Tag: Windows

SBS Backup failure – Error in log 0x800710d8 Gettapemediapoolname failed

So we saw this on an SBS 2003 R2 Premium machine that had been up for a long time. When we did some Googling we came across the following article which we figured would be required, http://www.taznetworks.com/rss/2006/01/sbs-backup-error-code-0x800710d8.html . Simple easy, with just a few server reboots.

When we examined the server more closely we discovered that it had the well known SQL memory issue that SBS seems to suffer from on the MS Firewall service. What happens here is that you see an sqlsever instance consuming a huge amount of RAM. When you look closer at the source of the instance you find it is the ISA 2004 reporting database. You can find more information about the solution to that here but basically you need to run the command line WMSDE tools to limit the amount of memory the WMSDE instance uses (WMSDE is the cut down version of SQL you get for free). So we did that since the server couldn’t be rebooted and low and behold the backup the following day worked!

So it would seem that not only is the backup error 0x800710d8 potentially related to a corrupt RSM database but it is dependent on the memory in use on  your server. So before you go recreating your RSM database try seeing whether your server maybe consuming an inordinate amount of RAM. If it is try throttling some of the SQL instances as detailed above or like most things, maybe a simple reboot to free up memory again will do the job.

Advanced Virtual PC video

We have posted a new video that cover some of the more advanced features of Microsoft Virtual PC. We cover features such as virtual machine additions, virtual hard disk compacting as well as creating differencing virtual hard disks. You’ll find the video by clicking here. As always we welcome any feedback or suggestions you may have for us about our video creations as we are always trying to develop material that is beneficial to people.

If you find our videos at all beneficial we ask you to consider supporting us directly by making a donation via http://donation.saturnalliance.com.au. All donations allow us to devote more resources to the content we provide as well as improving its quality.

Failed to create empty document

Just found that you get this error “Failed to create empty document” when you attempt to open the Arcserve Brightstor Manager when using Remote Desktop connection to your server after installing Internet Explorer 7.0. Computer Associates have a knowledge base article here but basically :

1. Shutdown the Brightstor Manager

2. Rename the file psapi.dll located in :\program files\ca\brighstor arcserve backup to psapi.dll.org

3. Restart the Brightstor Manager

Simple eh ?

Making USB keys read only in XP SP2

As usual, the normal warnings about using regedit apply. If you use regedit incorrectly you may cause your system to fail to boot.

1. Run Regedit

2. Locate HKLM\system\currentcontrolset\control

3. Right mouse click on Control and select New Key

4. Enter the new key names = StorageDevicePolicies

5. Right mouse click StorageDevicePolicies, select New then DWORD

6. Enter value WriteProtect

7. Set this value to 1 to allow USB drives to be read only or 0 to allow normal USB operation.

Arcserve job that won’t run

Have you ever seen a job in Brightsor Arcserve that is correctly scheduled but won’t run? If you have a look at the job closely in the Job Status screen you will see that, most likley, the backup job doesn’t have a Job ID number. All this indicated that the Job Queue has become corrupt and needs to be recreated.

Prior to any changes it ius always a good idea to save your existing backup job to a file. Simply right mouse click on the job in the Job Status screen and select “Modify Job“. At the modify job screen selecet File | Save As and save the backup job.

So, the first step is to stop all the Brighstor Arcserve Engines. To do this simply right mouse click on the three green circles in the top middle of the Brightstor Manager and select “Stop all Engines”. After a few moments all the indicators should go to red. You can also stop the engines via Services in Administrative tools.

Now locate the :\program files\ca\brighstor arcserve backup folder on your hard disk. Under this folder is a queue directory, which looks something like 000000001.qsd. Right mouse click on this and rename it to something ( ie 00000001.bak ).

If you return to the Brighstor Manager and right mouse click on the three red circles and select “Start all Engines” from the menu that appears. A new queue ( and directory ) will now be automatically created. The queue will be totally empty ( of even a database prune job ), so you’ll need to re-create both your backup job and the normal database prune job. To recreate the prune job you will need to go into “Server admin” and follow a few steps to recreate the standard prune job (I’ll run over this in my next post maybe). If you saved your backup job out previously then you can simply create a new backup job and restore it from the file you saved previously.

