NT Backup - how to create scheduled task

Hi guys

I am struggling to create a weekly task for backup. for it to do full backup everyday. I have the schedule ok. but i have raw tapes. I am not sure how to say which tapes to use on which days. when i do a backup manualy it asks me to confirm deleting and confirm media set

when i see the logs for scheduled backups i get media cannot mount error.

can someone guide me step by step what to do? how to add the tapes to the pool?

 

Using backup assist will make your live a lot easier. It's not free, but for server backup it is very cheap and works a treat. It basically adds scheduling to standard NT Backup, but also adds in other nice things like e-mail notifications of which tape to put in next and reports on the success or failure of each backup. Simple to use and very reliable.

One thing that I particularly like is that it doesn't care which tape is in the drive. It will back up to it. This greatly de-skills the tape rotation task - and as most companies have their admin staff actually doing the tape insertions - that can be a boon. Some of the more sophisticated system get totally muddled if someone forgets to put the week tape in on the correct day, and in an attempt to catch up, put it in on the following day instead.

I should add that my only contact with backup assist is that of a satisfied user. I just don't think there is a better alternative for server backup to tape short of buying something like ArcServe or Symantec Backup Exec.

Of course, if you were backing up to NAS boxes or RDX drives simple file copy programs like robocopy can do a surprisingly good job.