I'm having problems getting the ntbackup program to run reliably on 2003 server. The backup strategy is full backup to tape at 10pm m-f. Tapes are changed daily and there are three tapes that are rotated.

The scheduled backup is set to backup to a local tape drive, copy (overwite), name the media full backup with a default description.

My question is what would the command string or a cmd file need to look like so that the backup program will disregard the name of the media in the drive and proceed with a fullbackup that overwrites the tape.

Thanks.

I remember in win2k backup it was done through the backup wizard wasn't it? If you have a certain day not working it is the tape. Just reformat and set the tape up. I haven't played with it in win3k but I don't think you need to do the old command line configs it has its own software which was written by veritas I believe.

It's still done with the backup wizard but can be done with the ntbackup command as well, of course. The problem I'm having is the program wants the tape name to be the same every day and I want it to not care. With the wizard you have to specify the media from a dropdown box of new or known media.

I want the system to use any media inserted, new, recognized or unrecognized, and proceed with the backup. Something like:

ntbackup backup @filename.bks /t "anygoodoneandwedontcarewhatthetapenameisnow" /n "full backup mmddyyyy"

Am I missing something here?

Isn't there an option to overwrite the tape in full. There is a setting for this either in the software or if you right click my computer and go to removable storage media. This setting says overwrite existing data period no hold backs. There is no way to get around a media label but if you do a full overwrite option that I'm talking about it shouldn't care as long as it recognizes the media label. I have done it in the past but I don't have a tape drive available to refresh my memory.

Thanks, I was thinking about the media pools yesterday as I left the site. You may have answered my question. I'll check it out. graemlins/thumbsup.gif