Beware that if you are using an autoloader, once you create a new queue and recreate the backup job the link between the media pool and the backup job is broken. You will therefore need to move the media in the autoloader into the correct pool set (scratch or save). We have found issues doing this and recommend that the best bet maybe to erase the tapes one at a time so they are blank. A blank tape should get picked up automatically, reformatted and placed in the right media pool. We also found that sometimes you need to restart all the engines again to get Brightstor to accept the newly created blank tape. Why? We don’t know but we do know that starting and stopping the engines have fixed our problems.

Recreating Arcserve Database Prune job

You asked for it, well here it is. if you have blown away the Brighstor Arcserve queues then you will usually need to rereate the Arcserve database pruning job. This is a regular maintenance program that Arcserve runs that removes old records from the backup database into which Arcserve records all manner of information about each backup it runs. As you can imagine this can get pretty big after a while, so the pruning job ensures that it doesn;t consume your whole hard disk.

To recreate the pruning job :

1. Open Arcserve Brightstor Backup Manager

2. Select Quick Start | Server Admin

3. Brightstor Arcserve Backup Server Admin should now appear. Select the Database Engine tab

4. Now select Admin | Configuration from the menu

5. The Configuration window whould now appear. Check the option to Enable Database Pruning. Set any parameters that you need, the default option of 30 days is usually fine. Also select at which time you wish the prune job to run ( not when the backup is running generally ). Leave the Delete media related database records option unchecked.

6. Now check the Submit Prune Job option and press the OK button

7. Close the Brightstor Arcserve Backup Server Adim window and return to Arcserve, where you should now see you prune job

Recovering deleted public folder

So you thought you could use the Exchange Server 2003 recovery group to recover a deleted public folder? Sorry to tell you that you can’t. The Exchange recovery group is only for Mailboxes, not public folders. So how do you restore it? Unless you have a backup program like Brightstor or Veritas, with the appropriate agents then you have these options.

1. Attempt a restore of the deleted folder.

Go to Microsoft website and search for PFDAVadmin.  Download the public folder tool and you can recover your deleted folder
 
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287110/en-us
The above is a command list.
 
You can also try and use Outlook to recover the deleted folder by going to the location where it was deleted, on the user that deleted and select Tools | Recover Deleted Items.
 
Another method is to use OWA.

 
1. Go to OWA and login as the user that deleted the folder.
2. Click on the button for public folders and it will open up a new windows with the public folder structure.
3. Browse to the parent folder of the deleted item, right click on the parent public folder and select “Open in New…”
4. Change the URL from http://servername/public/toplevel/subfolder/?cmd=content
to http://servername/public/toplevel/subfolder/?cmd=showdeleted&btnClose=1 (replacing servername with the name of your server).
4. Find the deleted folder, highlight the folder, and click Recover.
 
2. Restore the Exchange store
 
If the above options fail then you are going to have to restore the whole public folder store. If you attempt this on the same server it will overwrite the public store that is already there. To avoid this you will need to build a new server ( same name ), with the same AD name, install Exchange and then do a complete restore of the databases from the original server. Then you should be able to recover the deleted public folder.
 
The second option isn’t that nice but it maybe you only option. This issue should make you stop and think about wide spread usage of public folders, because they are so cumbersome to restore.

Computer Associates (CA) licensing

Something we have always found very mysterious is the way Computer Associates (CA) license their products. Generally, it is hard to locate exactly what product may be generating an out of license error. Hopefully the following information will make it easier for people to locate.

Computer Associates (CA) licensing information is usually held in
 
c:\program files\ca\shared components\ca_lic
 
in here you’ll find a file called lic98.log. This contains a log of all the license errors. Check this log to see what products aren’t licensed.
 
Also in this directory you’ll find a file calicnse.exe which when run will display the products that are licensed and their license count. Prior to selecting a product listed here you are able to enter additional licenses at the bottom of the window.
 
The license details are held in the register at hklm\software\computerassociates\license\products. Under this key you will find a number of subkeys that designate the products ( like 31AM, 3EPP ). A list of the corresponding product code can be found at :
 
http://supportconnectw.ca.com/public/reglic/infodocs/itcodes.asp
 
Under each product key should be a folder 011 and under that ( if the product is licensed ) you will find a key ( folder ) with the license code. If the product doesn’t have a license key ( folder ) under it then the product is not licensed.
 
To re-license the product simply delete the product key (folder) and return to the licensing options in the product ( usually under Help | About ) to re-license the product.