Knowledge Base

Using Microsoft Backup to Back Up to a Network Drive

Article ID: 105259

Article Last Modified on 11/21/1999

Microsoft MS-DOS 6.2 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q105259

SYMPTOMS

Microsoft Backup and Microsoft Backup for Windows may fail and generate "insufficient disk space" error messages when you are backing up to a network drive, even if the drive has plenty of room. This problem occurs if the network connection times out when Microsoft Backup is trying to increase the size of the backup file.

CAUSE

When Microsoft Backup allocates space for a backup file, it fills the file with zeros. If the file increases by several megabytes, it may take several minutes to "zero out" the new space. If the network redirector determines that the network is not responding (because this process is taking so long), the redirector may cancel the network connection.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, increase your network timeout setting to several minutes. For example, if you are using Windows for Workgroups, increase the SESSTIMEOUT=nnn entry in the [network] section of the SYSTEM.INI file.

Additional query words: MWBackup 6.22 6.20 time out time-out

Keywords: KB105259