Select Volumes on the Backup Media

Note: The following information only applies to Windows Server 2000 or 2003.

A volume represents a disk letter (such as C: or D:) that is stored on backup media. You can create backup media with NTBACKUP. The backup media can be a .BKF file or it can be a removable medium such as a tape or a DVD-/+R disc.

In addition to the drive letters (C:, D:, etc) NTBACKUP will append one additional volume to the backup media. The additional volume will contain the System State. For example if your computer has three disks C:, D:, and E:, the backup media will contain a total of four volumes:

• Volume 1 – C:
• Volume 2 – D:
• Volume 3 – E:
• Volume 4 – System State

Each time you run NTBACKUP you can append additional volumes to the same backup media. For example if you ran NTBACKUP a second time, NTBACKUP will append volumes 5-8 to the backup media shown above.

By default UMove will attempt to load the most recent backup from the backup media. In the above example UMove would load volumes 5-8.

Advanced Option: Select Specific Volumes

In rare cases you may want to load an earlier backup. For example you may want to load volumes 1-4 because you know that volumes 5-8 are corrupt or damaged. Or you may need to first load a full backup made prior to an incremental backup on the same media.

To select the volumes, go to the Advanced Options. Check the box Select specific volumes from the backup media. This will cause UMove to prompt you to select the volumes to load.

To restore Active Directory UMove needs to load files from the \Windows folder (typically C:) and from the System State.

Type the volume numbers that contain the Active Directory files that you want to load. In the above example if AD is installed on disk C:, type “1,4”. This will load volume 1 (C:) and volume 4 (System State). You should at minimum specify the volume containing \WINDOWS (usually C:) and the volume containing the System State.

If you installed SYSVOL on an alternate disk then you need to include that disk also. Let's assume that you installed SYSVOL on disk E:. You would then type “1,3,4” or “1,3-4”.

The default is “1-999”, which will cause UMove to read every volume on the backup media. It is ok if you specify too many volumes; UMove will simply ignore the extra volumes.

Volumes are not physical backup media

Do not confuse a volume with the backup media. The backup media can contain more than one volume.

For more information

See the topics Selecting Backup Media and Incremental Restore.