If you are stuck using ntbackup as your only backup software. There is still hope. As much as ntbackup sucks, with the proper commands ntbackup can actually behave well. With some work you can create a decent backup script and schedule it with schtasks or at. And with added programs like blat, you can even have the script email you like the expensive stuff.

Note: you should allways verify your backups and don’t trust any backup automation 100%. With ntbackup I’ve noticed that if it hits a bad hard drive sector or other file system or permission problem then the program will just crash outright. It would be nice if ntbackup would report the bad sector or file and then skip the bad file and try the next one.

Note: I have seen situations where the domain admin can’t run backups scheduled as a task. I usually create a backupadmin account and verify it is a member of the backup operators.

This script backs up all data on the C and D drives, does a system state backup and an exchange backup of the First Storage Group. Create a folder C:\NTBackupScripts and put this script in it. Then create a scheduled task to launch it.

Beware: Of word wrapping. Due to the layout of this webpage longer lines get wrapped. When you copy and paste you will need to go through the script and be sure you aren’t getting wrapped.

@ECHO OFF
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM **** SETUP Variables
REM **** and prepare for email
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
cd C:\NtBackupScripts
ECHO Start %~nx0, %DATE%, %time% >> BK.Log.csv
set time1=%date%, %time%
set BKTARGET=C:
set Destination=D:esired\Path\To\Your.bkf
set BKUPNAME=BK.Full_YourTITLE.bkf
set Sender=you@mail.com
set Receiver=you@mail.com
set Host=EmailServerHostName
set ScriptName=%~nx0
set Subject=%computername% %ScriptName%
REM Warning, this next line may word wrap. It needs to end with the word data
set folder=%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows NT\NTBackup\data
MD "%folder%"\OLD
MOVE /Y "%folder%\*.log" "%folder%\OLD\"
net start vss
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM ********* END of Section
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************

REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM ********* Versioning
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM If you do not want versioning then just REM out this section.
REM This keeps 3 versions of this backup on the drive at one time,
REM So if you do 1 backup a week, this would keep 3 weeks worth of backups.
DEL /Q %Destination%\"%BKUPNAME%"_Oldest
MOVE %Destination%\"%BKUPNAME%"_Older %Destination%\"%BKUPNAME%"_Oldest
MOVE %Destination%\"%BKUPNAME%" %Destination%\"%BKUPNAME%"_Older
DEL /Q %Destination%\SystemState_"%BKUPNAME%"_Oldest
MOVE %Destination%\SystemState_"%BKUPNAME%"_Older %Destination%\SystemState_"%BKUPNAME%"_Oldest
MOVE %Destination%\SystemState_"%BKUPNAME%" %Destination%\SystemState_"%BKUPNAME%"_Older
DEL /Q %Destination%\Exchange_"%BKUPNAME%"_Oldest
MOVE %Destination%\Exchange_"%BKUPNAME%"_Older %Destination%\Exchange_"%BKUPNAME%"_Oldest
MOVE %Destination%\Exchange_"%BKUPNAME%" %Destination%\Exchange_"%BKUPNAME%"_Older
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM ********* END of Section **************
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************

REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM **** Doing the backup
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
ntbackup backup %BKTARGET% D: /j "%BKUPNAME%" /D "%BKUPNAME%" /f %Destination%\%BKUPNAME% /V:yes
ntbackup backup systemstate /j "SystemState_%BKUPNAME%" /F "%Destination%\SystemState_%BKUPNAME%" /V:yes
CMD /U /C ECHO JET %COMPUTERNAME%\Microsoft Information Store\First Storage Group\ > Exchange.bks
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntbackup.exe backup "@C:\NTBackupScripts\Exchange.bks" /n "Exchange.bkf created 3/3/2011 at 10:06 AM" /d "Set created 3/5/2012 at 10:06 AM" /v:yes /r:no /rs:no /hc:off /m normal /j "Exchange" /l:s /f "%Destination%\Exchange_%BKUPNAME%"
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM ********* END of Section
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************

REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM **** Email the Log files
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM emailing longs requires tt_mailer.exe and a server that does relaying
ECHO Stop %~nx0, %DATE%, %time% >> BK.Log.csv
set time2=%date%, %time%
ECHO Exec-time %time1% to %time2% > "%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt"
ECHO . >> "%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt"
DIR %Destination% | FINDSTR %BKUPNAME% >> "%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt"
TYPE "%folder%\*.log" >> "%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt"
COPY /Y "%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt" C:\NtBackupScripts
set _BODY="%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt"
C:\NtBackupScripts\tt_mailer.exe server %sender% %reciever% backup "%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt"
DEL /Q "%temp%\%BKUPNAME%.email.txt"
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************
REM ********* END of Section
REM ********************************************
REM ********************************************


Disclaimer
Use at your own risk. Test this script before using in production. And always check your backups daily.