User Tip #105: Windows NT Backup

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If you have a tape unit, you can use the backup utility that comes with Windows NT, NTBACKUP. You cannot backup your PC unless you have the back up files and directories user right. If you are the local administrator or power user, you will have this right or can grant it.

The types of backups NTBACKUP supports are:

The options available in NTBACKUP are:

There are a set of standard backup schemes for production servers. For personal use, I recommend backup up full, normal backup, whenever you have created documents or made changes to your PC which are important. Take the time to back up your PC. Have a set of tapes which you rotate. Label each tape with the date and some idea of why the backup was made. Keep your old tapes and do not reuse them for a year or so. Throw away tapes which are 3 years old.

If NTBACKUP reports an error on the tape such as Bad Tape or Tape Drive Error Detected, reboot the PC and try again. If the error is consistent and it seems to be the tape and not the tape drive (ie you can use other tapes), erase the tape. Startup NTBACKUP with the nopoll parm:

ntbackup /nopoll

The nopoll parm is used to tell NTBACKUP to not check the tape. At this point you can erase the bad tape. Mark the tape as having been erased and if you have future problems, chunk it. If budget is no problem, don't bother and just chunk it. During a nopoll session, you can erase but not backup or restore.

A minor gotcha! can occur if you schedule ntbackup using the AT scheduler. If an error occurs, ntbackup will prompt and if you did not specify the /interactive option to launch ntbackup.exe, then there is no user console and no one to respond. The process hangs in memory until a reboot.



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