Difficulties with Vista backup and a network HDD
I am having trouble using Vista Backup with my network HDD. I'll quickly give you relevant specs: Windows Vista Home Premium on a Laptop. Filesystem NTFS. Packard Bell Netstore 3500 Network HDD. Filesystem FAT 32. Laptop connected wirelessly to Wifi router. Network HDD connected via Cat 5 at 100Mbps. I can select the HDD from the network selection when trying to do a backup. It asks for my username and password for the drive. I then get the following error "The RPC Server is unavailable. (0x800706BA)" Now I may be being a bit dumb but what am I missing. Is this error being caused due to the different filesystems? I can save files directly to the network HDD and if I use a third party backup (McAfee and Packard Bell) it works fine. I would really like to get the Vista backup to work so any ideas would be brilliant. As an extra note, I have been told that the problem might be that Vista is trying to access the network drive before a connection has been made by the router. Does this seem correct? Surely the connection has been made because I can save files directly to the drive and other third party backup applications work.
October 26th, 2007 6:07pm

Hi ColinHempsey, From your post, I understand that: the Vista machine fails to backup its files to the Packard Bell Netstore 3500 Network HDD and an error message "The RPC Server is unavailable. (0x800706BA)." is received. This error can occur if the ports used for the communicationare blocked by firewall. Based on your description, I know that your Vista machine communicates with the Network HDD through a router. If so, please temporarily disable the firewall (disable all firewalls between these two devices) to narrow down the issue. Additionally, have you tried to backup files from the Vista machine other computers share folder? Does it work? Sincerely, Joson Zhou Microsoft Online Community Support
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October 30th, 2007 12:36pm

Hi ColinHempsey, As this thread has been quiet for a while, we assume that the issue has been resolved. At this time, we will mark it as Answered as the previous steps should be helpful for many similar scenarios. If the issue still persists and you want to return to this question, please reply this post directly so we will be notified to follow it up. You can also choose to unmark the answer as you wish. In addition, wed love to hear your feedback about the solution. By sharing your experience you can help other community members facing similar problems. Thanks!
November 2nd, 2007 2:19pm

dont close this just yet........... I have windows Vista Home Premium 32bit edition and i FreeCom Network HDD and i gfet the same problem of it asking me for a passsword and user name
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November 8th, 2007 10:32pm

Hi Tumps, Do you mean you encounter the The RPC Sever is unavailable. (0x800706BA) error as well? If so, please try to disable the firewall first. In addition, please confirm if the device is compatible with Windows Vista via the following websites: 1. Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List website (http://winqual.microsoft.com/hcl/) 2. FreeCom manufacturer (http://www.freecom.com/ecsupport.asp) If the issue you encountered is that the device asks you for a username and password, since we have not enough information about this product, please confirm this behavior with FreeCom. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Sincerely, Joson Zhou Microsoft Online Community Support
November 12th, 2007 3:37pm

Hi, I am having a similar problem except that I am using an external HDD off my E-sata port. This error happens somtimes during backup (with Backup and restore centre). But the computer is more likely to bluescreen with a STOP:0x00000124 (0x0000000000000000, 0xFFFFFA8001862358, 0x00000000b2000040, 0X0000000000000800) This happens pretty much everytime I try to backup which is very frustrating. The Bluescreen happens withother backup programs (I have tried Acronis true image). Could this problem be caused by a file that has a file name that is to long? I recently tried to just copy the my user directory (containing my douments, emails etc) which is basically allI want tobackup anyway and after a while the copy window just closed without completing the copy with no error message. I also think explorer became unstable. I then tried to boot in safe mode and try the copy again. All the files copied fine except it complained about one file that had a file name that was to long (and a few ntxxx files which are system files). Since then I re-named that file but haven't tried backup again. To make matters even worse the BSD sometimes happens for no particular reason. Not to regularly but maybe a couple of times a week. I also turned off restore points at one stage to try and fix this problem as I read it can cause the BSD. It did backup completely once but I was never able to backup sucessfully again. Any help would be greatly appreciated Manzp My PC: Vista 64bit Home Premium Core2Duo 2.13Ghz overclocked to 3.2Ghz 2gig Ram 800Mhz 2x 320gig HDD's in Raid 0 7600GT dual head video card with 2 x 19" LCD's
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November 19th, 2007 10:30am

Exact same problem. I can map my NAS FAT32 drive, I can write, read, etc no problem but when I use Vista Backup, I get the RPC error. All firewalls are turned off, NAS is wide open.
December 5th, 2007 7:26pm

