I am running ShadowProtect Desktop 3.1.0.3 on WInXP SP2 (all the latest patches installed). Backing up a GigaByte RAID-1 array of two 750 GB Seagate drives to a Seagate FreeAgent 750 GB drive via USB. I run Norton AV Corporate edition and ZoneAlarm Pro.

This is a fairly new setup for me. I'd backed up the same system's 300 GB drives (also in RAID-1) to a Maxtor via Firewire just fine, and did a bare metal restore after swapping the 300's for the 750's in the RAID. That all worked fine.

Last night I did the first backup to the FreeAgent. Throughput was acceptable (30 mb/s), so I let it run (it was going to take 2 or 3 hours) while I went to bed. This morning I found that the system had rebooted itself.

The backup seems OK - I can explore it fine and the right directories and files are there. The log shows nothing unusual.

 
Any thoughts? Will I need to disable Norton AV and ZoneAlarm (and therefore unplug the PC from the Internet)?

Thanks!
 

Please check the backup log files to see if they have record of a completed backup.  If they do, then the reboot occured after our process was completed and we do nothing else after we complete a backup except close the file and record the log.  If there is not record of a completed backup, then the reboot occured during the backup or at the end when the snapshot and resources are freed up.  Please do a full verify of the backup image to make sure that is is complete.  If you simply mounted the image, it is possible that the last portion of the backup is lost and the data is simply not need to mount.

STC

 Here is the log file. I will do a full verify and check.

18-Apr-2008 21:05:29    service    100    service (build 41) started job manually as full
18-Apr-2008 21:05:30    service    104    3.1.0.3 99E7-BFEE 706D-9AEE-21E6-0242
18-Apr-2008 21:05:29    service    100    backup volume C:\ (NTFS)
18-Apr-2008 21:05:29    service    102    creating snapshot for  \\?\Volume{c59f0a46-c2c8-11db-b903-806d6172696f}
18-Apr-2008 21:05:30    service    199    try snapshot by  VSS API by STC provider
18-Apr-2008 21:05:30    service    199    all possible methods:  VSS API by default provider VSNAP API directly VSS API by STC provider and no other alternate methods
18-Apr-2008 21:05:34    service    150    retrieving snapshot name.
18-Apr-2008 21:05:38    service    103    snapshot was created by  VSS API by STC provider. It took 8 seconds
18-Apr-2008 21:05:38    service    104    ready to do full image
18-Apr-2008 21:05:38    sptask    110    worker thread has started
18-Apr-2008 21:05:39    sptask    111    sbrun -mdn ( sbvol -fs \\?\STC_SnapShot_Volume_21_0 \\?\Volume{c59f0a46-c2c8-11db-b903-806d6172696f} : sbcrypt -50 : sbfile -wd H:\C_VOL-b001.spf )
18-Apr-2008 21:05:39    (loader)    112    corelogic version: 1.0.0.202
18-Apr-2008 21:05:39    sbvol    109    free space exclusion on
18-Apr-2008 21:05:41    sbvol    101    successfully opened volume \\?\Volume{c59f0a46-c2c8-11db-b903-806d6172696f}
18-Apr-2008 21:05:41    sbvol    107    FAT system area sectors: 0
18-Apr-2008 21:05:41    sbcrypt    109    filter started
18-Apr-2008 21:05:41    sbfile    101    successfully opened file H:\C_VOL-b001.spf
18-Apr-2008 21:05:41    sbvol    107    disk MBR sectors: 1
18-Apr-2008 21:05:41    sbvol    107    first track sectors: 63
18-Apr-2008 21:05:42    sbvol    109    disk CHS 91199/255/63 partition 1
18-Apr-2008 21:05:42    sbcrypt    107    compression mode: 5
18-Apr-2008 21:05:42    sbcrypt    107    encryption mode: 0
18-Apr-2008 21:08:35    sbfile    109    probing the target media for > 4GB files support
18-Apr-2008 23:54:27    sbvol    109    last volume read done
18-Apr-2008 23:54:27    sbcrypt    109    tail started
18-Apr-2008 23:54:27    sbcrypt    109    fini done
18-Apr-2008 23:54:27    sbfile    200    OK H:\C_VOL-b001.spf
18-Apr-2008 23:54:27    sbfile    109    fini done
18-Apr-2008 23:54:28    sbvol    109    fini done
18-Apr-2008 23:54:28    sptask    114    Process finished successfully
18-Apr-2008 23:54:29    service    105    snapshots were destroyed
 

"snapshots were destroyed" is the very last thing that is done during the backup process.  If ShadowProtect caused the reboot, I don't think that the log would be complete because the system would have crashed before this entry.

Can you please verify what time the system actually crashed and rebooted? The back was completed at 23:54:29.  No other backup related works seems to have been done after that time.

STC

You should also check your Windows application and system logs.  They may provide an answer.  One possibility is that an automatic update ran that required the reboot.  You didn't mention if your copy of XP was fully patched with the latest updates.  Windows Update defaults to run and update at 3:00am often automatically rebooting a machine.  However, my experience has been that it will display a message upon login that updates were applied.

 Good thoughts, but I don't have autoupdate turned on (my XP SP2 is fully patched to the latest MS updates).

 I tried another full backup last night, and everything is fine - no reboot. Let's hope it was just a random thing.