Preparing for Open File Backup Hangs - vssadmin failed

[Ed1tor]

Help me if you can. I have scoured a variety of help sites and have not had success with my problem. I am not an IT Pro, but know enough to be dangerous. :oneeye:

 

Here is my set-up. HP desktop machine with a Quantum LTO-4 drive. Retrospect 7.6.123

 

I have backed up several external HDD's with no problem. A couple months pass, and now I try to backup and get this when trying to do an Immediate Backup...

"Preparing for Open File Backup..."

 

And it just hangs.

 

One posting I found says to check in the Command shell

>vssadmin list writers

 

Here is what I found when doing so.

1. "Stable" before running the backup (Retrospect is open).

2. "Frozen" immediately after starting the backup.

3. "Failed" several minutes after starting.

 

Even after stopping the backup, "One execution running..." is still displayed at the bottom of the screen. Activity log shows that the execution was stopped by the user. But I cannot exit the program. Force quit sometimes works, but sometimes not even then.

 

I don't know what the vss is, or how it affects the backup - again I am not an IT Pro, more like an IT novice. I know how to use the Command prompt, but don't dig much deeper than that.

 

Can you offer an suggestions?

 

Thank you in advance.

Ed