Hello Community After an accidental deletion I am attempting to perform a backup of a web application. That is the first problem, when you click the checkbox to backup the web application the content database automatically has to be backup with it because it stays checked with it. I went to Windows Explorer c:\ and created a folder named "BackupFolder" and I can see the folder listed in Windows Explorer after I create it. But when I type "\\Server1\c$" in the address box I do not see the folder "BackFolder" listed. So I went back to the c:\ drive and delete the folder "BackupFolder". Then I type "\\Server1\c$" in the address bar and created the folder named "BackupFolder" in there so that I can see the folder BackupFolder" listed. After I see the folder "BackupFolder" I went to Central Administration, Operations and perform the backup after selecting the web application and content database that are to be backed up. The backup location I give is: "\\Server1\c$\BackupFolder" The error message returned is: This page contains one or more errors. Fix the following before continuing: Directory \\Server1\c$\BackupFolder does not exist or the SQL Server service account and the Server1\SpointInst service account do not have permission to read or write to the backup folder. Specify a different directory. After that I deleted "BackupFolder" in "\\Server1\c$". So I went back to Central Administration to Perform Backup but I changed the location to just "c:\" as the backup location. Basically what happened was the backup failed, when backing up to "C:\" there were 2 message. 1- The web application says completed and there is no "failure message" but I don't see any backup of it on the "C:\" drive. 2- The backup of the content database completed but it has a "failure message". I think if I can backup the web application separately I should be able to see the backup but I don't know how to separate the web application from the content database using Central Administration. If I could do that then I would use SQL Server to perform a database backup of the content database. So my question is how can perform a backup? I pasted the actual log files below for viewing: Use this page to view the backup or restore job status. Status: Current backup/restore process has failed. View all timer job information: Timer Job Status Timer Job Definitions The backup/restore job failed. In order to rerun the backup/restore the timer job must be deleted from the Timer Job Definitions page. Failure Message: The backup job failed. For more information, see the error log that is located in the backup directory. Backup Requested By Server1\SpointInst Phase Completed with errors, please refer to the log file for details. Start Time 11/10/2011 12:17 PM Finish Time 11/10/2011 12:17 PM Top Component Farm\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\Web Depl Backup ID 4d1f27c7-c69f-46ab-b363-759cc6eaaa28 Directory C:\spbr0000\ Backup Method Full Warnings 0 Errors 1 Failure Message Object WSS_Content_WebDep failed in event OnBackup. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory. Name Progress Last Update Failure Message Farm 11/10/2011 1:33 PM SharePoint_Config 11/10/2011 1:33 PM Windows SharePoint Services Web Application 11/10/2011 1:33 PM Intranet Files shared Completed 11/10/2011 1:33 PM WSS_Content_Web Depl Completed 11/10/2011 1:33 PM Object WSS_Content_Web Depl failed in event OnBackup. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory. SqlException: Cannot open backup device 'C:\spbr0002\00000010.bak'. Operating system error 3(The system cannot find the path specified.). BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally. Thank you Shabeaut

Delete the backup/restore job. Give Full permission to the back up directory (folder) to the account you are trying to perform back up with. Regards, Vishwas

a)Quesec the farm b)Check for any previous backup jobs running if so delete them. c) Give full permission to the backup folder for the service account which you are using. d)So also the account should have proper permission on the SQL as well.:)

Hello Vishwas If I remember correctly I was giving every account I was trying to do the backup with "Full Control". I also tried backing up to both of the servers in the farm because I am not sure which one to backup to. Lastly I didnt know where the application backup was going to go and where the database backup was going to go. So I am not sure how to give full permission to the backup directory/folder as you say? Thank you Shabeaut

Hello Donestk What does "Quesec" mean? I checked the "Timer Job" which I got after backing up to the "C:\ drive" and deleted it but when I backup up to \\server1\c$\BackupFolder the Timer job was not created. If I remember correctly I was giving every account I was trying to do the backup with "Full Control". I also tried backing up to both of the servers in the farm because I am not sure which one to backup to. Lastly I didnt know where the application backup was going to go and where the database backup was going to go. So I am not sure how to give full permission to the backup folder and what are you calling the service account? I also gave admin privileges to the account in the farm that has a username and password that is also in SQL Server but it is not "service account", what do you mean by "service account" in SQL Server? Thank you Shabeaut

Eg. in case you have a backup folder named "backup" on you C:\ C:\backup Go to C: drive do a right click on the backup folder and go to Properties > Security > Group/User names Edit > Now add the user account and give Full Control. SQL Permission : db_owner/db_creator, db_securityadmin Recommend you to use the System Account to perform back up (see the application pool account for central admin) just to be sure we have enough permissions from SharePoint. Since you are talking about web application here, you can also use the command line to perform backup if the database is less than 15 GB Backup: Stsadm operation http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263441(office.12).aspx Go to the following location on command prompt c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin (12 for WSS3.0 and MOSS2007 and 14\bin for SP2010) If your back up failes again let us know the error in the log which should get generated in the backup folder as well as the ULS logs around the same time.Regards, Vishwas

Eg. in case you have a backup folder named "backup" on you C:\ C:\backup Go to C: drive do a right click on the backup folder and go to Properties > Security > Group/User names Edit > Now add the user account and give Full Control. SQL Permission : db_owner/db_creator, db_securityadmin Recommend you to use the System Account to perform back up (see the application pool account for central admin) just to be sure we have enough permissions from SharePoint. Since you are talking about web application here, you can also use the command line to perform backup if the database is less than 15 GB Backup: Stsadm operation http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263441(office.12).aspx Go to the following location on command prompt c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin (12 for WSS3.0 and MOSS2007 and 14\bin for SP2010) If your back up failes again let us know the error in the log which should get generated in the backup folder as well as the ULS logs around the same time.Regards, Vishwas

Hello Vishwas B When I backup the web application, the a database backup process is performed too. The problem was that when performing the web application, the backup database failed. The database backup process was failing because I was using my administrators account credentials and I needed to add the specific user account that was performing the backup as you said so now the backup is succeeding. The log results are stated below: spbackup.log says the object is the content database and that it completed with 0 warnings, completed with 0 errors and Backup completed successfully. The problem still is what is the location of the web application that got backed up because that was the purpose of the backup, in the event that the web application needed to be restored? Thank you

Microsoft has a guide for backing up a web application in WSS 3.0 here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc718726(v=Office.12).aspx. The instructions are straight forward and cover backups using Central Administration or the stsadm commandline tool. Here is also a troubleshooting guide, which lists symptoms and possible resolutions: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288001(v=Office.12).aspx Based on what you've already said, it sounds like the backup is having an issue connecting to the share you've created (the account that is performing the backup doesn't have access to the share). Cheers, Jason

Hello Jason Warren Actually the last backup completed with no warnings and no errors. When you perform the backup it backs up the web application and he database. So I know the database backup is in SQL Serve because the log files shows that, but the question is where is the location that the web application is backed up to? Thank you Shabeaut

Hi Shabeaut, The farm backup stores everything it backs up (including SQL data) in a series of files and folders within the backup folder you specified. It doesn't create a file for each web application, per se, you can think of the files it creates as a series of CAB or multi-part ZIP files that contain everything somewhere inside (where no one file matches up to a specific component). When you use the restore tool, you can specify which components you wish to restore and it will pull out the necessary data from the files. Jason