File ownerships screwed after restore with Retrospect Express 6

[rmccallu]

I did a 'restore entire volume' to my C drive. After Doing this the file ownerships were all set to some long string of alphanumeric characters, rather than the expected 'machine-name'/'user-name', preventing my non-admin users (i.e. family members) from accessing their files.

 

I've seen other posts from folks unable to access files following a restore and the advice given seems to be "You need to take ownership of the files" - which involves booting in safe mode, logging in as admin and changing the owner of the various files and directories. However there are five users on this system and many thousands of files and I am not confident that I know which files need to have which ownrships. And besides, surely the backup copy preserves the file ownerships, so why aren't they restored?

 

For reference, here is the procedure I used to do the restore:

 

1. Boot from XP setup CD, create C partition, format partition, install XP.

2. Boot from hard drive (this might happen automatically) - i.e. boots the version of XP just installed.

3. Install backup device drivers (Maxtor One-Touch) and Retrospect Express (this requires a couple of reboots).

4. Connect backup device.

5. Use Retrospect Express to rebuild catalog, then do 'restore entire volume'.

 

At this point file ownerships look good - most are either 'Administrators' or 'my-machine-name'/'my-username'.

 

6. Reboot from hard drive - this boots version of XP just restored from backup.

 

Now the ownerships that were set to 'Administrators' are still set to 'Administrators', but the ones that were set to 'my-machine-name'/'my-username' are now set to a long string beginning 'S-1-5-21-' followed by a load of digits.

 

7. Interestingly, if I now use Disk Management to create a D partition and then use Retrospect Express to again rebuild catalog, then do 'restore entire volume' for my backed up D partition, the restored files in that partition get the correct ownerships.

 

(In case you're wondering I had to send the drive off for repair, hence having to setup Windows again from scratch)

[waltr]

hi rob,

 

i always recommend a Parallel Install for these kinds of restores. that way, Retrospect (or any Backup software for that matter) doesn't have to try and overwrite files that are in use by the OS during the Restore--which i think is the source of these kinds of problems.

 

once you are done with the restore you can delete the Parallel Install.

 

cheers.

[rmccallu]

waltr,

Thanks but that didn't fix the problem. I tried two things: a parallel install on the same partition as described in the link you posted, but this didn't change anything; i also tried a parallel install to a different partition so that i could reformat the C partition and be sure that it was clean before i started restoring my backup to it. This didn't fix the problem either: (1) immediately after the restore but before rebooting, the file ownerships are all set to my login (under the parallel version of XP) - not to the original owners of the files, then (2) after reboot, the owners are all reset to this strange string I mentioned 'S-1-5-21-' etc.

 

It seems to me that (a) the temporary install of XP (i.e. the parallel one - whether in same partition or not) doesn't recognize the owners of the backed up files so it sets them to the user who is doing the restore (me), and ( once I reboot to the restored install of XP _it_ doesn't recognize the owner that the parallel install set on the files.

 

I have a strong feeling that this is a 'user misop' - I'm just missing out an important step

 

I reckon the parallel install needs to be updated with the security info of the accounts in the backed up XP _before_ restoring the backed up XP - so that it recognizes (and preserves) the owners of the files in the backup set during the restore (does that make sense?) - but I have no idea how to do this.

 

BTW for all operations I am using my own user account, which has full admin rights - I don't use the Safe Mode Administrator account for any of this.

 

Regards,

[Wilbour]

Hi Rob,

 

I am not an expert on this, but as waltr, I would always try to avoid backing up or restore a system while it is running.

 

1. I would first install Windows to an active, primary, partition (I would e.g. call it WinXPPro (it will become C:/)),

 

2. Then again install Windows to another partition (I would e.g. call it WinXPService (it may become E:/)).

 

3. Then, using Notepad, edit the file boot.ini (may have to be made visible) in the root of the active partition, so that when I reboot, I will be given the time to choose which partition to boot from (The Master Boot Record, MBR, always points on the active partition, and the Windows XP Pro there, always first looks in the boot.ini file to determine which available Windows XP to actually boot from. With a timeout set to say 30 seconds, the options from the boot.ini file will be displayed that time before Windows starts the actual booting process, allowing the user to choose which available Windows installation to boot from)).

 

Example of a boot.ini, where partition 0 contains WinXPPro, and partition 1 contains WinXPService:

 

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(0)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(0)\WINDOWS="C: WinXPPro" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="E: WindowsXPService" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

4. During reboot, I would choose to boot from WinXPService.

 

5. While running WinXPService, I would install Retrospect there,

 

6. While still running WinXPService, use Retrospect to restore my backup set to the active (but not running) partition with WinXPPro.

