NTBackup Hangs on Looking for backup devices...

[Mark McCasland]

Win XP Pro SP1 plus all other patches including Blaster which never infected
my system anyway.

Launching NTBackup, I get a preliminary dialogue that says "Looking for
backup device..." and just hangs there until I terminate it. FWIW, when I
used NTBackup to create a backup, I created this backup file on a second
hard drive. Any ideas on restoring NTBackup to functionality?

TIA!

Mark

 

[Mark McCasland]

I won't be in the future, but that does not help me restore from a previous
backup at the moment.

 

[egilpatr]

Win XP Pro SP1 plus all other patches including Blaster which neve
infected
my system anyway.

Launching NTBackup, I get a preliminary dialogue that says "Lookin
for
backup device..." and just hangs there until I terminate it. FWIW, whe
I
used NTBackup to create a backup, I created this backup file on
second
hard drive. Any ideas on restoring NTBackup to functionality?

TIA!

Mark

Dear Mark,
I am experiencing the same problem. I once backed up, and now I ge
that message in a box with no exit possibilities and I just hang.

Did you ever find a solution?

Eleano

 

[egilpatr]

Dear Mark,
I am experiencing the same problem. I once backed up, and now I ge
that message in a box with no exit possibilities and I just hang.

Did you ever find a solution?

Eleanor

My progress so far is that the issue is that Removable Storage, neede
to run NTBackup, is "stopped." can't find out why, and not willing t
reinstall Windows XP pro and all it entails.

If I follow: Control Panel > Administrative tools > Computer Managemen

Storage, Removable storage, and try to expand it (+), I get th

message "Server execution failed. The snap-in's display may b
incinsistent with the Removable Storage Service. If it persists
please restart the snap-in."

No luck.

If I go to Run > services.msc > removable services > right click to ge
to properties, and see status as "stopped," click on "start," I get th
message:
"Could not start the removable storage service on local computer.
Error 193: oxc1"

Any ideas? Anyone out there

 

[David Nimon]

NTBackup canNOT backup to removable storage (other than a tape drive).

You either save the created bu file to the hd and then move to a CD/DVD or
use 3rd party sofware that can bu directly to removable storage.

 

[Guest]

I am getting the same error message just as soon as I start the backup wizard
or try to execute backup from the command line. I am not trying to use a
removable storage device. I am trying to backup to a second hard drive. I
have even tried to backup to my C drive. Using the wizard and the command
line results in the system hanging with the message "Looking for backup
devices."
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Cat

 

[Paul J]

I have the same problem. Any time I start "Backup Utility for Windows" I
get a popup for several minutes that says "Looking for backup device" and
finally I get Welcome tab. Is there any way to turn off this search?? I've
unchecked all of the removable media alerts in the general configuration. I
have Windows XP with all of the latest updates.

paul

 

[MikeFizer]

Me Too...but

This is the only site I've been able to find with users having this problem. Though I will say that the time I spent, 10 minutes or so, reading this thread and looking for others, I turned and noticed that the backup program had activated. Don't know if any of you waited this long before terminating the process. I've done this three times since last night, always successful, always a long wait. (Sorry, I haven't timed it yet, but it's got to be 5-10 minutes)

I'm wondering with all the drives I've got, along with two burners, if the program is having a hard time "making up it's mind." I've got a NetRAID external three drive array, an external Miglia two drive array, two SATA externals along with a gaggle of internal drives.

Best,

Mike

XP Pro sp2
Dual Xeon 2.4 Supermicro X5DA8 4gb RAM Very much a novice

 

[goincircles]

Same thing happened to me. NTBackup would just hang on start up...after 20 minutes would get dialog "looking for backup device". Solution is to rename( or delete) %SystemRoot%/System32/NtmsData/NtmsData. See:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/228987/EN-US/ ,

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=235032

 

[gengis]

ntbackup hang

I have got a good NTBACKUP after deleting files in :
windows\system32\NtmsData

 

[pcpoppy]

Launching NTBackup, I get a preliminary dialogue that says "Looking for backup device..." and just hangs there until I terminate it. FWIW, when I used NTBackup to create a backup, I created this backup file on a second hard drive. Any ideas on restoring NTBackup to functionality?

TIA!

Mark

Occasionally this part of win xp gets corrupted. Mine has looked for devices for up to 20 minutes beforee it finds it. A simple solution is to reinstall "backup". Here is one easy way to do it.

Go to control panel add remove programs >

Windows components >

Remove accessories >

Reboot and then repeat above but reinstall accessories feature.

It has worked for me twice now and I agree that it is a convenient way of backing up C drive to a second hard drive but to be absolutely sure use another free standing program to back up to dvd or cd. I currently use Norton Ghost for this. Good luck

 

[frost110]

NTBackup canNOT backup to removable storage (other than a tape drive).

Sure you can. I just backed up to my USB Device.

Also I had to delete the ntdms file for mine to work, after that it took 5-10 minutes to load and I was on my way!

Thanks everyone for the contribution!

--FrosT

 

[Toddzbox]

Gengis I love you and want to have your babies

I have got a good NTBACKUP after deleting files in :
windows\system32\NtmsData

It's taken me months to find this simple little post that has fixed my problem.

If you are still around. THAAAAAAAAAAAANKS

Toddzbox

 

[jzz111]

I have discovered that there is a variable in the registry (LOCALSYSTEM->SOFTWARE->Veritas->Backup->Tape_Something> that says TapeAlert or something like that (sorry for lack of specifics, the system is locked away now). If you set the variable to 0 instead of 1, it should get past that. Another potential fix is to move out the files from the NtmsData folder (<WINDOWS>\system32\NtmsData> and try to start NTBackups with it empty. NTBackups will crash on startup. Move the content of the folder back to the directory and startup NTBackups again. Hope this helps.

 

[floringeorge]

I have got a good NTBACKUP after deleting files in :
windows\system32\NtmsData

I was getting the same error message just as soon as I start the backup wizard and, like MikeFizer stated, this is the only site I've been able to find with users having this problem.
The solution recommended by gengis (deleting files in
windows\system32\NtmsData folder ) has worked for me. In my case the files that I deleted were NTMSDATA, NTMSDATA.BAK, NTMSIDX, NTMSJRNL and NTMSREG ) and now I can use the backup wizard on my dell inspiron 6400 XP sp3.
Thank you gengis !

One quick question: is it possible to set the backup wizard to create backups on a CD using the CD-DVD drive (not on a floppy disk ) ? If this I possible then what are the exact commands to create backups on a CD ? Thank you in advance for any answers.