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Posted by Ian on June 8, 2006, 3:53 pm
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Is there any way to reliably disable the "Media Pooling" (removeable
storage database) of Windows 2000 and 2003 Server, when using the
NTBACKUP applet with a DDS drive?
Every time I've setup one of these servers there's always been major
problems trying to convince the backup software to use the tape
supplied, instead of demanding some specific tape and refusing
pointblank to do the backup if that tape isn't provided. Even if you
can get it working there is no guarantee it will remain so, it may go
haywire again weeks down-the-line.
Just discovered that such a server belonging to a client I don't see
often suddenly decided to spit the tape out, saying it was 'the wrong
tape' (Incorrectly, as it happens) and has refused point blank to run
any kind of backup since, instead demanding the insertion of a
specific tape which doesn't exist.. That was in March, and the client
hasn't been diligent about checking the logs. It was very lucky I
spotted the situation when looking at the server for other reasons.
Basically, this "Media Pooling" was I guess, designed for autoloaders
to stop the wrong tape being used, only the guys who designed it
didn't have their brains in-gear or they'd have realised it could lead
to catastrophic failure of the backup.
I know that some top-end packages (e.g Veritas) have the option to
forcibly over-ride the media-pooling, but this client doesn't want to
spend that kind of cash on solving what is after all a ridiculous
problem. Any suggestions?
(A brief test shows that the NTBACKUP from NT4 will actually work on
2000 server, though it may not back-up the registry correctly. While
this may not be a very good solution it's 100% better than losing the
backup through media-pooling problems.)
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