 

7. During a new reboot, I would choose to boot from WinXPPro. Everything should now work correctly.

 

The whole idea with this scheme is to avoid the conflicts caused by trying to back up or restore a running system from inside itself. I do both defragmenting and backups of my main Windows installation (in this example WinXPPro) from WinXPService for this reason.

 

 

Hope this help

 

Wilbour

[rmccallu]

Hi Wilbour,

Thanks. However, as my reply to waltr indicates, what I did was, in essence, what you suggested: I installed XP to a second partition (D) - formatting both C and D in the process; following a reboot it boots from D (even without the boot.ini mod - presumably because there aint anything on C at that point); D is where I install and run Retrospect from, using it to restore to C from the backup. Next I reboot, it boots from C (this is where I could do with the boot.ini mod, although booting from C is what I want in this case). Presto! Except that the file ownerships on C are then set to that stange value.

 

I suggested in my reply to waltr that maybe the D install of XP doesn't understand the names of the owners in the backup as they were from a different install (I've tried creating the same account names in the D install but it still doesn't work) so when restoring them it sets the files' owners to be the current user (i.e. me); then maybe when I next reboot (from C) the restored XP (in C) doesn't understand the names of owners set by the D install so it sets them to that strange value...

 

I am using the OEM version of XP Home. I read somewhere that the OEM version does strange things with user accounts - maybe this is a clue.

 

Subsequently to my reply to waltr I experimented by using the C version of XP (now restored from backup but with incorrect ownerships) to restore the backed up XP a second time to the D partition (over the top of the D install I mentioned above). This time all the files were restored with ownership by my account: So I managed to get rid of the strange string, but my other users' files are all owned by me.

 

Am I right in thinking that Retrospect preserves the original file ownership in the backup? In which case I still don't understand why I can't restore with correct ownerships by all users.

[waltr]

hi rob,

 

typically when i do this kind of restore i do what you outlined in your reply to me, a "Restore Entire Disk" and after the reboot the "Retrospect Helper Service" pops up and fixes things like the Registry and such. did you see anything like this? i'm a little dumbfounded that the parallel install did not fix the problem.

 

you could be right about the OEM version of XP Home, but unfortunately i don't know enough about that to comment except i have known Microsoft products to be "too helpful" in the past.

 

you can check the Backup Set to see if it has the Security Information by going to 'Configure->Backup Sets' then pick your Backup Set and hit Properties, go to the Snapshot tab and find the Snapshot you are trying to restore, highlight it and hit Properties. you should see Security Information and System Information (might be a little different, i'm doing this from memory).

 

if everything looks good in there, my best advice would be to give EMC Technical support a call. they may be able to get a little more granular than we will be able to on the message board.

[Wilbour]

Hi again Rob,

 

Unless I misunderstood something, the backup is just a copy of the files in a partition, the registry being some of them. Information about users should be stored in these files, and be restored as they were before being backed up. My first guess would be that the D: drive Windows should have no knowledge of or influence on the user setup on the restored C: drive, but I may be wrong. I guess I need to read more in the user manual to see if I missed something.

 

I don’t know how you made the backups from the beginning; maybe you could bring some light on that. Which drives were they coming from?

 

I still believe you should try to do it exactly as I suggested. Make sure you make the first partition the active partition before you install Windows to it. Don’t skip the installation. Then after that, create the second partition and install Windows to it. Then from that second installation with Retrospect installed, restore the original C: drive backup on top of the new fresh C: drive (provide it came from a C: partition) Windows, not parallel.

 

You could use PartitionMagic, BootIt, or similar products to control the partitions and to set them active etc. There is a nice little utility called “MBRWiz.exe” one can use to select active partition, hide and unhide partitions, and to check their numbers and other status.

 

All the best

 

Wilbour

[rmccallu]

Wilbour,

The backup used Retrospect Express's 'backup' mode (as opposed to 'duplicate' mode) and was used to 'backup all files' and both C and D partitions were checked in the config for this. My plan is indeed to follow your exact advice in your previous post. I will try this again in a couple of days when I have some more time.

 

However I have a suspicion that Retrospect Express's 'backup' mode may not be preserving file ownerships but sets them all to the current user; I also am suspicious that when I do a restore from a fresh install of XP it doesn't recognize the ownerships on the files being restored, perhaps because they were created with a different install of XP - I read somewhere that NTFS has a notion of a unique owner of a file so that owners who have the same name but were created with different installs of XP are not equivalent. Please nip that in the bud for me if that sounds completely wrong .

 

Anyhow, I'll let you guys know how I got on with your suggestion.

 

Thanks for all your advice and patience here.

 

Regards,

 

Rob.

