Backup Software - Backup Exec 9.1 SP2 with Hotfix 50 attempting remote system backup of Windows 2003 Ser

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Backup Exec 9.1 SP2 with Hotfix 50 attempting remote system backup of Windows 2003 Ser

Giles Coochey

2005-07-11, 7:46 am

I'm posting here the thread of support I'm getting from the Symantec
"community" website, unfortunately, with the way we purchased the product
it's currently the only support method we have.

I would appreciate it if the newsgroup could reiew i, and in particular if
anyone has any experience with attempting a full restore with this
configuration, particularly a successful one then I'd like to hear from you.

I have nightmares of thousands of companies, blindly performing backups of
their systems in the belief that they have a sound recovery mechanism. If my
gut feeling is correct, one of those companies will probably have to perform
a recovery attempt, which will fail, and could result in bankruptcy.

My Initial Post:

/*begin*/
Firstly, I am beginning to believe that there simply isn't a resolution to
this issue at this time - I would love to hear from someone who has managed
to complete a full system restore of a system running Windows 2003 SP1 with
Backup Exec 9.1 SP2 (with Hotfixes 50 & 52 applied).

Thankfully this is an exercise and not a real world disaster.

I am trying to backup and complete a restore of a System running Windows
2003 SP1 and Microsoft SQL Server using Veritas Backup Exec 9.1 with the
hotfixes and patches I have mentioned above.

Firstly although I find that Hotfix 50 appears to install the correct
"bedsnt5.dll" on the media server, when the media server pushes the remote
agent to the Windows 2003 SP1 server it actually installs 9.1.4691.20
version of the file.

To get round this I stop the Remote Agent service, copy over the 9.1.4691.50
version of the file to the correct folder on the Windows 2003 SP1 server and
restart the computer, after restarting I verify that the file is still the
9.1.4691.50 version (you never know with these new, self-repairing OS).

I perform this task both prior to backing up the server and pior to
attempting the restore.

I follow the instructions exactly as given in the Hotfix 50 documentation
and the related documentation for Remote System Restore of a Windows
2000/2003 server.

Copying the correct bedsnt5.dll file has got round the "could not load
kernel" fatal errors that I've been getting on this issue for the last week.

However, now I find that upon attempting to restart the server after the
restore the system simply enters into what appears to be an endless series
of reboots. Windows appears to be starting, it goes into the semi graphical
mode with the scrolling horizontal bar, but simply blinks the screen and
decides to reboot.

The system is a Dell Poweredge 2850, 2 2.8Ghz Xeons, 4Gb RAM, 2 logical
drives (1 RAID 1 mirror & 1 RAID 5 array).

Is there yet another hotfix?

Is there anyone else who has had this problem?

Has anyone had a successful system restore of Windows 2003 with this version
of the Backup Exec product?

/*end*/

To which I got the reply:

/*begin*/
Hi,

Have you recreated all IDR bootable media After installing this hotfix 50?

Also note that at this time, push installs are not possible from Backup Exec
for Windows Servers to Windows XP Service Pack 2 systems or Windows 2003
Service Pack 1 servers.
Local installations of the Remote Agent can be carried out as described in
the following article:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/258982

Refer these technotes for more information:

http://support.veritas.com/docs/276538
http://support.veritas.com/docs/270144

Additional Information :
For information on the recent VERITAS Backup Exec security vulnerabilities,
including links to the downloads for the necessary hotfixes, please refer to
the following document:
Patch summary for Security Advisories VX05-001, VX05-002, VX05-003,
VX05-005, VX05-006, VX05-007

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/277429.htm

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post
would be marked "assumed answered" and would be moved to "answered
questions" pool.
/*end*/

And to which I replied:

/*begin*/
We don't have or use the IDR option. I will try the local installation of
the Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows as per document 258982 in your
post. However, I must report that I do not experience the symptoms that are
reported in 270144 and the Remote Agent appears to install without any
problems. Obviously the first time we're installing the agent (for backup
purposes) the system is part of a Domain where the firewall is disabled by
default, and the second time we're installing the agent (for restore
purposes) the system is not a Windows 2003 SP1 server, but only a Windows
2003 server.

This is a server deployment project, which requires a successful Disaster
Recovery test before the server can go into production. It has involved the
recent purchase of a remote agent for MS SQL Server, which unfortunately we
will have to return for a refund if we can't get the software to do its job.

