Error 4462. No OBDR and VSS failed to start.

[Jon Rushton]

I have recently updated my PC and running XP SP3. I have DPX 4.0 SP1 and when I try to run a backup creating an OBDR tape I get Error 4462. "The media was not prepared for boot with HP's One-Button Disaster Recovery (OBDR) Solution". I have checked the DPXTRACE.TXT file and it is attached. The key line in the DPXTRACE.TXT appears to be that the VSS service failed to start. I checked the services and the VSS service was running but set to manual.

Can you suggest why DPX would complain that the VSS Service would not start when it was already running. Also I really want to get my backups to be OBDR Ready so please suggest anything else I can try.

Thanks

JonR

[Rajanikant]

Hi,

The data protector express Backup Volume Shadow Copy Service Agent has the following basic requirements:
1. The VSS Agent will only work on NTFS volumes.
2. The VSS Agent is designed to work on the Windows XP Professional (supports only 1 snapshot at a time)
3. The VSS Agent requires at least 100MB of free space for each volume to be protected. This requirement is very strict, if even 99MB is available, the VSS snap will fail. This is an inherent requirement of VSS.
4. The VSS agent requires the following Windows Services be running for correct operation:
A. VSS service
B. MS Software Shadow Copy Provider Service

Ensure these basic requirements are taken care

You didn't tell us what is the device you are using for the OBDR? have you checked if the devce you are using is OBDR enabled?

Regards
Raj

[Jon Rushton]

Hi Raj,

Thanks for the response. To cover each of the points you asked about.

1. Yes I am using an NTFS file system.

2. I do have the "Enable Snapshots" tick box checked in my backup job options but do not know if DPX is clever enough not to start multiple snapshots. I have used the same option settings on many different machines and this is the first time I have come across this problems.

3. I have many many GB's of free disk space.

4. I will check that both these services are running but as I have not changed the way the services run then they will be at their default settings which I assume is both set to Manual. I will change them both to automatic to see if this makes a difference.

5. The device I am using is an Ultrium448 SCSI drive which I know is OBDR Ready, but even the "Make bootable CD" option in the DPX wizard fails saying that there is no Disaster Revovery Image available.

Thanks again

JonR

[Jon Rushton]

I am still having trouble. The problem is not the VSS service as I thought. I have set both the service Raj mentioned to Auto and started them, but I still have issues. The dptrace.txt file has two lines which are below. Can anyone suggest what is going wrong. I really want to get OBDR backups working.

dptrace.txt entries
- Could not issue ioctl of type 5636096 (1), tried 0 times
- Failed to get physical disk of boot drive (3)

Thanks

JonR

[D Wong]

Hi Jon:

Are you trying to create an OBDR tape cartridge of your local Window XP machine? i.e. of the machine HOME-XW9300. Or are you trying to create an OBDR tape cartridge of a machine over the network?

Is the Ultrium 448 LTO-2 tape cartridge setup with the write-protect tab enabled? What is the type of tape media used in your Ultrium 448 tape drive? Ultrium-2 or Ultrium-1

Is this the first backup job on your tape cartridge? Only the first backup job on the tape cartridge is a valid OBDR bootable tape. Otherwise, please erase the tape cartridge before running the full backup job.

How was your Windows XP machine created? Was the Windows XP machine created as a result of cloning or copying the data from another disk?

Regards,
Dave W.

[Jon Rushton]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply. To cover each of the points you rasied.

I not using a network. The Ultrium 448 drive is direct attached via a SCSI HBA to my machine and I get the same error if I trying to create an OBDR backup or if I try and create a Bootable CD.

The Ultrium 2 tape I am using is not write protected. The set of tapes I am using I also used to backup my previous machine and as part of each backup job I erase the tape prior to the backup. The tapes are Ultrium 2 tapes but even if they were Ultrium 1 tapes it would not make any difference to the OBDR backup.

My machine was not cloned or copied. I built it from scratch and then restored just my data from the previous backups I had from my old machine.

I have wondered if the machine set up is the root casue. I am using a SATA HDD and am thinking this may be the problem. I use a similar machine with SCSI HDD and this one has no problem with creating OBDR backups and bootable CDs.

Any ideas you may have that might shed any light on this would be gratfully received.

Many thanks

JonR

[D Wong]

Hi Jon:

Did you try to install the latest Windows driver and firmware for your HBA card?

Also, check you SAS HBA card for the following Customer Advisory.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c01661178&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Dave W.

[D Wong]

Sorry, since you have a SCSI tape drive the last reference to the Customer Advisory for SAS does not apply.

Dave W.

[Jon Rushton]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I have all the latest drivers, but I really think the problem is elsewhere as I get the same failure when I try to create a bootable CD. In this mode the tape drive does even come into the picture. Even when I try to save the image to disc I get the same error.

I am now fairly sure the issue is with the basic DR Image generation. There is something that DPX needs to create the DR Iamge that it cannot get and hence any of the DPX systems that use the DR Image are failing.

Thanks

JonR

[D Wong]

Hi Jon:

First, have you tried a complete uninstall and then a reinstall of the DPX software?

Second, could you attach the backup job log? Until the backup job succeeds, you will not have an OBDR tape cartridge.

To do this you need to setup the backup job to log all details to either a *.html or a *.txt file.

Dave W.