Backing up SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a VSS aware application from SQL Server 2000 and onwards. To ensure that SQL Server is correctly backed up you will need to include all the volumes that SQL Server occupies. You may have transaction logs stored on one volume and data files stored on another volume, both of these volumes would need to be included in an image in order to correctly restore the SQL Server state at a later time.

SQL Server has it's own VSS style backup utility which can be used to backup the database state. If this is being used you will need to exclude the SQL Server VSS Writer from a Macrium Reflect backup so that a clash does not occur. This is done by adding a registry key to exclude VSS writers.:

SQLServerWriter

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Macrium\Reflect\ExcludedWriters

Name: Can be anything you like but probably best if you kept it pertinent, e.e.: SQLServer

Value: {a65faa63-5ea8-4ebc-9dbd-a0c4db26912a}

Should you want Macrium Reflect to backup SQL Server for you then you should disable the backup utility in SQL Server.

SQL Server 2000 Notes

SQL Server 2000 requires some patches to be applied before it will work correctly with VSS.

  1. Install SP4 SQL 2000.

  2. Install Microsoft hot fix KB940349.

  3. In SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager add "NT AUTHORITY\System" to the Login within Security entry.

  4. In Server Functions, add "NT AUTORITY\System" to the SysAdmin function.

MSDEWriter

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Macrium\Reflect\ExcludedWriters

Name: Can be anything you like but probably best if you kept it pertinent, e.g.: SQLServer

Value: {f8544ac1-0611-4fa5-b04b-f7ee00b03277}