During the backup of Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or SQL Server 2000, the Microsoft SQL Server database files ( .mdf and .ldf ) are skipped.

Article:TECH17430

Created: 2008-01-21

Updated: 2008-01-21

Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH17430

Article Type
Technical Solution

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Problem

During the backup of Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or SQL Server 2000, the Microsoft SQL Server database files ( *.mdf and *.ldf ) are skipped.

Error

Error "The item \MSSQL7\DATA\*.mdf in use - skipped "

Solution

It is possible to select the \MSSQL7 directory (Microsoft SQL 7.0) or the \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL (Microsoft SQL 2000) directory from the drive shares of a system running Microsoft SQL Server.

Backup Exec (tm) 9.x or Backup Exec 10.0 for Windows Servers uses the Active File Exclusion feature to eliminate the SQL Server and flat-files from the file system backup. This will prevent "in use - skipped" errors on the .LOG files.

If for some reason, the Active File Exclusion functionality is turned off, and if these directories are selected, Backup Exec will attempt to perform a "flat file" backup of the SQL database files. If the database is running and the files are open, Backup Exec will not be able to back up database files and will report these files as in-use and skipped within the job log file (Figure 1).

Refer to the Related Documents section of this TechNote for further information on Active File Exclusion.

Figure 1

To perform backups of a Microsoft SQL server, the Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft SQL Server must be installed. To avoid any skipped files during backups of the drive share resources on the server, the following directories should be excluded from the full server backup:

\MSSQL70\Data directory (Microsoft SQL Server 7.0)
\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Data (Microsoft SQL Server 2000)

Microsoft SQL Server backups should only occur via the selections made available through the Backup Exec Agent for SQL Server (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Do not select any SQL files from anywhere else within Backup Selections. Make sure to clear these files if selecting the server drive share resources (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Selections on a SQL Server should be as shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5. Select databases under Microsoft SQL Server and deselect the .mdf and .ldf files (Figure 5).

Backup Exec 9.x for Windows Servers:

Figure 4