Windows Server Backup failed with error "The version does not support this version of the file format"
Recently we found several threads that customers reported windows server backup failed with error “the version does not support this version of the file format”.
Symptom:
You try to backup the files and folders on a windows server 2008 R2 system, the backup target is a share folder created in a storage drive on NAS device running Linux system. After starting the backup and taking several minutes, error message will appear “the backup of volume xxx could not be completed, Error: the version does not support this version of the file format.” The backup operation stopped before completing.
Before clarify the root cause of this problem, we should first let you know a background of windows server backup
Background:
The windows backup will have problems with sparse file only in case of "File Level (Selected file/folders in a volume)" backup. For "Block Level (full volume)" backup the sparse file is not a problem and the backup/recovery would succeed. This is because for Block Level Backup the .vhd file is never mounted whereas for File Level Backup the .vhd is mounted which does not support mounting of sparse file.
Thus, we can easily get the root cause
The failure happens while the .VHD file created by Windows Backup is mounted during backup.
The .VHD file is created as a sparse file and this is not supported by the native VHD driver and hence mounting of the .VHD failed.
After some investigation, we found that the "strict allocate = yes" option of Samba will force it to not have UNIX style behavior of creating sparse file. Solution is adding "strict allocate = yes" to the smb.conf and restarting the Samba.
You can get more information about smb.conf configuration on the following link
https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Hi, in Windows 8.1 it''s only possible to backup via PowerShell and I've got the same error. Doen anyone know how to set such a parameter within a NETGEAR ReadyNAS NV+ (v1) or NVX Pro Pioneer (v1)?Anonymous
November 19, 2010
Note that for large backups (>1GB) to ext3 filesystems the forced allocation with "strict allocate = yes" will take too long and cause the backup to fail due to timing out.Anonymous
September 23, 2011
"Marshall 19 Nov 2010 1:46 PM Note that for large backups (>1GB) to ext3 filesystems the forced allocation with "strict allocate = yes" will take too long and cause the backup to fail due to timing out." So what the heck do we do if the file is larger than 1GB?Anonymous
February 20, 2012
I get that error on a drive I'm trying to exclude from the backup. The drives I want to include are OK: wbadmin start backup -backuptarget:%newfolder% -include:c:,f: -exclude:g: -quiet -systemstate -vsscopy (where %newfolder% resolves to a UNC path name to a folder on a NAS device running Linux). The backup of volume Local Disk(C:) successfully completed. The backup of volume G_Drive_iSCSI(G:) could not be completed. Error: The version does not support this version of the file format. The backup of volume Local Disk(F:) successfully completed. I don't understand why it's even looking at a drive specified in the -exclude list, and given that it is looking, I don't see why it gives an error when the other drives are fine. Messages in more detail: This will back up volume System Reserved (100.00 MB) (Selected Files),Local Disk(F:),Local Disk(C:),G_Drive_iSCSI(G:) (Selected Files) to \server... ... Creating a backup of volume Local Disk(C:), copied (99%). The backup of volume Local Disk(C:) successfully completed. Please wait while files to backup for volume G_Drive_iSCSI(G:) are identified. This might take several minutes. Found (0) files. ... Found (0) files. File identification is complete. The backup of volume G_Drive_iSCSI(G:) to \grnbs1blackboardVIBB920120217_201456 is starting... The backup of volume G_Drive_iSCSI(G:) could not be completed. Error: The version does not support this version of the file format. Creating a backup of volume Local Disk(F:), copied (0%). ... Creating a backup of volume Local Disk(F:), copied (99%). The backup of volume Local Disk(F:) successfully completed. Starting to back up the system state [18/02/2012 15:09]... The backup operation completed with errors. Summary of the backup operation:
The backup of volume Local Disk(C:) successfully completed. The backup of volume G_Drive_iSCSI(G:) could not be completed. Error: The version does not support this version of the file format. The backup of volume Local Disk(F:) successfully completed.
Anonymous
March 02, 2012
Don't use the exclude. In your example you use the include. If you have an include, then anything not in the include will not be looked at. In this case the exclude is unnecessary.Anonymous
April 13, 2012
Thank you - omitting the exclude fixed it.Anonymous
January 23, 2013
Thanks. Solved my problem. I am running Server 2012 and backing up to Freenas. I went to Services then CIFS/SMB and on the settings tab at the bottom Auxilliary Settings I added the statement you suggested "strict allocate = yes" and it worked like a charm. Never could find smb.conf in Freenas. It's there, just couldn't find it and this worked. Thanks again.Anonymous
June 23, 2014
Any ideas on how to get a QNAP NAS Appliance to work?
I have the exact same issue using server 2012 r2 with a QNAP TS-269 Pro
I see that this is an SMB issue -but how to resove on a QNAP NAS????Anonymous
July 01, 2014
Same issue here with a Qnap TS-220Anonymous
July 21, 2014
1-Create a VHD via Disk Management in windows
2-locate the location of the new VHD in the location you need to backup into.
3-check mark on make the VHD expandable to increase the performance
4-After creating the VHD its attached to your windows and will act as a normal harddisk you can specify the backup toAnonymous
December 23, 2014
@Yasin Hassanien
Nice idea :)Anonymous
January 01, 2015
This is a nice solution. Works well.Anonymous
February 13, 2015
The comment has been removedAnonymous
April 28, 2015
people just make a bigger sector / cluster than 4kb this is a very tricky resolve because you'll end up with a non bootable drive... get a mindset to (just easy ) install windows8 from scratch on a harddisk with bigger sector/cluster than 4kb. Note that the drive needs to be active and primary otherwise windows8 install will not accept de partition.
after this you can perform a backup on a N.A.S. anytime!! it worked for me.Anonymous
September 09, 2015
Well i have this error when i am trying to create new vm in hyper-v on windows 2012 bare-metal server. Into vm ai am try to install windows 2012 r2. Any suggestions?