Vista Backup can only handle NTFS partitions, as source and as targets as well. Search in Vista help for "Backup" and look in the the paragraph "Backup of Programms, System settings and Files". It is clearly stated there. (The name of the paragraph might be somewhat different, I'm using the German version of Vista and translated it) good luck awehring
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December 6th, 2007 5:20pm

Joson, Thanks for the help so far. Unfortunately the issue is still unresolved. To be sure that the different filesystems (FAT 32 and NTFS) did not make a difference, I connected by network hard disk directly to my laptop by USB. The backup worked perfectly. I also tried running my network with the firewall down and again no luck. The HDD is on the vista compatability list. I have also asked about this issue at the Packard Bell website and been told that the problem does not lie with the drive. As it seems that there are other people out there who are having the same problem as me with windows vista backup but with different drives it would suggest the problem is either with Vista or with the way we have got vista set up. Any ideas would be really appreciated.
December 15th, 2007 6:58pm

Colin, Seems I have the same problem. Vista backup seems to have numerous restrictions (still don't undersand why a backup solution does not allow specification of source area to backup). Only additional info is that my LAN HDD uses SMB for presentation of created shares and only supports FAT32 format over LAN (supports NTFS only on USB). HDD Unit is A-Tec NS347 OS : Vista Home Premium Brian
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December 31st, 2007 9:22pm

Brian, It's confusing isn't it. I started a new thread with my original question and the update together as this question was marked answered. The link is http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2587874&SiteID=17.
January 1st, 2008 8:37pm

Hi, Why do you attempt to close this subject, without answering the question? I have similar problem and I have met hundreds of posts elsewhere, from people unsuccessfuly trying to make Backup on Vista, to an external (network) drive. I'm sorry, but I think something is seriously flawed here, as you advice to open ports on router firewall (or other firewalls in between PC and NAS), when actually some of the people are even not using routers !! I got an external NAS drive, with a 400GB WD drive. It has got USB 2.0 and LAN connectors. First I tried to connect via USB and make a Vista Backup. Ok, it is not possible, because the filesystem on the NAS is not NTFS..... Well, ok, then I tried to connect via LAN,directly to my PC. There is no firewall in between, other than Windows firewall. However it is not working. After a LONG while the system opens a warning box, saying: "The network share could not be accessed for the following reason: The RPC server is unavailable. (0x800706BA) Please ensure that the network location is valid." Do I have to addthat the drive is of course perfectly visible in normal Windows Explorer (thru SAMBA) and thru FTP. This is similar as to hundreds of people there - they can see their NAS drive, but any Backup attempt will fail. There is NO event recorded in the Event Log. There is NO notification from the firewall. The PC is a brand new IBM / Lenovo R60x, with Lenovo-supplied Vista Business English, build 6001 Microsoft sent me a test version of Vista Service Pack 1, so currently it is installed as well.
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February 3rd, 2008 12:32am

Just an idea ... I could not backup to a local attached disk (USB), because the intel Turbo memory driver at my Lenovo X61 was old. I don't know if your R60 has Turbo memory, but maybe ... See: http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2680789&SiteID=17 Good luck awehring
February 12th, 2008 6:17pm

Just to add to the mix. I just bought the MyBook World Edition II with 1 Terabit as an NAS for my back ups. My prior back up system was a USB external hard drive attached to the computer. Now I want it to be an NAS. Vista Backup does not allow my to back up on a network server and keeps asking for username and password. It doesn't even matter which drive I go for. I have several computers on the network and I can't back up to any of them without the user/password screen. Any resolution to this problem? I agree this must be a Vista problem.
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May 1st, 2008 4:54am

Hi, I purchase Network Magic in order to set up a LAN at home. It work fine for several weeks but now when I try to acces the shared folders from a Vista Machine it shows the message "The RPC server is unavailable..." I can access the shared folders from the Vista Machine to a XP SP2 machine but no longer from the XP machine to the Vista. The software allows me and informs me that the Vista machine is in the network and the status is OK, but I can no longuer access the shared folders. I check up the Firewall Settings, Exceptions TAB , File and Printer Sharing, UpnP Framework, the service from the Software (Pure Networks) and all the ports that needs to be open...nothing to do! I also check out the registry!...is there anything else to check??? Thank you and best regards
May 29th, 2008 4:25am

Hi, I am Facing the same problem in Vista Enterprise Edition,once I have joined the PC to the Domain i got the same Error "The RPC Server is unavailable.(0x800706BA)." So If you have any Idea about that issue please let me know my mail id. Regards, Karthik
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September 17th, 2008 9:34am

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