Importing Jobconfig via xml results in "Cannot find a living volume by the name..."

[manuel.aigner]

Hi there,
first of all I know what my issue is. But I need that functionality for development purposes.

We support around 400 Retailer Customer Servers. VAW is used as standalone backup solution. We built a powershell framework around VAW to install and config agent initially. Also invoking and schedule backups are fully managed by our framework.
Locally at our customers there are HPE ML350 Servers with an attached Tandberg RDX Cartridge system (they are presented as USB HDDs to Windows). So far so good.

At the moment we plan to Rollout a new VAW Release (from V3.xx to V5).
My problem is I've no customer equivalent hardware server to develop and test my rollout scripts. Specially due to the covid home office situation.

But on my test VMs there is no way for me to import our xml-based job config via veeam.agent.configurator due to this "Cannot find a living volume by the name F:..."
Are there any work arounds to avoid this problem. This explicit check ist generally very annoying, also in production systems. Because we are installing all our servers fully automated in our deployment environment. But in most cases the RDX-Drive isn't connected while server installation because peripherals will be sent direct to customer, while the server is installed at our office.
Veeam Setup procedure always fails and we have to do it twice when server and peripherals are assembled at customers site.

So my question once more: How does veeam check, if a drive ist USB/eSATA...???
Directly I can't emulate that in a VM

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Manuel,

Disk must be present when importing configuration, however it doesn't have to be exactly same disk, just valid drive letter.
Having that said, one of the possible workarounds: you can shrink C: by any size(say, 512MB? ) and create temp volume(F:?), import agent configuration, and get rid of the volume. When server is shipped to the customer, all you need to check is that RDX drive gets same letter for job to run.
Entire path can be automated easily with diskpart or PowerShell.

/Cheers!

[manuel.aigner]

Hi Egor,

unfortunately it isn't as easy. E.g. my TestingVM has a drive F: but it isn't a removable drive by definition. By default it is a default VMware SCSI-Device. I can map this vDisk as SATA Device. Also set the drive Policy to "Quick Remove optimized". Therefore I can see the "Save Remove" Icon in task tray. But I still get this message from configuration Tool.

[Egor Yakovlev]

I guess you want it to be removable type to test Device Registration for rotated media via XML?
In this case, it won't be possible as we cannot pre-configure removable media ID, it must be done manually on the machine when device is detected.

[manuel.aigner]

No that's also not the real issue.
ATM I have two use cases:

1st For developing my Script Framework around VEW:
My dev machines are only VMs. I have no customer equivalent Hardware Server where I can test my Veeam unattend setup and backup invocation routines.
On this VMs I have drives with same drive letter as RDX at the customer (e.g. F:\) But F: is a normal vmware vdisk - not a USB-Drive.
Due to this circumstance I can't create an according veeam job on this VM. Manually I get the error "Unable to perform entire computer backup to an internal disk."
Via Veeam.Backup.Configurator comes the message: "Cannot find a living volume by the name F:"

2nd For Preinstalled customer servers:
By default we setup our new customer servers fully automated here inhouse. Windows gets installed and configured, also all necessary software. After this, the server becomes delivered to customer. The problem is, the RDX-Drive isn't available during setup process because it gets delivered directly to customer. But without RDX-Drive it seems to me impossible to install and configure Veeam while initial setup. It's quite annoying to install veeam always as day two action, when the server arrives at customer. We are able to install all other SW-Products inhouse with out any troubles.

It would be nice to get a /force Parameter for veeam.Backup.Configurator, to let me import my Job-Template without checking if F: is living or not!!!

[Dima P.]

Manuel,

Thanks for the heads up. We've noted an improvement request based on your post.