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small business server 2011 windows backup failures

Hi, I have set up the Windows Server Backup using the schedule wizard to do full backups of my machine (using all the recommended settings) and am getting consistent failures. I have tried to delete and recreate both the scheduled and tried it one-time with the same issue. I first put on a USB 2TB external hard drive and then tried it again with a second, new 3TB usb drive with the same problem. The drives were initialized successfully by the wizard as recommended. The failure is basically no data backed up - the failure occurred due to an I/O device error. The log file C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Logs\SBCW.log has the following info:

--------------------------------------------------------
[12300] 140513.102601.7479: General: Initializing...C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\SBCW.exe
[24480] 140513.102625.2415: Storage: Found valid source volume: VolumeLabel=RECOVERY, MountPath=
[24480] 140513.102625.2415: Storage: Found valid source volume: VolumeLabel=DATAPART1, MountPath=D:
[24480] 140513.102625.2571: Storage: Found valid source volume: VolumeLabel=OS, MountPath=C:
[24480] 140513.102625.3039: Storage: ResultCountException in GetPolicy: Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.PowerShell.ResultCountException: Exception of type 'Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.PowerShell.ResultCountException' was thrown.
at Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.Storage.Common.LHSBPSRuntime.GetPolicy(Boolean edit)
[24480] 140513.102625.3039: Storage: No current policy found

Any ideas how to fix this?
Thanks,
Rich

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Cris Hanna

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pgm554

The built in backup does not support 4k sector drives or drives over 2 tb.
This is an issue with the format (vhd)that the Windows backup uses.
They fixed it in 2012 and 8.x,but alas it does not work on any other windows system.

Rich

ASKER

The first drive I tried with was a 2 TB (1.8TB) Seagate Backup Plus external drive. Not sure what sector size this one uses as the pecs on website are limited to weight and physical size :( but there is a memo saying that their 3 and 4 TB drives will not work as they do not have the 512Kb sector size required by Windows backup. That said, I cannot even format this drive in Windows so maybe it is simply defective.

The other drive is in fact a WD 3 TB external USB drive, and as such, I am hoping to be able to use the instructions in the linked articles in Cris' response to format it with a WD tool that claims it will solve the issue. I will have to retrieve the drive from the server in order to try this, however.

Thanks for the help both of you.

pgm554

No ,it probably will not .
There are some 512 off the shelf usb drives out there ,but the WD Reds are 512 out of the box.
If you have an external usb enclosure ,I would suggest that and a red drive of 2tb or less.

Rich

ASKER

Thanks pgm554,
I am here at the server now and see that the drive I have is a Seagate, not a WD drive anyway. I will have to look for a WD Red to replace it with.