Restore of Windows Volume Mount point to another Server fails. (4042578)

Date - 05/2008
Affected Product Version - Netvault 7.4.5 and newer.
Affected Module & Version - File System 7.0.33
OS Version - Windows 2003
Application Information - n/a


Description:
A Windows Volume Mount point allows you to mount storage to a folder instead of assigning it to a drive letter. If you try to restore data backed up from one of these Volume Mount points to another computer where the mount point doesn't exist, the restore will fail.

Symptoms: When selecting the Windows Volume mount folder for restore and submitting it, the job runs and completes but there are several warning messages stating the x amount of files could not be restored. If you view the log context information by double clicking on the Yellow warning messages you will find the files selected to be restored could not complete.

Example Warning messages;

Warning 2008/05/27 18:15:09 1068 Data Plugin <Servername> 6 items and their contents could not be restored

Log Context.
F:\Test\ADMIN : The system cannot find the path specified.
F:\Test\CODE : The system cannot find the path specified.
F:\Test\CPA_FLVs : The system cannot find the path specified.
F:\Test\CPE : The system cannot find the path specified.
F:\Test\CPE0734Software : The system cannot find the path specified.
F:\Test\CPE5594 : The system cannot find the path specified.

Microsoft Window allows a volume mount point to be placed in any empty folder.
This allows the local administrator to easily extend the storage capacity of any particular folder area on Windows.
The Volume then is attached to the folder it is mounted to and extends the size of the folder even thought the volume might exist on another server.

When you restore this Volume data it is going to look for the mounted folder in any location it is being restored. If that folder does not exist on the server it is being restored to, and you will get the message,

The system cannot find the path specified. This is due to the fact that the Folder resides on the original Server it was mounted to.

A work around to restore the data within the Volume is to relocate each folder inside the volume to the Alternate Server. Thus it will not be searching for a Volume Folder mount point.