Monday, September 22, 2014

Exchange Database file: '-546 The log file sector size does not match the sector size of the current volumn

When attempting to backup an Exchange 2007 server running on Small Business Server 2008 with Backup Exec 2010 R2, the Exchange backup component of the selection failed with the following error in the job log.

Backup- \\SERVER\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage GroupV-79-57344-918 - Unable to complete the operation for the selected resource using the specified options.  The following error was returned when opening the Exchange Database file:  '-546 The log file sector size does not match the sector size of the current volumn. '
Backup- \\SERVER\Microsoft Information Store\Second Storage GroupV-79-57344-918 - Unable to complete the operation for the selected resource using the specified options.  The following error was returned when opening the Exchange Database file:  '-546 The log file sector size does not match the sector size of the current volumn. '


 This error occurred when backing up to a HP Tape Library attached to the server via SCSI.  When I attempted to do a disk based backup with Backup Exec 2010 R2 as a test, it worked successfully.

After leasing with Symantec, it turned out when backing up to tape, Backup Exec requires a temporary staging directory to be use during the backup job.  By default, Backup Exec selects the largest volume with the most available free space.  This cannot be a Removable USB Drive!

Backing up to disk does not require this staging area.

I had a 4TB USB Drive attached to the SBS 2008 server which was causing this issue.  To resolve the issue you need to manually specify what drive to use for staging by following these steps:

1. On the Exchange Server, click Start -> Run and type "regedit".  Click OK.
2. Within the Registry Editor, navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Backup Exec For Windows\Backup Exec\Engine\Exchange
3. Right click and add a new String Value, "OnHostTemp".
4. Right click and set the value of OnHostTemp to "C:\Temp"
5. Restart the Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows Systems service on the Exchange Servers.
6. Run tape backup job of Exchange Resources from media server.

I selected H:\Temp as it had the most available free space on my SBS 2008 server.


After putting this RegKey in place it resolved the issue.

1 comment:

  1. Hunted all over for this solution.
    We deleted old backups from a USB backup drive so obviously Backup Exec 2012 had decided to use the USB drive for staging as it had a 1TB of space. This screwed up backups to tape and to hard disk.
    All fixed now. I can't thank you enough.

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