this, but as I said I cannot access the files/folders.  I REALLY don't want to reformat with several gigabytes of backup and media files already on this device.

I have to say, DLink, I've been extremely patient trying to get this device to do the most basic things, claimed to work on the box.  So far I've not been successful with any of the features I bought this device for.

Can someone suggest how I can delete folders w/o reformatting?

[bigclaw]

Well I think you are in the right direction.  I definately cannot access the folders with the backups, but I have an administrator account, I've opened up the LAN access on the GUI for the DNS, and I ran the backup software using my own user account.  I can't delete the files. 

There is a difference between THE Administrator account and an account with administrator privileges. The Administrator account is actually turned off by default on Vista. My suspicion is that the Vista backup and restore center uses THE Administrator account (or some other system account) to back up. I didn't spent a whole lot of time investigating further as it didn't concern that much anyway.

[bigclaw]

Some random web searches yielded similar complaints. This one dates back to 2007:

http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2007-January/051318.html

[robesaw]

There is a difference between THE Administrator account and an account with administrator privileges. The Administrator account is actually turned off by default on Vista. My suspicion is that the Vista backup and restore center uses THE Administrator account (or some other system account) to back up. I didn't spent a whole lot of time investigating further as it didn't concern that much anyway.

So how can I log on as Administrator?  It's my pc and I only have logon id's for user accounts.

[bigclaw]

So how can I log on as Administrator?  It's my pc and I only have logon id's for user accounts.

Google is your friend. Disclaimers:

1) You may not want to enable the Administrator account. It's disabled for a reason.
2) I don't know for sure the Administrator account is the culprit at all. I'm merely suggesting that the failure has to do with file permissions.

[fordem]

I'm not exactly sure what fordem was describing and how it pertains to this problem.

It's a response to the post immediately above it, which is something which I believe most of you will run into sooner or later.

[bigclaw]

It's a response to the post immediately above it, which is something which I believe most of you will run into sooner or later.

I think robesaw was saying that the DNS-323 (or Windows) was reporting that the disk was full while he has 1.5TB of space available. That's a not uncommon misreport when you have permission problems. Your post then delved into rotating backups, etc, which completely lost me...

But I digress; you may be right and I may have drunk too much coffee today...

[robesaw]

Sorry all.  I may in fact have used up my drive space.  I don't know as the file/folder sizes will not show.  I need to know how I can delete files or folders.  I've tried and cannot.

[fordem]

I think robesaw was saying that the DNS-323 (or Windows) was reporting that the disk was full while he has 1.5TB of space available. That's a not uncommon misreport when you have permission problems. Your post then delved into rotating backups, etc, which completely lost me...

But I digress; you may be right and I may have drunk too much coffee today...

I could be wrong - but for him to have 1.5TB of space available, he'd have to have a drive larger than 1.5TB, which aren't exactly common just yet - and the reason why I assumed he'd run out of space, is I've done it myself, in pretty much the same way - backing up a server with less than 80GB of data to a 500GB disk.

His dilemma right now is one of permissions, but, unless he changes his backup routines, it will probably reoccur - hence my post.