Windows Server Backup says the filename, directory name, or volume label is incorrect when adding another destination drive to the backup

backupwindows-server-2008

I have Windows Server 2008 R2 installed and running. I created a full server backup to an external portable drive (MyBook by WD). It scheduled and has been running with no errors for a week. I purchased another MyBook (same size too) to swap out so we have an offsite backup in rotation. I plugged the new drive in and ran through the wizard to add this drive as a destination. It gets to the end and says "The filename, directory name, or volume label is incorrect." Then says the backup has not been modified.

If I look in the disk managment, the external drive has been formatted and labeled exactly like the first drive, only with Disk_02 instead of Disk_01.

This is the second drive it has happened on. We had another drive that I assumed was just going bad so we bought this new one to replace it.

Edit: Also, this type of scenario was working just fine on a Windows Server 2008 machine. The boot drive went bad so I decided to start over with R2…

Best Answer

I solved this by plugging both removable drives in while adding the second backup drive. I didn't need to do this in Server 2008, I guess R2 requires it or it's a bug.

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Windows Server Backup: How to direct it back to the first disk after it was disconnected

It's not at all clear from the Microsoft documentation (what else is new!) but I believe having two backup destinations doesn't split the backup over two drives (which I kinda like) but actually writes the same backup to both drives. So in theory, if you have both drives plugged in, both should be getting a nightly backup and your plan should work. After you plug the drive back in after the next night does it get written to? I'm not surprised that drive2 was still written to, but according to MS docs, drive1 should have had the same data written to it as well.

Linux – Managing consistent mounting of external USB hard drives in Linux (CentOS 5)

I think what you want is mounting in fstab by UUID. I swiped this info (and example text) from here.

First, find out your device's UUID:

$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2007-05-27 23:42 348ea9e6-7879-4332-8d7a-915507574a80 -> ../../hda4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2007-05-27 23:42 610aaaeb-a65e-4269-9714-b26a1388a106 -> ../../hda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2007-05-27 23:42 857c5e63-c9be-4080-b4c2-72d606435051 -> ../../hda5

The UUID of each device is the big string of hex numbers and dashes. Once you have that, just put "UUID=857c5e63-c9be-4080-b4c2-72d606435051" into your fstab in place of the device name. Now your USB drive will always be mounted in the same place, even if you plug it into a different USB hub or have other USB devices.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows Server Backup: How to direct it back to the first disk after it was disconnected

Linux – Managing consistent mounting of external USB hard drives in Linux (CentOS 5)

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