[Wilbour]

Rob,

 

It appears you did a complete backup according to your description; so all information regarding users and ownership of files should be in the backup. If this backup set is re-installed, it should become as it was before the backup was made. The only problems I could think of would be if Retrospect either doesn't back up everything required for Windows to run after a restore to an empty partition, or, for some reason in this case, didn’t backup every file, such as files being used. This latter case should be possible to check in the Log file from the backup, as Retrospect reports any failure in the backup process.

 

Maybe someone with more knowledge about Retrospect could comment on that.

 

Your

Quote:

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suspicion that Retrospect Express's 'backup' mode may not be preserving file ownerships but sets them all to the current user

 

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, would imply that Retrospect somehow changes the files while backing them up. I very much doubt that that could be the case. That would defeat the whole idea of a backing up tool.

 

You also wrote:

Quote:

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I also am suspicious that when I do a restore from a fresh install of XP it doesn't recognize the ownerships on the files being restored, perhaps because they were created with a different install of XP - I read somewhere that NTFS has a notion of a unique owner of a file so that owners who have the same name but were created with different installs of XP are not equivalent.

 

---

 

If you restore user files from a fresh install of XP, without changing XP itself, it shouldn't recognize the ownerships of the files being restored because they were created with a different install of XP. These users are not known by this XP, even if you have created users within it having the same names as the owners of those files.

 

The whole idea with a restore of a complete install of Windows is exactly that these files would not be run from a fresh install of XP, but from the original XP where their ownership relations were created, as you restore the original XP at the same time, with all its users.

 

The only thing that should be able to prevent this would be that you don't actually restore all of the original XP (due to faulty backup or faulty restore) and reboot so it is running itself, rather than the XP you used to do the restoring.

 

At this point in time, you can't do anything about the quality of the backup set; only about how it is restored. The help file of Retrospect suggests that you should make a fresh install of XP, install Retrospect to this XP, restore the backed up partition on top of this fresh XP, and reboot.

 

Provided Retrospect backs up everything required for Windows to run after a restore to an empty partition, my guess is that they suggest this fresh install of XP only to provide a platform for installing and running Retrospect. In that case, you don't need this fresh XP in that partition if you can run Retrospect from a different partition or a CD.

 

My suggestion to run Retrospect from a different partition than the one being installed to, is to avoid the risk that the running XP prevents files from being restored by locking files with the same names or otherwise. If the backup set is really complete, it should not be necessary to install any XP in the partition for the restore before the restore takes place. The only other reason (than the one suggested above) that I can think of for installing XP in that partition before the restore takes place, could be to make sure that all necessary files will be available after the restore even if they were missing in the backup set for any reason.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know any details of how XP deals with ownership of files, but if you have made a complete back up and later reinstall it, the question of dealing with ownership should be irrelevant.

 

 

All the best

 

Wilbour

[Wilbour]

Hi again Rob,

 

I think I have good news and bad news.

 

The good news is that I may have found the reason why your restored XP doesn't remember the owners of various pieces of data.

 

In the "Backup Execution Options", there is an option (at least in my version of Retrospect Express, 6.0.222):

 

"Back up workstation security information", that causes Retrospect Express to copy the security information of NTFS volumes from workstations, storing the information in the Snapshot. This option is off by default. Retrospect Express always stores security information from servers.

 

Although the Help file doesn't define the expression "workstation security information" (and I don't know what it means), by the name of it, I wouldn't be surprised if it contains just the information your restored version is lacking. If this is correct, and as this option is off by default, one possible reason could be that you didn't think of turning it on when you made your backups (if you did, it has to be something else).

 

The bad news is that, if I am right, there is no way to restore this information if it wasn't backed up from the first place.

 

 

Wilbour

[rmccallu]

Wilbour,

Hi, I have been out of the loop for a few weeks so today is the first time I have had to review this again since your last post.

 

I have managed to restore my system - hooray

 

I did a dual install of XP to two partitions (C and D). I then booted using the XP on D, installed Retrospect there and used that to restore my original backed up XP installation to C (it seems you need to have a version of XP already in C before you can restore your backed up XP to it or else the restored XP [when you come to boot with it] complains that it is an illegal version - believe me, I have tried every combination with this problem!). I then booted C (now restored to my original XP install) and then had to fix the file ownership problem: I had to make the other accounts on my system into system admins (only for a short time!), then I had to boot in safe mode, get each user to log in (you can't see them in safe mode unless they are sys admin users), then 'take ownership' of their own files (as described in other threads on this site), finally I booted normally and changed them all back to limited users. It took me around four hours to get through all of that.

 

I read what you wrote about the security option - and I've gone through my Retrospect scripts and checked that option! I should now do a test backup and restore a few files... but my fingers are so sore I think that will have to wait until another day

 

Many thanks for your patience and assistance,

 

Rob.