The method I've been using is as follows:

0. We have a system build, Windows 2003, applied SP1 & all available windows
security updates, installed MS SQL Server, installed MS SQL Analysis
Services, installed MS SQL SP4.
1. We install the remote agent (push from media server- it appeared to work,
more or less, with the exception of the incorrect bedsnt5.dll file, see
below)
2. We backup the System Drive & System State
3. We rebuild the server using original Windows Server Media, we don't join
the domain, we don't apply any service packs (this system is just a Windows
2003 Server, with a administrator password set and terminal services enabled
for remote administration).
4. We install the remote agent (admittedly, we've been pushing the agent
from the media server)
5. We restore both System drive and System State

NB Backup Exec claims that both the backup completes ok and the restore
completes ok. Backup Exec asks us to reboot the restored server to complete
the restore.

We follow these instructions, and depending on the version of the
bedsnt5.dll file:

9.1.4691.20

On attempting to start Windows immediately reports:

Windows could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as :
load needed DLLs for kernel.
Please contact your support person to report this problem.

9.1.4691.50 (manually applied)

Windows appears to go through the start up process, however, just when you
believe the login screen will appear the system reboots itself.

/*end*/

and followed up with:

/*begin*/

Right, firstly, after installing the RANT32 manually by running the
setupaofo.cmd I notice immediately that the version of the bedsnt5.dll file
is still 9.1.4691.20

It seems quite obvious that the Hotfix 50 is not replacing the file with the
version that it says it is, it's only replacing the instance of the file
that is placed on the Media server.

This to me is obviously a bug with the patch, and needs to be resolved, but
this is my only possible course of action, and I don't even know how I can
get any kind of escallation to Veritas Engineering through this forum.

/*end*/

To which a user commented:

/*begin*/

First of all, asking anyone from Veritas to escalate anything on this forum
is like asking the local kebab shop to escalate your complaint about the
salad. It's not ever going to go anywhere.

Regarding your series of reboots, the first thing that comes to mind:

Are you restoring to IDENTICAL hardware?

With this in mind, can you boot in safe mode?

/*end*/

and finally:

/*begin*/

Yes, the hardware is identical, it is in fact the same machine, which is
part of the reason why it's doing my head in. The number of times where I've
built the system, installed MS SQL & patches etc..., backed up and then
attempted a restore (which takes a few hours each time) has monopolised my
time for at least two weeks now.

As for safe mode - this would normally work by pressing F8 right? Well I hit
F8 like it's going out-of-style during the boot-up process and Windows
doesn't give me a Advanced Option menu at all, it just goes straight into
boot-up.

I just tried re-applying Hotfix 50 on the media server and managed to reboot
it during our maintenance window last night. I uninstalled the agent and
rebooted the system to be recovered and tried re-installing the agent again,
it still shows the 9.1.4691.20 version of the bedsnt5.dll file, which the
hotfix documentation says should be version 9.1.4691.50.

To be honest I'm running out of time on this project, we must have a
disaster recovery plan and this issue affects system restore capability to
other production systems on our network. I'm seriously starting to realise
that the only recommendation to management that I can put with confidence
would be that we look into something like CA ArcServe and get them or a
solution provider to prove that they can restore our server before we make a
purchase of their software.

In my 11 years in IT Operations employment I've always used Backup Exec.
Surely there must be others out there who can either say (a) it works for
me, which I note no-one has said; or (b) Yes, this doesn't work and there is
a problem.

/*end*/

jshope2

2006-07-20, 11:10 pm

I'm so mad at Veritas/Symantec! I've had the exact same problem with version 10d trying to restore a production Email server. Been down for 3 days now. Restore shadow copy to win 2003 server and can't boot afterwards. It gets to the same point you mentioned and continuously reboots from there. In fact the restore apparently even damages the raid array since after the restore, i can't even boot from the Windows CD until I reinitialize the array. So my backup is worthless.

BUT THEN, while talking to the tech support folks, I was told that even if I were able to get the restore to work, BackupExec does not handle any applications (winzip, Dell Openmange, Exchange (the programs) Symantec Antivirus, etc.). So even if the restore had worked, I would then need to uninstall all applications and reinstall them. I'm hard pressed to understand what good the backup would be EVEN IF IT WORKED.

I can't tell you how much money I've spent on making sure I had good backups that are apparently good for nothing. I hope somebody with deeper pockets sues the hell out of Veritas/Symantec. On second thought, this is actually criminal in that it is fraud to be claiming that this is a backup solution when they must know that it is not and that it does not work.

If anyone has been able to restore to a Windows 2003 server that was previously a domain controller, please